In all honesty, from my tests this is the same as PID.INF, its just setting the key for the install. I will explain a bit more below. Now we come to the same problem, if you use ANY key other than the "one" prebuilt into the installer straight from MS, it will fail. The setup already running and the rest fails to install. Any other keys short out the core install somehow by altering the IDs needed for the WHS componants to realise its actually WHS and not SBS. Tonight I am going to release a build 4 of the pack which will no longer include the PID.INF since it seems to be the consensus for me and others that other keys cause the install to FAIL. You can only change the key AFTER the install is over. I will also make it check the source DVD has a SRV_2003 folder since thats just a good idea anyhow. Offon7544, if you can find any reason why its failing for others, or even why it worked for you somehow, we would love to hear it. So far you are the only one to make it work with other keys during the install. I am still looking for vbs files to change the product key, but all the ones ment for XP that I have found spit out errors.
Alright, good news, I have found a method I could use in a VBS script to run post install to change the product key inside WHS. In short, just burn the iso it creates, do the install, run the vbs file on the CD when done, whammo... You have activated WHS! Updating the main post now with build 5.
Would appear to be running happy. Is it normal for the "Activate Windows" shortcut to remain afterwords despite being already activated at the end?
Yeah, sadly that is the only downside. You have to manually delete them. Well, I could include that in the "Post Install Process". Actually that is a good idea, have one batch file that cleans out activate links and installs the product key for you. Will put that in the new release. I also plan to make an OEMTools folder for the extra files so they arent in the root. It will include the SysPrep tools and the post install activation processor.
FixedBit, sorry aint looked at your program yet but for deleting Desktop shortcuts i use "CMD /C DEL \"%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\dvdSanta.lnk\"" or "CMD /C DEL \"%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Desktop\dvdSanta.lnk\"" dvdSanta.lnk is just an example name your own .lnk file
I still cant find out WHAT and WHERE do I have to edit the .CMD Could anyone show me an example? (an indication on the .CMD would be fantastic for future versions Disk Maker) For the record my SLP1 modded bios includes 'Hewlett-Packard' EDIT: HOLY CRAP! I just found out that I really do not have to change anything on the .CMD file. Install, then doubleclick on the .VBS and HELLO WHS! Thanks for everything
Thanks Urie! I will just incorporate it into the next build. yep, you just run the VBS file and it changes your key. Reboot and you got activated WHS I wrote the system to be totally easy on newbies and geeks alike. Its a simple CMD file you just run, type in what it tells you and you have your OEM disk!
Hi FixedBit! You've done a great job here. Thanks. I intend to make an HP OEM Disk, so I read through this thread and your README FIRST.txt file included in the archive. I have some questions though: -in Step One, you say one need to modify the file "BUILD.CMD". Which line? -What do I do with these strings? : 'f000','0000','ffff','Hewlett-Packard'
Thanks Heliox, apparantly I forgot to remove that line! You no longer have to edit it, in the first one you had to. Just run Build.CMD and follow the menus. As for the bios strings, you have to find out how to mod, or find a modded bios for your pc, if its not already an HP built box. They are just for reference to let you know what its looking for.
Would it be possible to add "Sony" oem bios? I have a sony computer that i am going to use as a home server and would rather do it that way then editing the dmi string to make it a HP.
Well, technically, no. This is built from the actual OEMs that released hardware WHS boxes. Sony to my knowledge never made one so there is no oembios files for it.
Can anyone post the FixedBit's readme file to the forum please. I am at work and myself and others cannot access the .rar files from work. Do I need to order a 120 eval copy of WHS to get this started or are there other sources? Thanks in advance.
hi all do i need to mod my bios to the xp or vista version for whs my bios is modded with the asus key so i have to change to hp?
I will post the readme later, its pretty useless without the batch file though. It just says how to use it. I havnt even touched this thing in a while. As for the bios mod needed, its why I originally wondered why it made its way to the windows server 2008 forum. It uses SLP 1.0 which is far from what S2008 uses (slic). So if you have a mod that works for an XP install, then the mod will work for this also. Just mod it for the correct OEM.
Looks like this won't work with the 120 day trial version I got from Connect (different crc32 value on the DVD). I'm going to try it with another copy I found that does match the CRC and see if it works for me. Hope so, as it definitely looks to be a good addition/replacement for my tired old server (running 2k3 SBS)...
@ heffe2001, WHS is a dumbed down version of SBS 2K3. You maybe better off with re-installing SBS2K3 to "re-fresh" your "tired old server" As most people used to SBS get very fustrated with the lack of features/options in WHS.
My old server is a dual 700mhz P3 w/1g ram (Dell 2400 server), which was working in degraded mode since one of the drives was going bad. The new server is a dual xeon 2.8 w/3g ram, with about 900g of storage. The machine was running straight 2k3 Standard mode, and all it was doing was running a uTorrent client, and showanalyzer for comskipping recordings on a remote machine. Don't really want a full SBS machine at home anymore (I use exchange from my office via VPN, so don't need it at home). I definitely like how the uTorrent plugin for WHS works, and it doing nightly backups of my client machines at home is definitely handy. As far as it's limited feature set, I think it'll work pretty well for me. It'll just be running uTorrent, Showanalyzer & doing backups. I might run the Digital Archound document management software as well, just not sure yet...