Deploying single image to multiple XP SP3 machine with unique licences

[Alan Reeves]

Hi,
I am brand new to FOG. I have installed a test system under Ubuntu 10.04, uploaded an XP SP3 image and successfully deployed to three machines. FOG looks superb, thanks and well done to all who have contributed.
I have a question about regular, unattended deployment to multiple machines.

First, some background. I am a volunteer IT administrator for an independent school in the UK. I’m retired now, but in my professional career I was an IBM mainframe systems and assenbler programmer. That is by way of explaining that my knowlege of the Linux and pc world is limited (but I can learn quickly!).

The school has about 25 Dell pc’s, running XP PRO SP3. These are all second-hand, donated from businesses, so all the machines have unique product licences and COA stickers (ie there’s no Volume Licence key). Up to now I have been manually deploying a single image from a master machine, by removing the hard drives and cloning them (with Clonezilla and other tools). This is hard work but generally I don’t have problems, as the machines are identical. However, occasionally I have been prompted to re-active the XP licence, and I don’t really understand the circumstances in which this happens I’m looking to using FOG to do regular network deployments.

Now, my question. Everything I have read makes me understand that I should use SYSPREP to prepare my common image. But, if I understand correctly, I can only set a single product licence in Sysprep? I want to achieve completely unattended deployment, so don’t want the deployed systems prompting for licence activation - or, if it does, I want some automated way of replying to the prompts with the correct (unique) licence key (side question - could I use “AutoIt” for this?).

It might help to know that I am not using a domain controller, the pc’s are simply in a workgroup, with a login script to map to a shared NAS drive for student folder access.

Thanks for bearing with me. I hope I have correctly explained the issue I have, and thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards
Alan Reeves

[Steve Ropiak]

My understanding is that if you are not enrolled in any sort of volume licensing program, that you are required (at some point) to type in the license key from the computer. Failure to do so puts you in violation of the EULA. Hence, your post imaging setup cannot be completely automated.

[Alvaro Campoy Neto]

[url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Changing_Serial_Number[/url]

[Alan Reeves]

Thanks for the information about changing the serial number. I now just need to sort out how to automate this for 25 machines.

[Alvaro Campoy Neto]

[quote=“Alan Reeves, post: 11472, member: 3679”]Thanks for the information about changing the serial number. I now just need to sort out how to automate this for 25 machines.[/quote]

Hello

Go for it and save ALL 25 reg files:

[url]http://pcsupport.about.com/od/productkeysactivation/ht/changexpkey.htm[/url]

Then script it, make a package for FOG, mark on hw invent, task it, image it, and BOOM, you’re done.

[Christopher Lynn]

You create three separate winnt.sif files for each of the PC’s and feed them into each deployment. They need to be copied to the image before the MININT setup after sysprep.

[quote=“Alan Reeves, post: 11442, member: 3679”]Hi,
I am brand new to FOG. I have installed a test system under Ubuntu 10.04, uploaded an XP SP3 image and successfully deployed to three machines. FOG looks superb, thanks and well done to all who have contributed.
I have a question about regular, unattended deployment to multiple machines.

First, some background. I am a volunteer IT administrator for an independent school in the UK. I’m retired now, but in my professional career I was an IBM mainframe systems and assenbler programmer. That is by way of explaining that my knowlege of the Linux and pc world is limited (but I can learn quickly!).

The school has about 25 Dell pc’s, running XP PRO SP3. These are all second-hand, donated from businesses, so all the machines have unique product licences and COA stickers (ie there’s no Volume Licence key). Up to now I have been manually deploying a single image from a master machine, by removing the hard drives and cloning them (with Clonezilla and other tools). This is hard work but generally I don’t have problems, as the machines are identical. However, occasionally I have been prompted to re-active the XP licence, and I don’t really understand the circumstances in which this happens I’m looking to using FOG to do regular network deployments.

Now, my question. Everything I have read makes me understand that I should use SYSPREP to prepare my common image. But, if I understand correctly, I can only set a single product licence in Sysprep? I want to achieve completely unattended deployment, so don’t want the deployed systems prompting for licence activation - or, if it does, I want some automated way of replying to the prompts with the correct (unique) licence key (side question - could I use “AutoIt” for this?).

It might help to know that I am not using a domain controller, the pc’s are simply in a workgroup, with a login script to map to a shared NAS drive for student folder access.

Thanks for bearing with me. I hope I have correctly explained the issue I have, and thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards
Alan Reeves[/quote]