Conflict in an OEM CD's serial number "requirements" - it's goofy

[imported_Kiwi]

My sister thought she wanted a PC once before, and TTBOMK, never used that one. I'm not going to huge expense and trouble this time for the same thing to happen all over again, but I didn't have a Win98 se to use (it's a pretty doggoned old PC I've started fixing up). The best '98se OS deal I got on eBay was an OEM set that certainly appears legit.

My usual procedure is to copy the Win98 folder from the CD to a directory on the hard drive, and finish the install faster from there. (In this case, it's even more necessary than usual, until I find a slightly faster CD than the really old one I'm using for setup.) But almost all of my Win98se experience has been on Win98 CD's other than the OEM, so perhaps this isn't workable with this version, and has to be amended. Right? Or is it something else?

At the near-end moment when it asks for a serial number, it offers the "wrong" image of a block of rectangles to fill in. OEM numbers are shorter, and have different length parts than upgrade serial numbers, so it doesn't fit. I do have a couple of original copies of Win98se (now already in use, so technically the numbers would've been dupes, but it didn't like those numbers, either).

It looks like I have to erase my new C:\Cabs-Win folder from the hard drive and copy the contents of an Upgrade CD in there instead (and back to that so-slow speed of the CD) before this will work. BUT FIRST! Does anyone know offhand which specific files make the two versions different, so I can just erase those and replace them from the other (less "legal") CD?


:disgust:

 

[redbeard1]

Isn't it displaying/asking for a 5 X 5 key during the install process? Are you sure the version your using is 98SE or is it possible it is 98 original?

Have you tried to boot from the CD? Some versions of OEM have a "master" key already in them and it just goes past the key portion, or has a key already in the boxes when you get to that point.

There are product id's for all MS products. Each version of whatever OS it, can be limited to certains methods of installs, like only a full install or upgrade, but some won't allow a repair install over the top. Some also can look at a certain spot in the bios, and know whether or not they are being used on the same OEM hardware that the disk was licensed for.

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Long before there was a Win98, various family members from siblings to cousins started bringing PC's to me to "fix" after they had made such a mess of them, it was often literally impossible. I've had a relatively sizable number of legal copies of Windows CD's pass through my hands -- a dozen and a half at least, and have performed several dozen installs/ reinstalls of W98 along the way. This particular one has a boot loader on it. AFAIK, there was never an Upgrade with that. The only "full" copy that I recall having handled had to have a floppy to start the install with.

I've had two different OEM copies of Win98se, both had the same kind of number, that does not fit into the Upgrade's Serial Number pattern of five digit blocks of a code number. I had thought that every kind of Win98se I ever experimented with up to now was amenable to a folder on the hard drive as the source. But between the two OEM versions, the older one did require a boot floppy also.


😕

 

[forumposter32]

eMule? I've used it before.
.txt files for serials

 

[imported_Kiwi]

I could be wrong, or not remember it quite correctly, but it is my understanding that the number doesn't exist anywhere away from the CoA until you install, so if eMule was used to search for text strings similar to the ID in question on the OEM CD, there's nothing there of that nature. There is code there that applies an algorithm to the number you type in to be sure it's of the right sort, and the ID is built in a self-checking way somehow.

Anyway, Google found me a couple of work-arounds that I will try, and add that data back here if it works.


😉