I have quite a few customers where I end up having to reinstall Windows XP on their systems. However, most have lost their restore CD's. I know you can call the company they bought the PC's from for recovery CD's... but a lot of my customers do not want to go through that hassle.
I remember talking to a Microsoft rep that said it was fine for me to us a Windows XP All-In-One CD as long as I use the original key which is normally on a sticker on the PC.
However, is there anyway to find out exactly what version of Windows the serial key is linked to such as Retail or OEM? Or do name brand computers like HP, Dell, Sony just use OEM?
I recently tried installing Windows XP MCE 2005 on a all-in-one SP2 CD I have but it would not accept the CD key which was on the sticker of the dell, so I had to use the built in hidden recovery partition which installed all the bloatware.
Any feedback would be appreciated!
I remember talking to a Microsoft rep that said it was fine for me to us a Windows XP All-In-One CD as long as I use the original key which is normally on a sticker on the PC.
However, is there anyway to find out exactly what version of Windows the serial key is linked to such as Retail or OEM? Or do name brand computers like HP, Dell, Sony just use OEM?
I recently tried installing Windows XP MCE 2005 on a all-in-one SP2 CD I have but it would not accept the CD key which was on the sticker of the dell, so I had to use the built in hidden recovery partition which installed all the bloatware.
Any feedback would be appreciated!