Windows Product Key by affiliation

[Yannick Charbonneau <yc...@uottawa.ca>]

Hi All,

We created a Windows XP Base Image.  We currently have 2 affiliations setup, each with their own Windows Product Key setup (using vcld -setup).

Every Windows XP reservation comes up with the same product key, the one used at install/capture.

Is it possible to have the key from each affiliation used, or do we need separate imaged per affiliation.

Thanks

Yanik

Re: Windows Product Key by affiliation

[Yannick Charbonneau <yc...@uottawa.ca>]

Thanks

On 2012-09-26, at 11:43 AM, "Aaron Coburn" <ac...@amherst.edu>> wrote:

The short answer (for WinXP) is that you need separate images.

For WinXP, the product key is registered with Sysprep during image capture, and it isn't modified when users from different affiliations request the image. So if the image was captured using a key from affiliation X but then a user from affiliation Y requests the image, the image will still use the key from affiliation X.

(n.b. this works differently for Windows 7 and is much more flexible.)

That said, you don't necessarily need separate base images. When affiliation X makes a new image from a common base image, the derived image will be registered with affiliation X; likewise, when affiliation Y does this, their image will be registered with the key from affiliation Y. If you do this, though, you may want to limit access to these "shared" base images by registering them with a "global" product key and putting them into a special image group that only certain users can access (i.e. by admin@X and admin@Y user groups).

Aaron




--
Aaron Coburn
Systems Administrator and Programmer
Academic Technology Services, Amherst College
acoburn@amherst.edu<ma...@amherst.edu>






On Sep 26, 2012, at 10:02 AM, Yannick Charbonneau <yc...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:

Hi All,

We created a Windows XP Base Image.  We currently have 2 affiliations setup, each with their own Windows Product Key setup (using vcld –setup).

Every Windows XP reservation comes up with the same product key, the one used at install/capture.

Is it possible to have the key from each affiliation used, or do we need separate imaged per affiliation.

Thanks

Yanik

Re: Windows Product Key by affiliation

[Aaron Coburn <ac...@amherst.edu>]

The short answer (for WinXP) is that you need separate images.

For WinXP, the product key is registered with Sysprep during image capture, and it isn't modified when users from different affiliations request the image. So if the image was captured using a key from affiliation X but then a user from affiliation Y requests the image, the image will still use the key from affiliation X.

(n.b. this works differently for Windows 7 and is much more flexible.)

That said, you don't necessarily need separate base images. When affiliation X makes a new image from a common base image, the derived image will be registered with affiliation X; likewise, when affiliation Y does this, their image will be registered with the key from affiliation Y. If you do this, though, you may want to limit access to these "shared" base images by registering them with a "global" product key and putting them into a special image group that only certain users can access (i.e. by admin@X and admin@Y user groups).

Aaron




--
Aaron Coburn
Systems Administrator and Programmer
Academic Technology Services, Amherst College
acoburn@amherst.edu<ma...@amherst.edu>






On Sep 26, 2012, at 10:02 AM, Yannick Charbonneau <yc...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:

Hi All,

We created a Windows XP Base Image.  We currently have 2 affiliations setup, each with their own Windows Product Key setup (using vcld –setup).

Every Windows XP reservation comes up with the same product key, the one used at install/capture.

Is it possible to have the key from each affiliation used, or do we need separate imaged per affiliation.

Thanks

Yanik