OEM activation happens from official install disk but not from imagex

Hi all

I have an HP laptop and the official HP Windows 7 professional with SP1 OEM install disk. When I install windows 7 from the DVD it says it says activated (under system properties), however if I copy the wim file from the DVD and then use imagex to apply the professional windows 7 to hard disk it is not activated.

So I am curious as to why installing from DVD activates the OEM on the laptop, wheras applying the wim file directly does not activate the OEM. Is there some kind of activation procedure that happens from the setup? I thought all the DVD setup just uses imagex to apply wim to the disk.

Can someone give me some information on this because I would like to use imagex to apply the wim file directly and then do the same thing to pre OEM activate the operating system as well, which will be nice.

Thank you

 

From the official HP Windows 7 professional with SP1 OEM install disk... Was this not clear enough?

Eg if you open up the DVD -> Sources -> INSTALL.WIM

 

Sorry urie but your reply is very vague and not useful. Thanks for trying though

The DVD has a folder called $$\SYSTEM32\OEM and a file called OEM-CERT.XRM-MS, which I know is used by slmgr -ilc to install the activation. However my question is 1) what does the setup routine from the DVD boot do differently to preactivate and install this license, and 2) how can I mimick this behaviour within my winPE install routine where I use imagex to apply the wim and then preactivate and install this license too.

Basically I need a more technical detailed explanation of what the install routine from DVD is doing and what method it uses to apply the license, eg does it call an .xml or config file? Is there a batch file, is it hard coded routine? What is the specific command or program it calls to install the license file and does it do it within the PE stage, or does it do it on the reboot stage? It is simply by copying the cert file into place that it will be smart enough to figure out to activate etc...

 

For those who can't understand
1) Boot into Windows PE
2) open a command prompt
2) Format disk 0, partition disk NTFS, make bootable etc, MBR
3) Apply wim file (in english - install windows 7 from a wim file) Yes I know I will need to extract it from the DVD and apply it
4) Do whatever the DVD routine does to install the license file. Yes I know I will need to extract it from the DVD and place it somewhere.

Here is the script incase you don't trust/believe/don't-know-still what I am doing. I need the final command which is to pre-install the license file!

Code:

@echo off&cls
title Installing Windows 7

echo.
echo Formating Disk for operations

echo select disk 0 > %temp%\format.txt
echo clean >> %temp%\format.txt
echo create partition primary>> %temp%\format.txt
echo select partition 1 >> %temp%\format.txt
echo active >> %temp%\format.txt
echo assign letter=m>> %temp%\format.txt

diskpart /s %temp%\format.txt
del %temp%\format.txt

format m: /fs:ntfs /v:WIN7 /q /x /y

echo.
echo Use imagex to apply wim to m:
"imagex.exe" /apply "\\networkshare\images\wim\win7\professional\hp\32bit\INSTALL.WIM" 4 m:

echo Make m: bootable
"bcdboot.exe" m:\windows /l en-us /s m:\
"bootsect.exe" /nt60 m: /force


WHAT DO I NEED TO DO HERE?????
EG copy \\networkshare\images\wim\win7\professional\hp\32bit\OEM-CERT.XRM-MS somewhere????


echo.
echo Sleep for 15 seconds then restart
ping localhost -n 16 >nul
wpeutil reboot 2>nul >nul

 

Hey guys thanks for your help and everything but you have all missed the point of the OP. It seems either I am not clear enough or whatever reason people miss the point.

To try and simplify my OP as much as possible here goes.

0) Obtain an HP laptop, obtain the official HP OEM Windows 7 pro w/ SP1 DVD.
1) Copy the install.wim and the OEM-CERT.XRM-MS from the DVD and copy them somewhere (eg network share)
2) Boot into winPE, format disk make bootable etc
3) Install windows from a wim file.
4) Pre-load the OEM activation in the same fashion that the DVD install routine does.
5) Anything else you wanna do in the winPE eg dism inject drivers
6) Shutdown the winPE session
7) Give to customer

Notice that nowhere do I actually boot into the Operating System, I simply install and let the enduser handle oobe.

So I have the answer for anyone who stumbles across this thread, it was so damn simple I feel embarrassed. The good thing is using the OEM-CERT.XRM-MS from the DVD I was able to preactivate Starter, HomeBasic, HomePremium and Professional from the install.wim file. That is good because I have a HomeBasic COA on the HP laptop and this makes it legit and not having to use any third party software.

Answer
1) Copy the install.wim and OEM-CERT.XRM-MS from the DVD somewhere
2) Boot winPE (eg from a CD, PXE, USB etc)
3) Format drive, make bootable etc
4) Apply the wim file using whatever index you like
5) Copy the OEM-CERT.XRM-MS to \WINDOWS\system32\OEM folder
6) Do whatever else you want like dism drivers
7) Exit winPE

Doneburger.