mockranger

Basically there are two licensing models for Vista. The old traditional VLK isn't much different than retail these days. Basicaly Option one is a Key that phones home to MS ala the traditional retail mechanisms. You can use it multiple times and microsoft essentially manages the number of installs vs either your retail license or the EA/VLK agreement. IT will periodically phone home to MS to check in to revalidate its key. Most Retail keys are in this category. Option two is to setup a Key Management Server. This "server" runs on any XP, Win2K3 or Longhorn class system (essentially a service) and takes the place of the phone home mechanism to MS. The Key management server will phone home to MS and exchange data and updated key certificates to be distributed out to Vista machines that are checking into the KMS. The key types are mutually exclusive. you can't use a single activation key to startup a KMS and vice versa. the mechanisms are essentially designed arround sizes of deployments where the first option is for smaller environment and the KMS is for large scale corporate environs.

I'd check the wep keys on the client machine and check at the access point/router to see if you have MAC filtering turned on. Refused connections are usually a MAC filter or a bad WEP/WPA key

xcopy /O The /O switch copies all ACL and ownership info. Add other switches as necessary. Think you can also do this with robocopy out of the resource kit. M-

Not really. the technology is targeted towards OEMs not home enthusiasts. most OEMs use a taileored BIOS for their systems and have embedded their own text strings. I know this is the case with Gateway, Dell, and HP. When the OEM builds the BIOS they just leave the key string in the table at the same position.

Did a little research on this a while ago. It's an interesting technology. Anyway, the short answer is that short of you being a large scale system builder, you're not gonna pull this off. The whole process looks something like this..... 1) System Builder creates a file that points to a specific BIOS location and matches a text string in that location. 2) The system Builder then signs this file with a verisign digital certificate. 3) Send file to Microsoft OEM System builder group who do some manipulatoin turning it into a 10+Meg file. 4) Microsoft countersigns the file with theit digital certificate and returns it to the system builder. 5) From this point it appears to be a little unclear, but it looks like you simply place the file in the $OEM$ structure which gets read as part of the install process assuming you are using the OEM build of the product. Corporate and Retail builds DO NOT look for the file. There are a couple of caveats to using this tech. First, you can not install via winnt32.exe or setup because it implies an environment is alreayd in place and the tech only work in clean installs. to me this means if you do any pre-install steps, you're out of luck. It also doesn't ask for a product key because its been integrated into the file somehow by Microsoft. Personally this isn't a big deal to me since there is functionality to encrypt the key in the build process. Most of this info comes from the OEM documentation and the MS System Builder newsgroups. (Duh, hit reply too soon:P) The method is interesting but I'm not sure how you will via script or batch prevent breaking. Also most of the installation is subject to in-process manipulation via a keystroke that will open a CMD shell whcih allows you direct acccess to the installation.

I've been digging arround in this for a couple of months. As yet I've not found a way to apply a preferred WiFi network with keys during install. The option I'm starting to look into now is for a API (C++ or VBS) way to get at that config. I've found some vague references to some WPA APIs The only option I've found that gets remotely close is the Wireless Network Policies in the Secruity portion of the Group policy. These assume an 802.11 implementation though so you can't specify a shared key; It's expecting a PEAP or EAP/TLS implementation that will dynamically assign a random key. It does let you set a preferred network though, just not the key. It's great if you have 802.11 setup and definitely the better way to go in corporate environs but not worth the trouble for small or home environs.

Most software companies don't go the criminal route; they don't get the money that way. they are usually more willing to make a deal on the civil side to get some cash out of it. IF it was your manager that gave the disk out then I'd say he's probably on his way to a new post managing a far outlying group in the most inhospital of circumstances. M-

Not being a lawyer but a SysAdmin with corporate licenses and multiple countries, I'll give you my take. I'll stick to the Windows license but each license agreement for each software would really have to be examined.I'm not a lawyer so I suggest you seek a lawyer's advice. Reading the current product use rights document I just received from Microsoft, section II, paragraph K on VLKs clearly states that a company is responsible for any unauthorized use of the VLK. Also, in the general secton it clearly states the software (meaning pretty much every MS product) is covered by federal copyright laws and international copyright treaties. This is from the license agreement for the Americas. Keeping all that in mind, the person who asked the country is asking a good question. The penalties and ability to prosecute are directly tied to the license agreement for the country/region and treaties in place. Most companies, MS included, have different license agreements for different parts fo the world. If you are specificly asking about the US here's the possible outcomes.... First, the copyright holder may bring civil and/or criminal charges against the infringing company or individual. Basically they can get you both ways if they want to. It's the copyright holder's choice, not a law enforcement official. The penalties for the civil side are basically seeking damage that are the ammonts lost due to the infringement as well as any profits attribitable to the infringement. Also they can seek statuatory damages. All this can go up to $150KUS for EVERY infringement. In your case that would be for every copy this "friend" sold. In addition, on the criminal side, the infringing party can be fined $250KUS or sentenced to up to 5 years, or both. I believe that is for every infringement as well but I haven't been able to find a statement to back that up. All of this info is freely available on the BSA website. Keep in mind this is for infractions prosecuted in the US; other countries will be different. Also, the way I read it, the copyright holder can go after your "friend", the company you work for (as the holder of the VLK), and potentially you individually since you've indicated you have embedded personal info (address, phone, email) in the unattended. Basically the short of it here is if this person IS selling this CD its a gross violation of someone's license agreements and your best option would be to run, not walk to the legal council for your company and tell them what is going on because otherwise they are looking at a potential black-eye you wouldn't believe. If this were to happen in my company, that would be the only thing I coudl do and have any kind of prayer of saving any kind of job (I'd surely get demoted and sent off to a dank area of much less responsibilty)

Hmm, there's and interesting thought. Doing it this way, I'll end up with the hotfixes potentially in the recovery console build as well as the main build. I don't think I've ever looked to see if svcpack.inf was executed when cmdcons was installed.

Yeah, The registry observation is what I considered a pita. I guess its not really too bad. I figured it was something like that. I've never been able to locate something that definitively said that it was an alternate search source for WFP. Overall outstanding job. I have a build runnign right now on my two primary laptop platforms to see how it goes. What you intending to do with makecat?

Ouch! I figured you were testing it listening you ask about HighMAT the last couple weeks Let's see, my build counter for my unattended install is at....Build 257! Yay!

I guess that's a throw back to my Win 3.1 days. Multiple sections in INI files was a bad thing. I see that and cringe.. BTW, Very slick how you did this making use of the OCM. Looking at how you did the hotfixes themselves; I wish this is what the /integrate option had done. Only issue I can see is your're going to have to hand update this for every hotfix which could get tedious. Wonder if there is anything we can do about that. Worth talking through. I don't mind helping maintain it if need be. Incidentally, the [ProductCatalogsToInstall] section actually does something? I've played with that a few times with hotfixes and never seems to matter if I have anything in there or not. Only thing I could figure was that it provides a list of opional CATs to search through.

@RyanVM I just ran across something rather intersting (to me). DOSNET.INF has sections with the same names??? I was making the mods to install your pack and noticed the comment about the first [Files] section. Did a quick look and I think the file may be inconsistent. My first secction looks like this [Files] d1,usetup.exe,system32\smss.exe d1,ntdll.dll,system32\ntdll.dll I suspect you're after the second section in mine that appears to copy everything else ((huge list of files). I'm installing from the VLK WinXP w/SP2 integrated disk. Might be subtly different cause it was built with the SP2 code tree I suspect rather than a slipstream. Anyway, just to confirm its not the System32 section that this appears to be but the other larger [Files] section that needs mods made to it. Incidently, anyone know what happens to DOSNET.INF after the first DOS mode stage of an install using winnt32.exe? I know DOSNET.INF doesn't end up in either $WIN_NT$ directory, but its still lingering somewhere.

MS XML 5.0 is built into Office 2K3??!?!?! Sheesh, how did I miss that?

@RyanVM Most definitely a excellent piece of work. Working on integrating it now into my installs. You get to Cleveland, I owe ya a beer. I think I may take a peak in here and see what magic you have done. Also I may have makecat on one of my MSDN disks. I'll take a look.