question about windows 98 cd/product key

[kylebisme]

a freind of mine wiped his hdd not realiseing that he had lost his gateway win98 cd. now he has his product key on the side of his case but no cd to do the install. i told him that all he needed to do was locate anther copy of win98 and use his key and it will all work just fine. some guy he works with is a gateway certifited tech and he says that the cd and the key are encrypted to eachother and that what i sugested would not work. so i just figured i would ask here to find out if i know what i am talking about or if i am off base on this one.

 

[corkyg]

The Gateway tech is right - I have never been able to use any but the "right" CD with it's key. I have 3 systems - and I got 3 separate Win98 packages when it came ut - and each CD will only work with its own key number. They are not interchangeable except for non-install CAB references.

 

[CTho9305]

wierd, I would ahve thought that any OEM win98 CD would work. Make sure that if your key is for SE you use an SE key. I can't imagine that the discs are unique - that would cost far too much to procude.

 

[Instan00dles]

thats odd but mabey it is because of the way the key is written it only works with the cd it came from. I have used one cdkey on several different cd's and vice-versa. You legally own a licenced product of win98 just go and download it from somewhere are try you cdkey

 

[kylebisme]

corky-g, are you sure about that or is it just you have belived that an never tried to do any different? im not trying to insult your intelegence here, we all make assumtions and we cannot always be right, i just have conflicting reports so i feel inclined to ask. assumeing you are positive what you said is fact, please tell me if your copys of windows were retail box, oem on an standard windows cd, or oem on a special oem cd such as one from gateway?

CTho9305, ya thats what i understand too. hes has the orignal win98, i never even tried an se disk as i just figured that woundn't work. the point is i think that it is worth the effort to try to track down a disk but he insists this gateway certifired guy he works for knows what he is talking about and wont even try.

personaly i think he is just being stubrend because cant seem to rap his head around why software piracy is bad and seems to be impling that he wants a copy of my xp or me that i run on my two rigs. granted he isnt going to get it and his arrogence on the issue has me rather uninclined to help him at all but i would still like to know if i did find it in my heart to track a win98 cd install from, would it work with his product key that came with his gateway or does his "gateway certified" tech realy know what his is talking about? i mean now offence to any gatway techs out there but i have come in contact with many "certified" people in their day that didnt have a clue.

 

[Mucho]

During the staging of several Win98 SE machines I've sucessfully used the same key on several CDs.

 

[Spikey289]

I have also not had a problem loading win 98 on diffrent machines. One of my friends even had a copy that came with a gateway and it came up fine on all machines. And there wasnt even any gateway utilities or anything.

 

[flyerI]

I have built and sold many computers with Win98se and I always load it with the same CD and then put in the keycode from the customers oem disk. It works everytime. If it does not you are probably trying to use a 98 disk and a 98se code or the other way around. The disk has no idea what the keycode is.