How to tell an Win XP OEM, Retail, Corporate,Upgrade CD

[mcveigh]

have you tried making the cd bootable? that might solve your problem, there is a web page that tells you how to make a bootable win2k cd, i'll try to find it

 

[Motley67]

Can anybody help me with this problem?

 

[AKA]

Corky-g,

I've never had your problem. Those 3 cd's must not of actually been identical versions.
Otherwise why would anyone bother with releasing Win98 serials on the net.

For Win98 there were several cd's. Win98 retail, Win98 oem, Win98 upgrade.. then all the SE cd's after that.
I have a spreadsheet of serveral clients product id's for their OS's.

One of the places i can particulary remember because they only had one copy of Win98 but 10 different product id's. All product id's worked for that cd installing to all their computers. I can remember this because I made an issue about not installing one copy on all their computers.. but since they had the product id's on certificates of authenitcation (someone stole all their other copies) I went ahead and did it for them.

 

[tRaptor]

Your crazy Motley "losing" your code/cd!

I slap down $200 for a disk and a small code im sure not losing the dam thing. Mine is hanging on the wall where i can see it, if i had a safe i'd lock it up.

 

[Motley67]

I already admitted my stupidity many messages ago...AND...since your comment is neither constructive or helpful...I THINK I'LL IGNORE IT.

Now then...anybody else.

By the way I think I found my answer. There's a program called WinISO that actually allows an ISO image file to be edited while still preserving the image integrity. Once the pid line is edited burn the image to a cd.

I'll keep you all informed for those still interested.

MOTLEY

 

[Motley67]

Pid=55034000

OK Santiago (or anybody else) - where do these numbers fit in. I can't find a description for either the first 5 numbers or the last 3. "000" doesn't seem to be listed anywhere.

Also, I' seen different labels pop up in my computer when I've inserted different cd's in my computer.

One show the label as "WXPVOL_EN" This is obviously the Corporate version.

The other one I've seen id "WXPFPP_EN" - What could this one mean?

All input is appreciated.

Thanks

Motley

 

[mcveigh]

Originally posted by: Motley67

Pid=55034000

OK Santiago (or anybody else) - where do these numbers fit in. I can't find a description for either the first 5 numbers or the last 3. "000" doesn't seem to be listed anywhere.

Also, I' seen different labels pop up in my computer when I've inserted different cd's in my computer.

One show the label as "WXPVOL_EN" This is obviously the Corporate version.

The other one I've seen id "WXPFPP_EN" - What could this one mean?

All input is appreciated.

Thanks

Motley

that sounds like the pro version

 

[Motley67]

HMMMMMM - Pro OEM, Retail, Upgrade?

Motley

 

[Motley67]

BUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can anone answer my latest question?

Motley

 

[MSantiago]

I think all Pro versions have that label. You'd need to look at setupp.ini to know if it was a retail, upgrade, or OEM version.

 

[MortimRex]

Right, but my numbers match none of the common one listed for the PID on the net. My last three digits are 000. Any ideas?

 

[Motley67]

Well. I got it to work. Using a program called WinISO, I made and ISO image of a retail version of XP. The program is so cool. It allowed me to actually edit the setupp.ini file right from within the ISO image itself. I changed the setupp.ini file to reflect the OEM disc and burned it to a blank cd. I also found that you had to change the label from the retail version ("WXPFPP_EN") to the OEM label ("WXPOEM_EN"). For some reason this had to be done. Maybe it compares the pid to the label...I don't know, but you can change the label from within the WinISO proggy also.

From what I understand, you can make the numbers interchangable also. For instance, make a retail CD that will accept an OEM number and vice versa. But I really didn't want to fool with it due to the possible legality of it. Actually, I'm pretty sure that MS doesn't want us to make burned copies of their discs, even though you still need an activation key to be legal. But if MS wasn't so damn stubborn with their CD replacement policy, I wouldn't have had to go this far, right? All I wanted was to replace a cd that had been misplaced.

Anyway, here's the kicker. I tried various programs to burn the ISO image back to the cd; Nero, WinON Cd, CloneCD and Easy CD Creator. The only one that did it properly was Easy CD creator.

Well, I told you I'd keep anyone interested in the loop., Thanks for all the suggestions guys. They all helped me find the answer to my solution.

Motley

 

[mooseAndSquirrel]

One thing I noticed recently when upgrading office xp to sp2: the installer asks for your original CD. To me that's way too much of a pain. So I now copy all of the .MSI files to my hard drive. Then when things like Office ask for the disc, I just point to the MSI file on my c:\ drive. I noticed that different version of office have different names for the msi files (e.g. PRO.MSI, PROPLUS.MSI); so maybe there's something similar in Windows XP?