Hi,

I have an unprotected winxp cd. By unprotected I mean, no activation or product key is needed when installing on any make or model Dell PC. I was curious how that works exactly? Would I look at the winnt.sif file or somewhere else to see whats on the disc to see how it works?

Thanks,

Rich

Probably has a saved Windows Activation file somewhere on the CD... Is there a file called wpa.dbl on the CD?

dell has been known to hard lock the xp cd to the bios. if you really want to find out if it's unlocked try installing it on a non dell computer.

Yeah, the CD looks for a Dell BIOS and won't install without it.

Oh, it will install on a non-dell system, but you will have to activate it.

Amazing how much a googling can help. Third time I'm posting this link here, in as many days.

http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/activation.html

These CDs use something called SLP, and their BIOS-locked activation is in OEMBIOS.BIN probably.