Copy Image to New System and Relicense?

I am standardizing a group of people on Dell T7600 workstations. I want to
make a system image of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and then just copy the
installed image over to each target computer, then relicense. What is the
correct procedure for relicensing and reactivating once you have the
original image copied over?

With Windows 2003, there was a program named sysprep you could run that
would take you back to a particular licensing step in the installation,
without redoing most of the installation. What's the correct way to do
this in Windows 7?

--
W

"Wolf Kirchmeir" wrote in message
...
On 2014-01-25 2:59 AM, W wrote:
I am standardizing a group of people on Dell T7600 workstations. I want
to
make a system image of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and then just copy the
installed image over to each target computer, then relicense. What is
the
correct procedure for relicensing and reactivating once you have the
original image copied over?

With Windows 2003, there was a program named sysprep you could run that
would take you back to a particular licensing step in the installation,
without redoing most of the installation. What's the correct way to
do
this in Windows 7?

Win 7 activation keys are tied to the motherboards. If some of the
machines run other versions of Win 7, you will need a separate Win7
Ultimate activation key for each machine. So AFAIK you'd have to
reactivate them one at a time.

This is exactly what I want to do: manually run through entry of a legal
license and manually run through the activation of the OS with that new key.


MS may have a way around this for situations like yours, so I'd advise
asking them about it. I'm not sure what you mean by "relicence", but if
you mean apply your existing site license to all workstations, MS should
have an answer for you.

I assume you want all workstations to run the same software, in which
case a utility to install it over the network is your answer.

I need to install for fewer than 10 computers. I don't need fancy
automation of anything over a network. It's quite sufficient to
physically attach a disk image on a SATA drive, then copy that image to the
boot volume of the new computer.

Again, the question is: what are the manual steps required after copying a
disk image to a new computer, to get that computer legally licensed? I do
understand that you will need a new license. My question is about what are
the mechanical steps needed to USE that NEW license with the OLD disk image.

--
W

On Sat, 25 Jan 2014 11:57:46 -0800, W wrote:

Again, the question is: what are the manual steps required after copying a
disk image to a new computer, to get that computer legally licensed? I do
understand that you will need a new license. My question is about what are
the mechanical steps needed to USE that NEW license with the OLD disk image.

Go into control panel, select System and then select 'Change product
key'.

--
Faster, cheaper, quieter than HS2
and built in 5 years;
UKUltraspeed http://www.500kmh.com/

W laid this down on his screen :
I am standardizing a group of people on Dell T7600 workstations. I want to
make a system image of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and then just copy the
installed image over to each target computer, then relicense. What is the
correct procedure for relicensing and reactivating once you have the
original image copied over?

With Windows 2003, there was a program named sysprep you could run that
would take you back to a particular licensing step in the installation,
without redoing most of the installation. What's the correct way to do
this in Windows 7?

It's still SYSPREP. But now it is located locally on the machine by
default in %SystemRoot%\System32\sysprep. What I don't know (and don't
have a copy nearby to check) is if that will be present on Ultimate.
All my systems are Enterprise.

On Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:29:37 -0500, Seth
wrote:

W laid this down on his screen :
I am standardizing a group of people on Dell T7600 workstations. I want to
make a system image of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and then just copy the
installed image over to each target computer, then relicense. What is the
correct procedure for relicensing and reactivating once you have the
original image copied over?

With Windows 2003, there was a program named sysprep you could run that
would take you back to a particular licensing step in the installation,
without redoing most of the installation. What's the correct way to do
this in Windows 7?

It's still SYSPREP. But now it is located locally on the machine by
default in %SystemRoot%\System32\sysprep. What I don't know (and don't
have a copy nearby to check) is if that will be present on Ultimate.
All my systems are Enterprise.


I have Ultimate and I see the following:


C:\Windows\System32\sysprepdir /s
Volume in drive C is Boot Volume
Volume Serial Number is 85C5-A16F

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep

03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR .
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR ..
11/21/2010 01:06 AM DIR en-US
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR Panther
07/13/2009 07:39 PM 128,512 sysprep.exe
1 File(s) 128,512 bytes

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\en-US

11/21/2010 01:06 AM DIR .
11/21/2010 01:06 AM DIR ..
11/21/2010 01:06 AM 7,680 sysprep.exe.mui
1 File(s) 7,680 bytes

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther

03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR .
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR ..
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR IE
0 File(s) 0 bytes

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther\IE

03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR .
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR ..
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 1,890 diagerr.xml
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 1,890 diagwrn.xml
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 707 setupact.log
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 0 setuperr.log
4 File(s) 4,487 bytes

Total Files Listed:
6 File(s) 140,679 bytes
11 Dir(s) 433,097,506,816 bytes free

C:\Windows\System32\sysprep

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson pretended :
On Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:29:37 -0500, Seth
wrote:

W laid this down on his screen :
I am standardizing a group of people on Dell T7600 workstations. I want to
make a system image of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and then just copy the
installed image over to each target computer, then relicense. What is the
correct procedure for relicensing and reactivating once you have the
original image copied over?

With Windows 2003, there was a program named sysprep you could run that
would take you back to a particular licensing step in the installation,
without redoing most of the installation. What's the correct way to do
this in Windows 7?

It's still SYSPREP. But now it is located locally on the machine by
default in %SystemRoot%\System32\sysprep. What I don't know (and don't
have a copy nearby to check) is if that will be present on Ultimate.
All my systems are Enterprise.


I have Ultimate and I see the following:


C:\Windows\System32\sysprepdir /s
Volume in drive C is Boot Volume
Volume Serial Number is 85C5-A16F

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep

03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR .
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR ..
11/21/2010 01:06 AM DIR en-US
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR Panther
07/13/2009 07:39 PM 128,512 sysprep.exe
1 File(s) 128,512 bytes

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\en-US

11/21/2010 01:06 AM DIR .
11/21/2010 01:06 AM DIR ..
11/21/2010 01:06 AM 7,680 sysprep.exe.mui
1 File(s) 7,680 bytes

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther

03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR .
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR ..
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR IE
0 File(s) 0 bytes

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther\IE

03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR .
03/08/2012 01:17 AM DIR ..
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 1,890 diagerr.xml
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 1,890 diagwrn.xml
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 707 setupact.log
03/08/2012 01:17 AM 0 setuperr.log
4 File(s) 4,487 bytes

Total Files Listed:
6 File(s) 140,679 bytes
11 Dir(s) 433,097,506,816 bytes free

C:\Windows\System32\sysprep

Yup, that's the puppy. Depending on which options are chosen it will
remove a machine from the domain (always), reset activation data and
set the OS to do a full hardware discovery on next boot (for creating a
master image to be used on multiple hardware types). I use SYSPREP to
create a sungle master image that is used by all 200,000 machines at my
company.