OEM Windows XP?

Charlie7940

Charlie7940

Member
Not too long ago my parents purchased a Dell Dimension 4700, and it came with Windows XP Home Editions w/ Service Pack 2 including a reinstallation CD. Now I'm curious, can I use this to install Windows XP on the custom PC I'm currently building?

To sum it up, Will this work? Is it Legal?
 
You will have to call dell and get a new key. the one they assigned to you won't work. A friend and I have tried ... he was able to call dell and they gave him a new one.
 
Charlie7940 said:
They just "give" it out to you that easily? that doesn't sound right.
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You know I'm not sure how he did it. Tell them you upgraded to XP Pro and you want to put it Home on another PC ... since you paid for it :)
 
Is the CD an actual windows CD (ie not a recovery CD)? If so it should work. If its a recovery CD then no. Dell is very proprietary. I had a copy of WinDVD from Dell and it wouldn't let me install it on a non-Dell computer.
 
Well I'm not sure if it's a recovery cd, but on the front of the disk it says stuff such as:

"Software is already installed on your computer. Only use this CD to reinstall the operating system on a Dell computer" or..."For distribution only with a new Dell computer"

Is that telling me it is illegal to do this, or can it simply only be done on a dell computer?
 
Charlie7940 said:
Well I'm not sure if it's a recovery cd, but on the front of the disk it says stuff such as:

"Software is already installed on your computer. Only use this CD to reinstall the operating system on a Dell computer" or..."For distribution only with a new Dell computer"

Is that telling me it is illegal to do this, or can it simply only be done on a dell computer?
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recovery cd - chances are it wont work for anything other than that specific computer.
 
Are you guys sure that it won't work...I just got a call from my friend saying that it worked on his custom pc. Now whether it really did or not, I won't know for sure until I see it.
 
Lol guess what...I finally got around to trying this, and it worked! I'm possitive it's a dell recovery cd, so why was it successful?
 
yeah...I just pieced together some old crappy parts I had laying around, and popped in the recovery cd and everything installed find.
 
Charlie7940 said:
yeah...I just pieced together some old crappy parts I had laying around, and popped in the recovery cd and everything installed find.
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Wrong. Sorry to correct you, but the Windows XP CD that came with your parent's Dell was NOT a recovery CD. It was an actual Windows Installation Disc. Dell had the disc slightly modified to include the Dell Solution Center into the OS Build, but other than that, it is a genuine Windows CD. I have used my XP Home CD on many computers, and it works on ALL of them.

And, BTW, Charlie, what you did, kinda is illegal, because the EULA specifies that the software contained on the disc isn't supposed to be used on any machine other than the one that it was packaged with. Don't worry about it though. I know people that have 6 computers in their house, all running bootleg copies of XP Pro. ;)
 
but the Windows XP CD that came with your parent's Dell was NOT a recovery CD.
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Well It's a purple cd that says stuff such as "Already Installed on your computer" and "Reinstallation CD" and his has the Dell logo on it.

And, BTW, Charlie, what you did, kinda is illegal
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How is that illegal? I payed for it...it's not like I got this illegally from someone/somewhere. I don't see anything wrong with this.
 
It all depends on whether or not the motherboard is imaged or not. Some manufacturers have an image/code/key (whatever you want to call it)... on the mb and recovery cds very often are coded to work only with those certains mb's. I've seen this happen a few times where a mb was changed out (by a factory service center), and they forgot to recode the new mb. We had to send them back, have them recoded, then the restore cd's would work.

Now, there are also many that are not coded, and it's kinda impossible to really know which models until you actually run into it. In your case it was apparently not. :)
 
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