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Trouble with slipstream Dell OEM Win XP

bingho

By bingho
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Kiki Burgh

Kiki Burgh

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thanks for the confirmation clintb ... i didn't think HFSLIP could break the pre-activation install ... the only fact perhaps would be that you used it on a Dell system rather than a clone, right? :) ... bringing us back to the concern about not needing to activate it anymore (he! he! ;) ) thanks!

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Homer_m

Homer_m

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New guy here, just thought I would add my 2 cents. I use a Dell OEM disk and the first time I used hfslip I got the same prompt to enter the product key. The reason was because I used WINNT.SIF in the FIX folder without a product key in it. The product key on the side of the computer won't work either. All that has to be done is to look in the I386 folder of the original Dell OEM disk and copy the WINNT.SIF that's in there to the FIX folder hfslip creates. That's it. It already has the proper key in it. To my knowledge it is the same key for many Dell systems. No activation required. Hope this helps.

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Tomcat76

Tomcat76

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I don't understand this. HFSLIP copies all content of the SOURCE folder into SOURCESS, including WINNT.SIF if it exists. So putting WINNT.SIF in the FIX folder doesn't serve any purpose unless you make modifications to it.

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Homer_m

Homer_m

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So if WINNT.SIF in your SOURCE/I386 folder has the product key in it and you have WINNT.SIF in your FIX folder without a product key, which one will hfslip use? The one in the FIX folder right? Which without a product key required him to manually enter the key on the side of the case. The wrong key. The case key will install windows but XP will want to go through activation and that key will not activate. With the key in SOURCE/I386/WINNT.SIF no activation is required. That was the mistake I made. Does this make sense?

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heisking

heisking

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Homer_m is correct. You must copy the winnt.sif Product Key that is in the i386 dir to the winnt.sif that you put in the FIX folder. I have an OEM with sp1a and slipstream SP2 with no activation required doing it this way.

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Tomcat76

Tomcat76

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Posted (edited)

I know that, but you wrote:

All that has to be done is to look in the I386 folder of the original Dell OEM disk and copy the WINNT.SIF that's in there to the FIX folder hfslip creates.
This confuses me. The SOURCE folder is supposed to contain a copy of the original CD. That would include the WINNT.SIF that's on the CD. So what's the point in copying the file into FIX too? I can't imagine anyone having done a "Select all" in the CD's I386 folder, deselected WINNT.SIF and then copied the selection into SOURCE\I386...

Either way, if the OEM supplied a copy with a modded WINNT.SIF, just put it in SOURCE\I386 with the rest. There's no need to use the FIX folder unless you actually make a change that you don't want to use all the time (it's easier to remove something from the FIX folder than it is to remove something from SOURCE\I386).

Edited by Tomcat76
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Kiki Burgh

Kiki Burgh

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well i have only used the Dell OEM XP Pro SP1a recently ... & i thought it would ask for the CD key ... however it did not ... i didn't even bother preparing a winnt.sif as i wanted to see if it would ... the only thing was it asked for reactivation once it got to the desktop ...

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clintb

clintb

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A bit of FYI: Mine worked by simply using the i386 folder from the CD as my \SOURCE\I386 folder. No copying winnt.sif to the FIX folder, no messing around with the product key.

If the product key is in winnt.sif on your CD in i386, there's no need to do anything else. You will have problems if oembios.* are missing.

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  • 3 weeks later...
kenlau

kenlau

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I successfully slipstream all the updates using HFSlip on a Dell and Acer OEM CD. I think I understand the confusion here since I went through it myself.

1. There should be 4 OEM files that must exist in the source folder. When you copy the i386 folder from the Dell Cd, the 4 files, i.e., oembios.dat, oembios.cat, oembios.bin and oembios.sig should already be present. If it is a Acer cd, you have to go to to windows\system32 directory and copy the 4 files to your source. This is because Acer cd uses ghost to image the hard drive, and the i386 directory do not have these 4 files.

2. This is the confusing bit. There is actually 2 product keys. The one on the sticker at the side of your notebook or pc will always REQUIRE activation. It is legit and will activate, but it is a pain in the butt. There is another product key that ties in with the oem files, and if you use that product key, then it is pre-activated. To find this product key, go to the winnt.sif file in your installed windows, or search the ini files in the system cd. You can also use keyfinder.

My problem is that my Dell CD is quite new, and other than SP2, Dell has some pre-existing hotfixes in the svcpack directory. HFSlip will work, but will not integrate IE7. The Acer CD is older and have no other hotfixes other than SP2.

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Kiki Burgh

Kiki Burgh

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thanks for sharing your find kenlau! this should shed additional light on the topic :) ... i actually found out about the 2 different keys ... i just couldn't recall though the exact result when i tried using the 1 declared in the winnt.sif (please know i didn't use the default winnt.sif) ... if memory still serves me right, when the part for the product key came up, it still prompted for the product key (despite it being already declared in the revised winnt.sif) ...

as for integrating IE7, there shouldn't be a problem as OEM OS is considered legit ... have you exhausted the special instructions outlined in Important things to know -- please read!?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Kiki Burgh

Kiki Burgh

Posted
Posted (edited)

hi all! i just wanted to share these articles i came across while this may be a little late revival for this specific thread, i hope you guys will still find it useful:

Preserving OEM Pre-Activation when Re-installing Windows XP

Technical Details on Microsoft Product Activation for Windows XP

How to change the Volume Licensing product key on a computer that is running Windows XP SP1 and later versions of Windows XP

Edited by Kiki Burgh
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Kiki Burgh

Kiki Burgh

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Dell and other OEMs keep their CDs activation free through use of the OEMBIOS* files. There are four of them in \I386. I believe all you need is to copy the right ones to that folder and everything else should work. However, I would advise you to read up on it more as it's possible that my memory is failing me right now.
hi S-M! would these be the files: oembios.bin, oembios.cat, oembios.dat, oembios.sig? :P
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