Hello and merry x-mas(to those who dont celebrate x-mas, happy holidays or something ) I work for a smaller PC workshop, and in our years of (re-)installations we've gathered quite a bunch of windows installation disks (backups, its easyer to make copies and use them unitill they get scratched than to use a "real" disk that might get worned&torned by years of spinning). My problem is that most of them are labeled very casually ("windows XP pro") And as each servicepack-bundeled CDs use different keys, it can get quite annoying looking for the proper disk. As the thread title states im on a hunt for a tool that will help me identify what version of windows is on our CD/DVD backups of the windows installer CDs. Preferably something easy to use and automated, like i insert a disk, the app reads some fancy file and tells me what i need to know about the disk (like if its home or professional, OEM or retail and witch service pack is integrated into the installation.
not sure about fancy apps, but the xp disks, if you open the disk and look for setupp.ini file in the i386 directory on your WinXP CD's look at the last 3 characters this tells you if its, Retail (335), OEM (oem), or VL (Volume Licence) (270) Retail = 51882 335 Volume License = 51883 270 OEM = 82503 OEM Google Setupp.ini, you will get a few sites with more detail on this, there maybe an app somewhere. so at least you can sort them out in this order,Retail, Oem, VL, then go from there.
Service packs can be identified by 'WIN51IP' files on the root of the disk, like WIN51IP.SP3 for SP3 and WIN51IP.SP2 for SP2, etc.. For Home or Pro see the EULA. (I386\EULA.TXT - Shows Service Pack number too.) For license type see rackys post. (setupp.ini) Dont think one needs an app for this.
Thanks for the useful info Racky29 and Phazor Now to find a way to read all that automaticly. I'll be damned if i have to do something a computer can do for me, and untill the computers stage a revolt and enslave all of humanity, i will have my way with them! (not in a sexual way, of course) On a more serious note i suppose i could just make a *.bat that opens setupp.ini and eula.txt for me. Is there a way to make a batch file search for/display a string of text from a txt/ini file?
With the above suggestions in mind, for Vista / 7 edition types can be determined by using similair methods, eg: searching for ei.cfg, reading out The disc label
Speaking of, is the original disk label in any textfile on windows XP CDs? If so it would be possible to compare the label in the text file with the list of known windows xp cd labels avaible on tacktech's homepage (i cant post links yet, but googleing "known windows volume names" (without citationmarks) gives that list among the first results)
Having to install a hex-editor/reader and using that does seem alittle unessesary tho, and while i installed winhex i cant seem to make the window view like your screenshot, are you using "specialist" or "forensic mode"? update: i tried searching for the orgiginal volume name of WinXP home sp2 swedish (oem)(VRMHOEM_SV) in winhex and found nothing, pheraps the original volume name is not stored on XP CDs?
The label must be in the ISO 9660 header, otherwise the drive wouldnt be able to display the name either. If you do a search in a hex editor, simply search for CD001. The disk label should be right below...
I missunderstood you, and as usual i left out something problably crucial. (its the winter i tell you, the cold is causing me to write without thinking!) The label of the CDs atm are the time they were burned (like 20100202_1433) I was hoping the label microsoft uses for the disks was going to be hidden somewhere.