Hi ppl...

Have come across a problem that wasn't apparent until now...

When we first upgraded our PC's to Xp, we had a XP Corporate Edition CD which we used on all the existing PCs and the some newer ones. Since then everything was fine and has been for ages. Some of out machines are stand-alone as they are controllers for Industrial machines, and cannot risk the machines crashing or getting hijacked by a virus etc.

But recently we have had our IT upgraded and now have these machines networked but behind a hardware firewall, and via a software firewall on a new Terminal server. Basically, we can connect to the terminal server and use our software to program the machines the other side of the firewall. This means NONE of the pcs behing the HW+SW firewall can access the internet, and only designated machines can conect to the TS.

But it has now come to my attention, that all the office machines and the 2k servers all are upgrading the auto updates ok, but the brand new machines that have been supplied with XP pro SP2 will not run our software to control the machines, so we currently have our new pc's collecting dust.

The question is:

All the current machines we have cannot connect to the internet 24-7. We dont use the internet much, so we dial-up as and when. Any updates i download at home on my broadband and bung on my server for the network to update from (SUS). Since the only XP cd supplied with the pc's is a Pro disk with SP2, and the only disc i have is an XP Pro CD, is there any way to stop the new machines connecting to the internet for authentication? as i havent got time to re-load all the PC's and take them home to activate them, and upgrade them?!

And the supplier of the original PC's does not have the CD that was used on the old pc's

Thanks

this may seem silly but can't you just make a new XP CD from the corp version and add SP2 to that or maybe a network install folder.

You could:

1. Take your XP Pro Corp CD

2. Download SP2

3. Merge it into the XP CD

4. Make a new CD now, and install from it?

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