Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum 1

[Adam14]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum and have what should be a simple question for you. I just bought a HP Pavilion computer that has a partitioned recovery drive that holds all the XP files, and thus, the geniuses at HP don't have to give me a hard copy of XP. There is a sticker on the side of the tower with my own serial number for XP, but if I want to format I will need the disk, no? Is it possible to use a friend's copy of XP, but use my serial number? Or will this hinder any downloads and updates from Microsoft? Thanks so much for your time.

Adam

 

[bcastner]

If you are nice on the phone, HP will provide a CD for computers under warranty for the shipping costs; if out of warranty they charge $11.

 

[Adam14]

That's great news!! Thank you.

 

[bchase]

There would be no problem borrowing a copy as long as you use you own serial #

 

[Adam14]

Thanks, bchase. I had heard that on Windows 98 cd's that the 25 digit serial number was actually on the cd itself, but I wasn't sure about XP. Thanks for your response.

 

[bcastner]

First, find your setupp.ini file in the i386 directory on your Windows XP CD. Open it up, it'll look something like this:

ExtraData=707A667567736F696F697911AE7E05
Pid=55034000

The Pid value is what we're in this for. What's there now looks like a standard default, but that is no good. There are special numbers that determine if it's a retail, OEM, or volume license edition. First, we must break down that number into two parts. The first five digits determines how the CD will behave, i.e. is it a retail CD that lets you clean install or upgrade, or an OEM CD that only lets you perform a clean install? The last three digits determine what CD key it will accept.

Result: Your Key + Retail CD = will not work.

 

[Adam14]

The problem is that I don't have the cd. The setupp file in my I386 folder, in my C: drive, shows OEM at the end of the Pid. But, does this mean that I can't format and use someone else's XP cd, but use the serial number that I was given for XP when I bought the computer? Thanks for your time.

Adam

 

[bcastner]

It means exactly that.

 

[Spirit]

The serial number will not work as that is probably a Full version and yours an OEM.

 

[starstretch]

Wouldn't activation problems result in using a CD that was previously deployed on another computer?

 

[bcastner]

The CDs are generic by PID.
When you activate nothing is written to the CD.

It is the CD "key" that controls whether the activation has been done previously.

See this recent discussion on Broadbandreports.com:

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,9034393~mode=flat