I'm looking for what it takes to convert a regular xp pro version into an academic one. It sounds silly, but if you get a box to fix up and an academic nr, it's the way to go. I suppose it's something like the OEM bios thing, just not relying on the bios?
What you are talking about is VLK or volume license, Its not woryh the bother downloading one the keys usually get blacklisted and also are not allowed to be posted here. You are far better off going with OEM SLP method all the information required is in the stickies.
one trick seems to be (where the nr is 76488-020-xxxxxxx-yyyyy reg HKLM\System\setup\PID /v Pid /d 76488020 OOBE will then take the key as required.
What box? (for this you should have aproved images!) If you work for academic institution you SHOULD have VL editions available as original media from M$ and/or available for download from M$ licencing page sebus
The box is visiting on holidays with virii but no disks. So i'm having to do this on my own. I extracted the registry to diskette along with a handful of other stuff. When i tried to rebuild to restore the system, the number would not take. A lot of research showed that it was an academic number, and that you could do a couple of registry hacks to get it to accept (the command line above), along with making the thing think it's already WPA'ed. (no antiwpa here. pure registry). Still, it works and is happy. No, i don't have access to more than the retail versions (OEM, UPG for both HOME, PRO). I just thought it might be something totally in line with making OEM diskettes for recovering OEM machines... W
There is NO (repeat NO) anything known as academic number/key. It IS just pure volume licensing (VL), even if the actual key comes as part of School License Agreement So you created some sort of Frankenbuild! Congratulations... (not really) (and it all could be so easy, ... but some people can not be convinced) sebus
You can buy academic software, inc xp, in the shops. You don't need to get it on campus, just the student card at the local software shop does the trick. So i suppose that this would account for the strange number etc, without being a volume software. It still begs to be activated, which i suppose that vlks don't. However, ye can only activate it once, which is not good when a virus mungs the disk. So, failing dual activation, one has to either recover the wpa.dbl, or otherwise convince windows that all is well.
It is normal REATAIL edition sold at academic prices. Nothing to do with ANY academic key You can re-activate with same number via phone call (or do it RIGHT via OEM activation, just read a couple of stickies & learn something usefull!) sebus
If it's a normal retail edition, then simply installing the supplied key fails, since the key expects different numbers in the PID. Changing the pid allows one to install the number. Yes, i do know a good deal about winxp installs. I have even done retail to OEM conversions, etc. Still, i was reporting something that might save someone else a day's worth of google etc.