I want to use this particular windows installation, as it has some software on it that activated online and i'm probably only entitled to one installation of the software. Reactivating software would be an issue. I'd prefer to keep the XP Installation that I have. When I resized the partition I suddenly got this windows genuine advantage problem.. where it asks me to activate windows.. I could try activating it but i'd like to get rid of the message by not having to activate it! It doesn't say it's not genuine, it just says "This copy of windows is not activated" My MBRD is Intel 410PT. I got out a USB dos boot disk, and I got that OEMBIOSTEST-USB.7z file, understood what's in it, and I copied XPOEM.EXE(all I needed) onto my USB dos boot disk. I ran XPOEM.EXE from my USB DOS BOOT DISK, it ran fine, but it said "None of the 126 Contained OEM BIOS Sets will preactivate this system" this is all so I can get an identifying code to know which set of 4 files to use with the OEMBIOS tool. What can I do though, to activate it, if XPOEM.EXE is giving me that message? I don't know whether this matters, but this Windows installation was installed on a Dell (Which I have), though the dell has an issue booting USB and CD! So I moved the hard drive to another computer(different MBRD/chipset), and (amazingly) Windows XP managed to load on it. I don't know if that's relevant 'cos I don't know what XPOEM does/how it works/what it reads/needs/assumes. Or what's going on! Perhaps some here can throw some light on this problem?
I see I could mod the BIOS and then XPOEM.EXE should recognize it and provide a value for me to get the files to use with OEM BIOS Changer too. Could you explain what the situation is regarding the fact that the Windows installation was installed on a Dell, but i'm running it now on an Intel 410PT? ACtually on second thought, I am going to be moving the hard drive back to the Dell anyway so may as well do so for the activation. I can't boot off USB or CDROM on the Dell (it'd odd)... I guess I could boot DOS off a partition on the Dell.. and run XPOEM.EXE and look to flashing the BIOS on the dell then..
Thanks.. I see I have OEMBIOS.CAT and OEMBIOS.BIN within a subdirectory of c:\windows (though I don't have dcpdll.dll or oembios.reg) anywhere for example My Dell is open near me, it says on the motherboard CN-0H7276-13740-579-00E6 Rev A03 I just tried to find the CRC32 of the file, I uploaded OEMBIOS.CAT to hash (dot) online-convert (dot) com crc32-generator and it says hex: 8e186f85 HEX: 8E186F85h:e:x: 8e:18:6f:85 base64: jhhvhQ== I don't know if all files identical to mine would have that key.. ? If i'm looking at the right thing?
so the intel board is from dell ? .. do u have 2 computers ? are u transferring the hdd from the dell to another (intel 410PT)? im confused as to the total issue... if its a dell board made by intel then it should have the slp 1.0 and u just have to match and change the files. its been yrs since ive done it so im rusty.. also i know a good VLK key in my head that never blacklists so i hardly used this oembios changer
2 separate computers. The Intel is a different computer(I once built it). It's not the Dell. The Dell has issues booting USB or CD, but i'm temporarily putting the HDD in the Intel where I can boot USB/CD. The Dell is more powerful(don't ask!). So i'm just putting the HDD in the Intel one just for the sake of troubleshooting and booting things to do troubleshoot. You were right when you said "hdd has xp from dell" and about oembios.cat being on there. You asked me what the board says.. I gave you what is written on the dell board. It's a GX 280. Is XPOEM.EXE reading the BIOS(i.e. of the current machine), or reading files on the windows installation?
so the custom built has no SLP 1.0 in it from any oem = no can do.. unless u find the slp marker tool to put dell slp 1.0 in the intel non dell board.
I don't know much about your BIOS, but one trick I have used in the past, is to inject the BIOS string into the system RAM on bootup. Let us suppose that your OEMBIOS files look for a string of "DELL PC" at F000:0 to F000:2000 Now we can install grub4dos onto the system hard disk Boot to grub4dos write the string "DELL PC" to F000:xxxx using grub4dos (choose a place where there is already a BIOS string like 'Hard Disk; or something that is probably only used during POST or boot) Now use the chainloader (hd0,0)+1 command in grub4dos to boot to xp. This is all done in the grub4dos menu without user interaction and so it just boots to XP automatically. This all depends on whether the memory area is writeable -some BIOSes write-protect the RAM area that you need to patch, but many don't! A quick way to see if this will work is to boot to DOS from a floppy or USB drive, run debug to look at and patch the BIOS area and see if it is writeable. Then do an int 19h and reboot from the hard disk and see if it is activated.
Yep, but a bit problematic when slp injection and activation is so very simple. It has been discussed but not pursued..
thanks, sounds like fun.. though the reason I had the issue was because I was running XPOEM.EXE on the intel motherboard (which is not OEM) it's a board I bought to build my own computer. Only the hard drive was from an OEM computer. When I put the hard drive in the Dell and made a DOS partition or booted off USB(it wouldn't boot off USB CD drive but did boot USB sticks!) then I ran XPOEM.EXE and it returned a value. But ultimately I installed a -normal- version of Windows XP, and didn't bother trying to repair install the problematic OEM windows installation. I installed Windows fresh, and managed to activate the software I had again on the new partition. (something I initially wanted to avoid even trying). As for debug, I recall this line. -f b800:0 FA0 21 CE <-- fill starting from address b800:0000 , for 4000 bytes, with the code 21 CE, which was something along the lines of red background and yellow exclamation marks, flashing. And it's filling video memory i'm not in front of it at the moment but can you give the approximate lines to try in debug.. including running the interrupt. I never learnt debug..
XPOEM works best on well known name brand PCs like Dell and HP. when it comes to running XPOEM on custom made PCs, I usually get that error message that none of those OEM BIOS sets will preactivate them since I recently tried out that tool on custom built computers with those old Foxconn and DFI motherboards. in short galdo, you're pretty much out of luck when running the tool on that custom made PC with the Intel motherboard.
Yes but there are DMI editors available that can be tried first and if no joy there is always bios mod.