Jimmo

Got it now! I downloaded a fresh copy to be sure and yes, saw the part about the product key prompt being a mandatory part of the Windows welcome sequence. Thanks for your patience and support. Cheers, Jim

Thanks folks! I did check out the reference and saw the difference between royalty OEM and system builder (me). Thanks Tripredacus! This is ok, having the end user activate is perfectly fine, I just want to avoid the end customer being prompted for the product key itself during OOBE "first use" setup process. If I understand the user guide/license requirements correctly, having the product key "pre-installed" but still requiring the user to activate their copy of windows is still legitimate for a system builder OEM, because this is not pre-activation. I'll see about pointing sysprep at an unattend.xml as cluberti suggests (shame it doesn't pick this up from the autounattend.xml answer file which already has the key specified). Thanks again for the help! (And the VM tip, d'oh - I should have thought of that) Cheers Jim

Hello there! I've had a search within the forum and around the 'net and really need to double-check with folks here... I use the OPK to do OEM installs (non-royalty) of Windows 7 onto new build systems which are then shipped to customers. This all works fine and the unattended install completes ok without any prompting (the product key is specified in the answer file). I then add any drivers specific to the config and reseal using sysprep. The problem is that the out of box experience prompts the end customer for the product key, which often means squinting at the label stuck to the PC case under a dark desk etc.. I'm trying to figure out the best way to avoid this for the customer. I either need to pre-activate WIndows before shipping, or at least ensure the product key is retained somewhere so that the customer system can be activated once connected to the internet. The former is ideal but the latter will do, anything that avoids the end user having to punch the product key in themselves. I've seen posts about storing keys in the BIOS or manually adding a call to slmgr.vbs in some startup script to set the product key etc. but I'd like to check what the best method actually is. After a smooth, painless automated install, it seems a bit kludgy to have to manually add a BIOS key or script call. Please can anyone advise on an approach? Also - and apologies for tagging a second question in here - but I'd like to test the out of box experience after resealing so I can verify what the end customer will experience. Naturally I'd like to do this without having to activate Windows or expire the SkipRearm limit, as it may take more than 8 iterations to fine tune the environment. Any advice on how best to do this would be gratefully received! Many thanks in advance for taking the time to help... Cheers, Jim.