When I used to work as an IT guy at a former job, I didn't really have to worry about this much. Now that I'm working on computers as a business, I'm running into this.

How do you handle the fact that there is a valid COA, but there isn't an original disk?

Obviously the OS was purchased in some way.

Troy

If you are talking about a Windows installation, some builders have been doing that for some time, they give only a recovering method on the hard disk (a rather stupid way of doing things), sometimes a different partition.

It is a valid installation but without a real copy of the software.

Well, I'm confused as what to do. You have a certificate of authenticity sticker on a machine.

What can you do? Can you contact Microsoft or something and tell them you have a valid certificate?

I've dealt with restoration CDs and college campus versions on Windows XP mainly. I don't know if you can just use a store bought Windows XP CD and just enter the COA on the machine you will be installing to? And, just continue to use that one as long as you have a different and valid COA?

Now, I know you get into trouble when you install a single user license on multiple machines.

If I could convert everyone to Linux Ubuntu this would be simpler. Doesn't make a difference how many machines I install it on.

Troy

It's the COA that you pay all the money for, the actual media you use to install the OS with does not make a difference. Just ensure that the disk you use to install the OS with matches the type on the COA. Use a XP Home CD to install/repair on a XP Home COA, for example.


Make life easy for yourself, slipstream the latest OS patches/updates onto your install CDs to save doing the updates afterwards, these being SP3 for XP and SP1 for Vista.

Cool, so I could just go and buy an XP CD. Then put in the COA sticker number from the computer, right?

I have messed around with slipstreaming some, made a CD or two.

Troy

in my experience if there's a COA sticker on the box it may or may not work with a generic off the shelf install disc. you can try it, but it's a crapshoot sometimes of whether or not it will actually accept the key as valid. i seem to remember having more success when the previous os installation was still on the drive. don't take my word on that though.

I know with DELL XP cd's you couldn't always just grab another DELL XP cd and use it. Because you would then be given the message that you need to purchase this copy of Windows, or it becomes unusable in 30 days.

Windows is such a pain sometimes. People don't think to keep their disks sometimes. Windows inevitably becomes a pile of crap over time, for many users. Then, you're screwed, having to buy a disk, if you can't just use another Windows CD.

I never have to worry about this with Ubuntu. I could install this thing on 10,000 machines and never having someone telling me the copy isn't valid.

Troy