Ascii2 Posted January 2, 2007 Share Posted January 2, 2007 (edited) I have read that with a Royalty OEM key a Windows XP operating system may be installed without being bothered to activate.Having a Royalty OEM key, I have tried using a Windows XP Professional Royalty OEM key (using VMWare) on installations of Windows XP Professional (OEM) with both Windows XP Professional Generic OEM Microsoft Product Code and Windows XP Professional Royalty OEM Microsoft Product Code. For both tests Windows prompted for activation.How can OEM Windows XP Professional be installed with a Royality OEM key and not have the burden of (re)activation. Edited January 2, 2007 by Ascii2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbm Posted January 2, 2007 Share Posted January 2, 2007 (edited) Its tied to the BIOS on the motherboard. Meaning it will only activate onthe computer it came with or perhaps a similar one from the same manufacturer. Edited January 2, 2007 by jbm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascii2 Posted January 2, 2007 Author Share Posted January 2, 2007 So Windows checks BIOS for something (I would guess some kind of of an identifier) and if certain information is returned, producted is activated. Is this correct.What form the BIOS is returned to Windows?I probably would not be able to sucessfully test using VMWare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonic Posted January 2, 2007 Share Posted January 2, 2007 If I remember, VmWare can redirect DMI Table of original motherboard BIOS of host system to virtual machine.So you can test OEM activation feature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uid0 Posted January 2, 2007 Share Posted January 2, 2007 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=82638&hl=I've not tried it with vmware, but it works on real hardware Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascii2 Posted January 2, 2007 Author Share Posted January 2, 2007 If I remember, VmWare can redirect DMI Table of original motherboard BIOS of host system to virtual machine.So you can test OEM activation feature.I cannot find an option to pass the BIOS information for VMware.I am using VMware Workstation 5.5.3 build-34685. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascii2 Posted January 2, 2007 Author Share Posted January 2, 2007 If I remember, VmWare can redirect DMI Table of original motherboard BIOS of host system to virtual machine.So you can test OEM activation feature.Very interesting. I shall look into this tool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonic Posted January 2, 2007 Share Posted January 2, 2007 Edit your .vmx file in notepad and add or edit SMBIOS.reflectHost = TRUEFull thread on forum http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&...st&p=597316 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascii2 Posted January 8, 2007 Author Share Posted January 8, 2007 Thanks, I added "SMBIOS.reflectHost = TRUE" to my vmx file.If OEM Windows XP Professional had been installed and not activated nor activation intetionally modified prior to making the change to vmx file, would Windows, after making the change to the vmx file, prompt to activate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uid0 Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 use %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /ato check if it's activated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascii2 Posted January 9, 2007 Author Share Posted January 9, 2007 use %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /ato check if it's activatedProduct does not appear to be activated; Activation Wizard appears.I have installed OEM Windows XP Professional on a new virtual machine with "SMBIOS.reflectHost = TRUE", but am still prompted for activation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bezalel Posted January 9, 2007 Share Posted January 9, 2007 use %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /ato check if it's activatedProduct does not appear to be activated; Activation Wizard appears.I have installed OEM Windows XP Professional on a new virtual machine with "SMBIOS.reflectHost = TRUE", but am still prompted for activation.This method is not gauranteed. The only information transferred from the host is the System Manufacturer and the System Model. What is the CRC32 hash of your oembios.cat file? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascii2 Posted January 9, 2007 Author Share Posted January 9, 2007 What is the CRC32 hash of your oembios.cat file?I do not know.How would I acquire that information? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
severach Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 The Royalty key alone is useless because it can never be activated. It must be paired with the set of OEMBIOS files that matches your Royalty OEM computer which makes the key preactivate. This won't work for a build-your-own system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascii2 Posted January 13, 2007 Author Share Posted January 13, 2007 The test system was a Gateway computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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