I currently have 10 new PC's to set up on a network at the local school (I'm IT Governor-"Mr fix-IT" !!). (just rebuilt the server with Win2k server/exchange + 25 workstations ghosted with Win98 - everything spot on thanks to help from on here! )

The 10 new PC's (Fujitsu-Siemens)have WinXP on them + recovery disks. Each machine has the licence stuck to the case and has to be input during the automated set up procedure when you initially switch the machines on.

Question: I want to set up one PC with the usual 10 users for the school plus lockdown software (Stormwindows - excellent) plus lots of other software. Once I've set up this PC (approx 10 hours work)and tested it, I would then like to ghost the other 9 PC's using Norton Ghost 2003 (which will do XP and Win2k-server).
Once I've done this; all the PC's will have the same licence number.

1) Can I then change them to match their cases or not?
2) Am I breaking licencing agreements doing this, as we have 10 licences...must the case match the s/w licence no?
3) Would using sysprep prior to ghosting get round this, and if so, how do I do it?
4) I'm not intending doing any updates to the PC's via Microsoft but will MS be able to stop them working if they all have the same licence no? (all machines are EXACTLY the same spec so there will not be any hardware changes between PCs)

Help much appreciated (as usual) !!

Tony

 

If you use ghost in conjunction with sysprep, you can configure the setup to prompt for the licence key.
Build the sysprep.inf with setupmgr.exe If you leave the licence bit blank, setup will prompt for it upon setup on the new machine.
you then take your machine out of the domain and run sysprep.


if you need any more info mail me or ask here

cheers

Paul



[Edited by medders - 1/13/2003 1:48:18 PM]

[Edited by medders - 1/13/2003 1:49:20 PM]

 

AFAIR you wont have any problems with the machines all using the same license code... as long as you keep hold of the individual licenses there shouldn't be any reason to bother changing them..

 

if you're ghosting though you need to change each SID so you need to run sysprep or ghost walker anyway so you may as well do it properly

 

We've ghosted about 500 PC's and they all have the same licence code sitewide.

Allthough we do have an unlimited Microsoft Licence for any product

 

[Edited by medders - 1/13/2003 2:44:01 PM]

[Edited by medders - 1/13/2003 2:44:13 PM]

 

there's an article on the microsoft web site knowledge base about changing the licence key on machines that have been built using an image.