Question regarding Windows licensing

[LuckyTaxi]

It's been a while since I've had to administer a Windows LAN, but I have a question regarding licenses.

In order to comply with MS and to save me the trouble of tracking specific CDs to certain PCs, can't I just use ONE media for all my desktop, assuming they all have a unique Windows XP license? You know the sticker on top of the PC that has the Windows XP keycode. We have all the CDs but it's annoying to pull them out if I had to fdisk a computer.

We're looking into volume licensing soon but for now, if I can use nlite to create ONE master image, it would be great.

On second thought, I dont think it's possible due to it wanting to activate over the internet.
ah shucks ...

 

[tcsenter]

This is not a problem, provided as you note, that you have genuine media for each machine and license, you can just use one disc. Half dozen of one and six of the other. There is no unique identifier for each disc that would affect activation. I use a burned XP CD patched to SP2 for all installs rather than the original RTM and SP1 CDs. No worries.

 

[yinan]

If you have a volume license you wont have to activate XP anymore. Its one of the perks.

 

[Matthias99]

We're looking into volume licensing soon but for now, if I can use nlite to create ONE master image, it would be great.

On second thought, I dont think it's possible due to it wanting to activate over the internet.
ah shucks ...

Look into sysprep. I don't think you'll have problems activating online if you use sysprep and you have unique keys for each system that haven't been used before (or at least recently).