This has been a frustrating day, and it's because of Microsoft. Here's the situation:

We ordered about 100 Dell computers, and we are moving from 2K to XP. I have set up one of these new machines the way we want it, and I will create an image from it that will go onto all the other computers. Our problem: that damn Windows activation mechanism. Naturally, we don't want the same product key on all our machines, or things like Windows Update probably won't work (right?). So we purchased a volume license key. The problem is that the computer I'm working on has it's own key and is already activated anyway. So I tried following these instructions, and everything worked fine until I got to step 10, when I was told that the key I was entering was not valid.

So I called the number supplied by the activation program. That led me to three people who had no idea what I was talking about, and finally I was connected to someone who wanted $250 to help me. So I hung up after this 45 minute run-around, and called Dell, since we have gold level tech support with them. They were as helpful as they could be, considering this problem has nothing to do with them. The tech connected me to MS, and we were forwarded to the "Volume Licensing Team." After 15 minutes of listening to the exact same 20 second hold tune (shoot me, please!), an automated message said something along the lines of "we can't help you at this time. please hang up." So the thing hung up on me, and the Dell rep was gone. Now I'm back to square one.

What the heck do I do? I'm not getting much help from the other people in my company, or even the guy who ordered the volume license. You'd think that for something so expensive, they would give us a little more support.

What version of XP do you have installed? OEM, Retail, VLK?

Search for converting the version you have to VLK.
needs registration to read http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/Q_21192535.html

Maybe Win Keyfinder can help http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/util/registry.html

Do you have an image of this drive already? If yes, a reinstall of XP using the repair option with the VLK CD should leave only windows updates and maybe drivers to reinstall.

If used this option for two motherboard upgrades now as I really didn't want to reinstall all my software.

I think my basic misunderstanding (which isn't helped by Microsoft's poor documentation) is that a VLK installation comes with discs for that express purpose. I had asked our office manager for the volume license, and this didn't work. I then checked to see if the license came with discs, and found out it did.

So that's the story. I think that to avoid too many problems, I'm going to start from scratch (crud) with the new CD.

Thanks for your help. I feel that my vent above still applies. I explained my situation clearly enough to enough people that at least one of them should have been able to help me out.

Anyway, sorry for venting. I'm under pressure to get this prepared, I have to reinstall everything now, and then I have to manually install 73 printers. Wonderfull.

Now everyone knows that one should buy MicroSoft because of the one-source of support, rather than that nasty Linux thing, where 1000's of companies can provide support options.

Cheers

-ml

Yeah, nuke it. For a deployment image you don't want any hacks to make it work, especially if you've got the volume liscense disk.

Matthew

I'm very suprised that your Dell rep didn't discuss imaging services with you. I know, a day late and a dollar short on that one...

I understand your pain, I really do. I had a similar issue with 15 or so machines a few months back (all identical Optiplex). I attempted the M$-only route using Sysprep and PXE booting and serving the images off a W2k3 server, but it was nothing but pain. In the end I set up the first machine, used a properly licensed seat of Ghost Server to clone my image to all the others and then didn't worry about it. All the machines work fine. I use WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) to handle patches & service packs internally (all machines look to a local master server - limits bandwidth needed).

The way I figure, if I bought a license (there's stickers on the outside of the case), then I'm clear. So far everything has Just Worked.

-Zeke

Sorry for hijacking the thread earlier, we've recently bought a dozen new machines, I got one of the guys to set one up (using our Volume License key) with everything we needed and ghosted the image onto the other 11. It worked pretty well, although even with identical drives we still had to run the first phase of the Win2k install (the machines came with XP Home) otherwise it would blue screen on the first boot.