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windows xp corporate version?

B

beatdown

n00b
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
57
Is there a windows I can buy to install on as many computers I want? If so where the hell can I buy it? I can't find it anywhere.
 
It is the corporate license, aka VLK. You would have to approach a reseller, such as CDW to discuss the pricing, and there are also different types of licensing, agreements, etc.
 
And even then it's not for "as many as you want" its for how many licenses you purchase...
 
Or you can contact MS directly and ask for VLK licensing. They will appoint a sales rep to you for the details.

MixManSC is right, it's not really unlimited but for X licenses (example, you need 1000 licenses in your business and they sell you that much at X$ per license, which is usually lower than the cost of a individual license).
 
I thought the corporate license was a upgrade on your current installed OS.

ie if the PC comes with XP Home, you can put XP Pro corp on it

The VLK isnt a full license,its an upgrade, correct? (djnes ??)
 
dbwillis said:
The VLK isnt a full license,its an upgrade, correct? (djnes ??)
Click to expand...

Correct. XP VLK is an *upgrade*, not a full license according to the terms of the EULA.
 
SJConsultant said:
Correct. XP VLK is an *upgrade*, not a full license according to the terms of the EULA.
Click to expand...

Yea you need a copy of windows for the system anyway. The good news is MS changed the requirements for the VLKs not too long ago saying that as long as the machine is legit(ie it has a xp pro coa on it) you can load the vlk without buying an upgrade license for that machine. In the past even if it had a coa you would have needed to buy an upgrade license. I know a few people that buy xp pro vlks for home. Most people only buy them for work though. In my case I needed one for a client that has 60 or so panasonic toughbook notebooks that come with xp pro already and we wanted a single image across them(same series but 3 models as they just went to the next model as they bought them over time). In this case I was able to buy a single upgrade license for xp pro and like 4 copies of encarta or something to hit the 5 license requirement for a vlk. After that I was given a vlk and a disk so I could load it on all of the machines.
 
swatbat said:
Yea you need a copy of windows for the system anyway. The good news is MS changed the requirements for the VLKs not too long ago saying that as long as the machine is legit(ie it has a xp pro coa on it) you can load the vlk without buying an upgrade license for that machine. In the past even if it had a coa you would have needed to buy an upgrade license. I know a few people that buy xp pro vlks for home. Most people only buy them for work though. In my case I needed one for a client that has 60 or so panasonic toughbook notebooks that come with xp pro already and we wanted a single image across them(same series but 3 models as they just went to the next model as they bought them over time). In this case I was able to buy a single upgrade license for xp pro and like 4 copies of encarta or something to hit the 5 license requirement for a vlk. After that I was given a vlk and a disk so I could load it on all of the machines.
Click to expand...

Got documentation on that? Everything I have read thus far requires a previous install of Windows in order to qualify and if you wanted to use VLK, you needed to buy a license for EACH computer even though it came with Windows already installed.

By your description and with my understanding of VLK licenses, your VLK purchase of one XP license and installing it on 60 laptops is not compliant.

Reference
Microsoft said:
"Initial Operating System Requirements: Customers cannot acquire full Microsoft® Windows® desktop operating system licenses through Microsoft Volume Licensing programs, only upgrade licenses. Customers must first have a full desktop operating system installed on their machine before they are eligible to acquire an upgrade license for Windows desktop operating system via Microsoft’s volume licensing programs. Full Windows desktop operating system licenses can be acquired preinstalled on a new PC by an original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) or via retail, which is also known as full packaged product (FPP)."
Click to expand...
 
SJConsultant said:
Got documentation on that? Everything I have read thus far requires a previous install of Windows in order to qualify and if you wanted to use VLK, you needed to buy a license for EACH computer even though it came with Windows already installed.

By your description and with my understanding of VLK licenses, your VLK purchase of one XP license and installing it on 60 laptops is not compliant.

Reference
Click to expand...

I have it somewhere but it would take some time to find. We went through this with MS and have some emails where they say we could do it. Thing was that these machines did have a full install of windows on them. Pretty much with them comming from panasonic with xp pro preloaded they qualified. The guy from MS told us as long as they had a COA on them for pro you were fine. They changed it back like last OCT if I remember right. They told us we could even throw a OEM coa on a machine then load it with our vlk as long as it was one of our systems(ie we were not selling it)
 
I dont get what the difference is in putting an XP VLK onto the Toughbooks when they already came with XP Pro ?
 
swatbat said:
I have it somewhere but it would take some time to find. We went through this with MS and have some emails where they say we could do it. Thing was that these machines did have a full install of windows on them. Pretty much with them comming from panasonic with xp pro preloaded they qualified. The guy from MS told us as long as they had a COA on them for pro you were fine. They changed it back like last OCT if I remember right. They told us we could even throw a OEM coa on a machine then load it with our vlk as long as it was one of our systems(ie we were not selling it)
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'd be interested in "seeing" that converstation since the reference I provided basically contradicts what you were told.

dbwillis said:
I dont get what the difference is in putting an XP VLK onto the Toughbooks when they already came with XP Pro ?
Click to expand...

Mass deployment and ability to use a single key vs. tracking multiple keys. There are other benefits with VLK, but that detracts from the thread a bit.
 
dbwillis said:
I dont get what the difference is in putting an XP VLK onto the Toughbooks when they already came with XP Pro ?
Click to expand...

Simple. Panasonic only ships them with a restore disk that restores the entire drive. We have to load a bunch of other apps. Even if we presealed the image it didn't work right over the 3 models(cf-50, cf-51(ddr), cf-51(ddr2)). We needed to get around this and we also wanted to start with a clean image(ie it didn't have traces of the extra junk we uninstalled) we used a vlk. This way we can blow the image down across all of them. I have it loaded with all the drivers for all 3 models so it can install everything it needs. Getting ready to make them a new image for 75 desktops that are getting from dell. Ordered them with a vlk for office and xp pro from dell. This way I will be able to make a single image to load on all of them. If I do a full seal on it I will be able to load it on some old machines they have as long as the machines have xp pro and office licences with them(they are p4ht hps).
 
SJConsultant said:
Interesting. I'd be interested in "seeing" that converstation since the reference I provided basically contradicts what you were told.
Click to expand...

Lot of the trouble is in how everyting is written. The doc you linked to says
No. Under Microsoft’s Volume Licensing programs, operating system licenses are tied to the machine on which they are first installed. If a customer acquires a current Windows Professional upgrade license via Microsoft’s volume licensing programs and then installs Windows Professional Upgrade on a given machine, the license is then tied to that machine and may not be transferred to another machine, regardless of whether or not the Windows Professional software is removed from the original machine.
Click to expand...

Yet if you go to here it says

The rights to create a standard image and deploy it on multiple machines, and rights to transfer licenses from one machine to another.
Click to expand...

I'm going to look for a few minutes to see if I can find more info on this for you on the MS site but the best way is to talk to a ms rep and have them send you the docs. I did this a year ago and was not part of the last order so it has been while.
 
I wasn't aware of this, but apparently this is why all corporate machines that have the VLK license installed, also carry the COA sticker as well. I asked a former co-worker of mine at HP about this, and he more or less confirmed it.
 
swatbat said:
Lot of the trouble is in how everyting is written. The doc you linked to says

Yet if you go to here it says

I'm going to look for a few minutes to see if I can find more info on this for you on the MS site but the best way is to talk to a ms rep and have them send you the docs. I did this a year ago and was not part of the last order so it has been while.
Click to expand...

That "discrepancy" is easily explained. If you have VLK and SA (Software Assurance), SA grants you the right to reassign the license to another machine. What you are reading on your link is the "sales" end of the licensing that doesn't divulage into the specifics of when your allowed to transfer the licensed.

Every MS rep I have talked to advised 1 VLK license per system. IOW, if you have 10 computers with OEM XP Pro and want VLK for imaging, then you need to purchase 10 VLK licenses albeit it they all use the same key.
 
djnes said:
I wasn't aware of this, but apparently this is why all corporate machines that have the VLK license installed, also carry the COA sticker as well. I asked a former co-worker of mine at HP about this, and he more or less confirmed it.
Click to expand...

Send SJ a pm on this but I'll go into it here.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/6/7/067ff52c-a552-4f6e-852c-03d086b41f68/reimaging.doc

This talks about how you can use a VLK in place of an oem or retail copy of the same software. Also it should be noted that dell, hp, etc all pretty much use a special VLK on the machines they sell. If you went to compusa and checked the key on 5 hp desktops that windows is using it would prob be the same. Mind you the COA on the side would be different. It is why MS stoped letting the keys on the side of machines auto activate as they were never used.

Edit.
I had more on this but can't seem to find it online atm and I am not on the system I saved it on(saved at my work somewhere). Dug this up online.
 
swatbat said:
Send SJ a pm on this but I'll go into it here.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/6/7/067ff52c-a552-4f6e-852c-03d086b41f68/reimaging.doc

This talks about how you can use a VLK in place of an oem or retail copy of the same software. Also it should be noted that dell, hp, etc all pretty much use a special VLK on the machines they sell. If you went to compusa and checked the key on 5 hp desktops that windows is using it would prob be the same. Mind you the COA on the side would be different. It is why MS stoped letting the keys on the side of machines auto activate as they were never used.

Edit.
I had more on this but can't seem to find it online atm and I am not on the system I saved it on(saved at my work somewhere). Dug this up online.
Click to expand...

Well, now that I've read it more in depth, I can see where this could be legal. I'm going to do some more checking this week in an attempt to get confirmation. Thanks! :cool:
 
SJConsultant said:
Well, now that I've read it more in depth, I can see where this could be legal. I'm going to do some more checking this week in an attempt to get confirmation. Thanks! :cool:
Click to expand...

No prob. Yea I was so happy when I found out about it. Pretty bad I remembered it was changed in October 2005 though. A MS rep was the one that pointed us to it and helped us buy it for my client that had the 60 notebooks. Since then we have had to get a few more VLKs. I should say if you find out anything more about this you think I should know shoot me a PM.
 
swatbat said:
Send SJ a pm on this but I'll go into it here.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/6/7/067ff52c-a552-4f6e-852c-03d086b41f68/reimaging.doc

This talks about how you can use a VLK in place of an oem or retail copy of the same software. Also it should be noted that dell, hp, etc all pretty much use a special VLK on the machines they sell. If you went to compusa and checked the key on 5 hp desktops that windows is using it would prob be the same. Mind you the COA on the side would be different. It is why MS stoped letting the keys on the side of machines auto activate as they were never used.

Edit.
I had more on this but can't seem to find it online atm and I am not on the system I saved it on(saved at my work somewhere). Dug this up online.
Click to expand...
Heres another mystery to add to the pile. With large purchases of Dell computers that come with a XP Pro cd for new installs only does not require a cd key nor ever asks for one or ever shows a screen with a serial key already pasted into the text boxs. Haven't looked at the EULA yet on those cds... also according to dell they are Volume licenses too.
 
Raystream said:
Heres another mystery to add to the pile. With large purchases of Dell computers that come with a XP Pro cd for new installs only does not require a cd key nor ever asks for one or ever shows a screen with a serial key already pasted into the text boxs. Haven't looked at the EULA yet on those cds... also according to dell they are Volume licenses too.
Click to expand...

Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway/emachine all use vlk restore disks. They have a minor change in the sence that they check for a string in the bios that tells it you are loading it on a dell. If it doesn't find this it will prompt that the key is wrong and needs to be activated. It is not a large purchases either. All of the dell xp home/pro disks do this. The HP ones do as well. That is the reason that MS disabled the auto activate on the serials on the sides of big name oems. People would use that serial to load a copy of xp on a second machine. Now you have to call ms to have them activate it(takes a whole 5 minutes). From what I've seen media center coas still auto activate. Home/Pro do not.
 
Only problem with what you said... we already tested what we were told and loaded it onto a Gateway and a per part built pc and there was no checking the bios whatsoever. Everything installed fine and never asked to be activated.
 
Raystream said:
Only problem with what you said... we already tested what we were told and loaded it onto a Gateway, a HP and a home built pc and there was no checking the bios whatsoever.
Click to expand...

I've never tried to load a dell cd on a hp or the other way around so I can't comment on that. In my experience the cd verifys the mfg of the system somehow. I can't go into the details of how it verifys it as I don't know them. :D

In my experience I've almost always had to give it a new cd key when I've used a dell disk or hp disk on a home built. Sometimes I have gotten away without doing it. Not sure what it is finding but it must think it is on a dell.
 
OEM specific versions of Windows are tied to the OEMBIOS.bin file included with the OEM specific version. During the installation the OEMBIOS.bin file is used to verify the actual hardware as being from the OEM thereby allowing the installation to continue. It's like a key in some respects; if the key (the OEMBIOS.bin file) fits the lock (the BIOS information on the hardware), the install "opens" and you install the OS.

If not, you're locked out.
 
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