Forgive me if this has been asked before, but searching the forum for the requisite terms provides far too many hits to sort though. I have followed the excellent tutorial from this stickied thread : How-To-Create-PRO-OEM-SLP-CD But creating such a disc is good for a fresh install only. I would prefer that it also be able to be used for a "repair install" or in-place upgrade as MS somtimes refers to it. Any reason why this cannot be done? I understand that the disc because of its OEMBIOS SLP string and VLK key is specific to the make/model, but even if it asked for the VLK during the repair process, it would be better than not having a repair option at all. Please advise.
in order to do a repair install (if i remember correctly) all you need is the same edition ie. home, pro, or media center, and the correct service pack ie. pre sp1, sp1, sp2, or sp3 on one cd and you do not need a key or any oembios files, period. it doesn't matter if it is retail, volume, or oem. it just has to be the same. so if you have home edition with sp2 on your machine, you need home edition sp2 to do a repair. that's it. and you do not use a volume license key with a cd that has oembios files on it that match your machine. you use an oem key, but it won't ask for one anyway because the oembios files are present and match the bios... also, if you made your own oem cd (and did it correctly, which i'm not sure based on what you've posted...) then as long as it has the same service pack on it that is on your machine you can do a repair install. there should be no problem. as far as upgrading, i don't think there was ever an upgrade option within XP versions, so you will have to do a fresh install to get a different edition, which is simple anyway... aside from this, if all you need is the recovery console iso, this can be found by simply doing a google search...
The problem is that when running a "repair" using a standard disk on a OEM system, the process will ask for your key, and the OEM key will not be accepted. My hope is there is a way to at least use the OEM disk to do the repair, as it stands, the OEM disc does not even give you that option.
if it's asking for a key with a standard disc then use the key that goes with it, not the OEM key. but i've done repairs in the past with XP and never once had to enter any key when doing a repair...
The problem with using the key that came with the standard disk is that I use that disc (or disc image) in many many different machines. Its not kosher IMHO to use the same retail key on so many systems. I have done "repair installs"" on literally hundreds of PC's and often it DOES ask for the key, so much so that I'm sure to discover the existing product key from the damaged machine using produkey or some such utility and verify that it is NOT an OEM key prior to running the repair, as I have many many times been bit by the OEM key not being accepted, and get stuck with a machine halfway through in repair proccess that cannot be easily reversed.
is this for your machine or something you are doing/charging other people for??? and why are doing "repair" installations from booting from the cd, what is the purpose for this and what makes you think this is necessary? simple things can be fixed from the recovery console, which is an easy iso to be found. also, you can install the recovery console to said machine and repair that way too, no key, no fuss... but you can change the setup.ini to accept oem keys easily. extract the contents of your retail cd to a folder. find the setup.ini in the i386 folder and replace the contents with this: [Pid] ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF Pid=76487OEM then rebuild the iso. this will make it accept OEM keys. try this for now. it should solve your issue. but, if you are trying to repair other people's computers using a retail disc that either you bought or downloaded and it's asking for the key, from my experience it's not the same edition, ie. home, pro, or media center as what you are trying to repair and that's why it's asking for the key. also, you can just make an oem cd for the machine you are trying to repair and do the repair from within windows and you will not have to fool with this stuff. i don't know what you have to repair that necessitates always booting from the cd and doing it, you can always do sfc /scannow from within windows and repair that way too, but you need the same edition disc that was used to install on said machine in the first place...
I can repair a windows install by using the recovery console. I can also repair computers using the system file check. I can repair computers using a ton of various means, but somtimes, you DO need to boot from the CD and do a repair install. Just because there are other methods to repair a PC does not make this a non-issue no matter how much you say it is. This is a KNOWN issue that can be demonstrated repeatedly. I use the proper Windows version images with the proper service pack levels for any situation that may arise. So if I'm repairing a Win XP home machine with SP1 on it, I use a Win XP Home image with SP1. Same goes for every other flavor. The method you have given to get it to accept an OEM key may indeed work. Have you tried doing a repair install on an XP machine with a factory OEM key with such a disc? My experience is that once you turn a disk into an OEM one, THE REPAIR INSTALL IS NOT AN OPTION. (hence my posting this in the first place) You can try to tell me that I am wrong or brush it off as a non-issue, but you cannot convince me that my observations are incorrect.
sorry, not trying to tell you that you are wrong, just telling you my understanding from my experience, and i don't believe it's a non-issue, i was just asking questions so that i understood your problem more clearly. and the method i told you does not change the image into an OEM image at all, it just changes the keys that it will accept. turning an image into an OEM requires more than just replacing this information in the setup.ini, it requires replacing several other files depending on what version you are converting, which you should know if you've made one. again this is only for changing the keys it will accept. try it, i truly believe it will fix your issue, for OEM machines. if it does not work, i'm sorry you will have to wait til someone else more knowledgeable comes along and tries to help, and that's all i'm doing buddy, trying to help, so don't assume otherwise
You are not asking questions. You are suggesting that my results are in error based on your limited experience (don't get me wrong, all of our experiences are limited to what we observe). Instead you pose that my procedures are in error and pose situations that can be resolved via other means. All of that is irrelevant to the original question. Which is "Why can I not use an OEM disc for repair?" The disc I created using the procedure from this stickied thread : "How-To-Create-PRO-OEM-SLP-CD" to do a repair install on the very system I created it for. I would post a link to the sticky, but I don't have a post count high enough to even link a thread on this very forum (dumb, but needed perhaps). I am confident you would see the same results that I have seen if you bothered to reproduce the particular environment, and until you read that sticky thread where it says "Do a format and clean install from new OEM disk." You yourself may wonder why a "clean install" is required rather than a repair install. If you can't tell by now, I know WTF I'm talking about and I don't need bulls**t blow-off answers. I do thank you for the attempt at "fixing" the image to accept the OEM key via an edit to the image. But I am not confident at all that it will allow a repair install due to the fact that repair is not even an option prior to the prompt for the key. I do not belittle your willingness to help. I do pose that you have ignored the jist of the original question, and are spewing random "fix-it" tripe to avoid actually answering the question which you do not know the answer to. I'd prefer an answer to the question rather than telling me its not a valid question.
apparently you don't know what you are talking about because the suggestion i gave you about changing the information in the setup.ini file DOES NOT CHANGE THE IMAGE AT ALL OTHER THAN THE KEYS IT WILL ACCEPT. I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR OEM DISC BUT YOUR RETAIL DISC. EXTRACT THE IMAGE AND CHANGE ONLY THE SETUP.INI AND REBUILD. THIS DOES NOT MAKE IT OEM, AGAIN ONLY CHANGES THE KEYS IT ACCEPTS. before you continue to argue with me over some childish assumption you have of my intentions which i clearly told you above were not as you assume, try my suggestion. another thing, you apparently don't know what you are doing either, that's why you get so defensive when i ask you a question, such as what makes you think you need to boot from disc and do a repair that way and you can't give an answer. instead you insult me and act like a fool. take your attitude elsewhere, jack... and i haven't ignored your question: i do not know why you can't repair using an OEM disc, ask M$, cause no one else knows why that option is not available either. you just can't; good enough for you? ... peace, you and your poor attitude will be ignored from now on.
This has been known for years when using OEM unattended cd with winnt.sif file you need to remove [Unattended] section from winnt.sif and you can use it as a repair disk. The recovery console will still work on your unattended disk. You need to press F10 when the F6 prompt appears.
Thank you very much. That was the concise answer I was looking for. I figured it must have been covered before. You rock.
Only a complete newbie would use the editing of setupp.ini when using a proper OEM disc is the way. But surely explains why you suggest doing so. So once again, you are rambling on telling people they don't know what they are talking about. Maybe the system wont boot properly, hence the need to do a repair from a boot, seriously, how thick are you? I did a boot repair install the other day on my own system using a Dell XP Pro disc, no problems, so you are wrong JACK! ________________________________ How about your other going thread, telling OP he wont have SLP1.0 because system shipped with 7? It did have it, FAIL! Then continue to "advice" to slipstream SP3 to XP x64, FAIL! ________________________________ Stop posting replies to things you know nothing about, which is just about everything.
go get bent jackass. gtfo you good for nothing troll... everything you post is just rude comments and nonsense so excuse me if i don't take anything you say. seriously. seeing as my post count is higher than yours, you're just an insubordinate, and definitely not an expert... another, thing, if the system won't boot properly it can be fixed with the recovery console (a very small, free, easy to find iso), how dense are you, der duh... i was merely trying to help, which is more than you ever try to do you smartass. i do not claim to know it all, but i'm far from "newbie" which is more than i can say for you because you don't know jack and all you do is regurgitate stuff you read here, not learned on your own, and always after the fact too, you conveniently never post right when someone needs help but after the situation is well taken care of, you fake "self-expert" wannabe so again go get bent punk. you remind me of little 12 year old boys that talk trash at console forums, no respect and no knowledge of your own. go back to school...
And you Sir, remind me of an egotistical punk who speaks just to hear himself speak, irregardless of the question at hand. It appears to me you give irrelevant advice to people who do not need it. No wonder your post count is so high. You don't give a s**t if you understand what the question is, you just want to post SOMETHING and think you "helped". Perhaps you've been in school too long my friend. You need to go to work. To learn to sort the wheat from the chaff, and accept to yourself that "I know good things, I dont know everything, but untill I can ask the right questions, I wont know anything more." Asking the right questions even from a total noob can enlighten anyone. You did not ask questions, you assailed me with assumptions that I did not know what I was doing thus dismissing the question to the best of your ability. Until you realize how juvenile and ego-driven you are acting, you will never be wise enough to TRULY help others. And yes this post was stupid, as I'm only responding to a trolled thread that turned into a minor flame, and I'm sorry it went that way.
Yes. Provided it's a "Reinstallation" and not a "Restore" CD/DVD (there's a difference). The OEM part of WINNT.SIF precludes Over-The-Top Repairs. There's more problems that you may encounter even if you remove that section without further actions, e.g. SVCPACK folder, funny stuff the OEM may have inserted, etc. Dell was notorious for manually slipping stuff, like drivers and weird "processes" (guess I'm a Dell expert by now, having fixed so many). HTH