Sysprep, Ghost and Gateway computers possible?

[13377H13F]

I want to setup a Gateway computer we bough and use sysprep, then ghost the machine so we can roll out the gateway desktops.

One problem im looking at is the Windows S/N.
Does sysprep only work if you have corporate keys? Or is there a way to use sysprep with the keys that came with the gateway doesktops?

thanks in advance

 

[linney]

Does this help?

Imaging - Windows System Preparation Tool

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/desktopdeployment/imaging/imagingsysprep.mspx

 

[DaveC84]

No you should be able to use either keys but they have to match the version of Windows that the first machine was installed with.

To try to make sense of that. If you used a coporate version of Windows for the first machine and ghost that. Then you can only use coporate S/Ns with the machines you make from the image.

If you used a retail version of the Windows then all images will need to have retail S\N's.

Have I explained that well enough?

 

[13377H13F]

Thx for the help from the both of you.
The version of windows on all the pcs are retail so the retail keys provided with the computer are the ones im using.
I checked out the tutorial from microsoft and tried it out but im getting a problem.
When the mini-setup runs I enter the retail key. Everything is fine till windows starts up and says it needs to be activated. The activation process fails everytime.
Any ideas?

 

[linney]

How to use Sysprep with Windows Product Activation or Volume License Media to deploy Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299840/

See if there is any help from both Gateway and Microsoft Support.

There seems to be a problem with the Product Key you are using, both the above support sections should be able to solve that for you with any luck.

 

[DTSMAN]

I don't know if what I say will help or not. But we do something similiar. We buy bulk licences for POS terminals that come without OS. We created a bootable hard drive with the I386 folder on it along with a folder that has all the needed drivers for the hardware platform we are building. We image the hard drive with this image using Drive Image, but you can use whatever imaging software you want. We put the imaged hard drive in and boot it to a c prompt and navigate to the I386 folder and run WINNT. This launches the install process. When windows ask for drivers, we just point it to the drivers folder we preloaded. This is the way we do it so we can enter the correct key and not have to worry about computers with the same key numbers going out.

Bo

Kentucky phone support-
"Mash the Kentrol key and hit scape."

 

[DaveC84]

I think that it asking you to activate the product is correct considering the S/N's you are using. This being right (hopefully) the problem with activating is a separate one.

How do you try to activate and how does it error. Have you tried to activate one by phone and seeing if the person you talk could explain why it is failing, maybe when she put's your S/N through her system it will recognise a potential problem (Already activated etc). It sounds like the problem isn't anything your doing.

I had an internet activation fail once and when I called the activation and do it that way the got it activated. So as much as it's a pain to do try it for atleast one so as to see if it can be activated one way or the other?

Hope this is helpful.....