Activations problems multi-booting WinXP?

[Radboy]

I've been avoiding WinXP due to the (phantom) SCSI problem. Now that all seems okay, I want to install it.

Three questions about WinXP activation:

1. Will I run into any problems trying to ACTIVATE multiple (legal) copies of WXP on the *same* hard drive? [Different partitions, of course. I'd like to dedicate one O/S to editing video, and leave the other for everything else.]

2. Same question with *different* hard drives.

Shouldn't be a problem, seeing I can only access one operating system at a time. But things don't always work the way I think they should.

3. Is there any LIMIT to the number of boots I can configure on the same system.

Anyone have any real-life experience attempting this?

Thx for any insight.

 

[blakerwry]

I've tripple booted 2K with redhat and ME before... I've also psuedo dual booted XP simply by using a different kernel, but keeping everything else the same.

I would think you could pretty easily do this by partitioning a single drive into 2 partitions using Fdisk...

install XP to the 1st partition, then install XP to the second partition... I'm sure it will pickup the existing installation... just make sure you dont do a repair or an overwrote of the 1st installation while installing the 2nd.

you may have to edit your boot.ini file to get a proper boot menu... you should have something like this by default...

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

you will probably only need to add something like the following line to get things rolling:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (Video Editing)" /fastdetect

 

[Mercutio]

Disclaimer: I've never activated WinXP myself.

I don't think you'd have a problem in either case of installing XP on the same PC. My students (a lot of A+ students like to have several OSes to play with) tell me that it's a fairly painless process, even for nightmare situations like "I had to load XP four times before I got it right".

One of the PCs I have set up in a classroom is set up for "extreme multi-booting": DOS 6.2, Win98SE, NT4, Win2000 Pro, Win2000 Server, WinXP Pro, Netware 5, Redhat 7.3. The machine has OSes spread out over 3 hard disks and a projector hooked up so we can demonstrate things to the students.

Out of all that, I can load all of the above basically all of the above either directly from XP's boot menu, or from another menu attached to it. Netware was the only OS I had trouble getting to play nice. Given all that, I don't think you'll have a problem.

 

[Radboy]

For this particular PC, I don't need anything but WinXP, but I need at least 2 copies of it. They can be installed to the same (physical) drive, even tho I'd rather put them on different physical hard drives. Anyone actually activated two (or more) copies of WinXP on the same PC, running dual/multi-boots?

 

[blakerwry]

i forgot to answer that question.... no, I havent personally activated 2 copies of XP on the same PC... but if you think about the license agreement.. you are fully within your right to install XP as many times as you want on a single computer.... it just sounds like in this case you are taking it to a different interpretation than it may have origionally been meant.


I REALLY don't think you would have a problem activating 2 copies on the same computer.



Additionally.. if you want a tip... I could slipstream sp1 into your winXP CD... basically you can create a winXP installation CD that has all the files pre-updated to SP1... I don't know why.. but it seems to run alot faster/smoother than a machine that has XP installed and then has sp1 installed manually.

Instructions here:
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?object=article.cfm&id=160

 

[blakerwry]

quote]

Additionally.. if you want a tip... I could slipstream sp1 into your winXP CD... [/quote]


I meant "you could"... or "I would if i were you" heh...

 

[Mercutio]

Actually Blake, some time ago P5_133XL got a different answer on that question from Microsoft's Licensing people: You need to have one license of windows for every installation, whether it's on the same PC or different ones.

Anecdotally, I know that you can activate many times on the same machine without a problem.

 

[P5-133XL]

Anyone try to ghost an activated XP instalation, restore the image to a second HD or partition on the same machine and point the boot.ini to the new instalation. I assume that will work for creating a multi-boot system? I've installed multiple copies on different partitions before and regardless of the partition, the system drive is always C: - So I don't foresee any drive letter issues.

Yes I know both instalations will have the same SID. but I don't think there will be any problems, even on a network with a domain controller, because they can't be active at the same time.

 

[Mercutio]

Yes. That works. I've done that with customer machines that needed restored.

 

[blakerwry]

Actually Blake, some time ago P5_133XL got a different answer on that question from Microsoft's Licensing people: You need to have one license of windows for every installation, whether it's on the same PC or different ones.

That's insane!

I liked the old "general" licensing rules that I learend in the early 90's....
a) you can install the program to as many machines as you want as long as it's used by only 1 person
b) you can install the program on 1 machine and let any amount of people use it.


I think this should be a law for general purpose consumer software... this should be as strict as you can get... no more of this jumping through hoops to stay within licensing agreements while installing something as simple and neccessary as an OS.

 

[blakerwry]

to take an idea from a movie.. I think microsoft's End user license agreement should start off like this:

IMPORTANT-READ CAREFULLY: This End-User License Agreement ("EULA") is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity, hereby known as The damned ) and Microsoft Corporation for the Microsoft software product identified above, which includes computer software and may include associated media, printed materials, "online" or electronic documentation, and Internet-based services ("Product"). An amendment or addendum to this EULA may accompany the Product. YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE PRODUCT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND(maybe).

 

[Cliptin]

For this particular PC, I don't need anything but WinXP, but I need at least 2 copies of it. They can be installed to the same (physical) drive, even tho I'd rather put them on different physical hard drives. Anyone actually activated two (or more) copies of WinXP on the same PC, running dual/multi-boots?

Legalities aside, IIRC you only have to reactivate if there are significant hardware changes. MS activation servers would likely treat the second instalation as a a wipe and reload as no hardware has changed. I've not tried it though.

 

[blakerwry]

screw those msft bastards

 

[Ralf Hutter]

I have the same retail XP Pro installed on four different HDDs in my main system. Each HDD is in a mobile rack and I swap them in and out as needed. One is my main working OS, the other is for games only and the last two are for testing stuff. I've been doing this since Win98 days and have always had XP running like this since the day it was released a year and a half ago. All I do is activate it the very first time, them I image the OS to all my other drives and I'm done. The first time I boot each new drive it finds the "new hardware" (the drive that it's installed on) and asks for a reboot, then I'm good to go forever. No Problemo.

 

[Cliptin]

Hi Ralf.

 

[Tea]

Neat. What's the best way to image XP, Ralf? Just use Ghost?

Also, a more general question: is it possible to image XP/NT/2000 without using any software - i.e., the same way that you can copy a Win98 install just using drag and drop and "sys d:".

PS: Welcome Ralf!

 

[Ralf Hutter]

Good evening Clipton and Tea. I'm here from Storage Review and looking foward to spending some time here.

Tea- I use Drive Image but you can accomplish the same thing with Ghost. You need to create an image to do this, you can't just DnD.

 

[Cliptin]

It's a good system. Three of my machines have drive carriers and so have two OS drives apiece.

 

[Ralf Hutter]

I can't imagine doing it any other way. I even have extra HDD carriers for my Dell notebook.

 

[Cliptin]

What does one of those noebook carriers go for? I assume this is internal to the notebook.

 

[Ralf Hutter]

The one for my Dell Inspiron 7500 is only $9.95. It's a metal carrier + the plastic cover, all for $10. A bargain if you ask me. Most of them aren't too expensive nad many notebooks have pretty easily replaceable HDDs.

 

[Radboy]

Just checking in to say I'm readin' & appreciatin'.

 

[Splash]

...Each HDD is in a mobile rack and I swap them in and out as needed. One is my main working OS, the other is for...

WOW! Ralf Hutter! Surprised to see you here. How's Florian Schneider doing??? 8)


Yes, I've been doing the same for years now (at home). These days I mostly boot WinXP and Win2K. I recently upgraded my 2-each ATA drive bays with a couple of Antec's latest ATA-133-rated drive bays. I have 80GB Barracuda IVs with Win2K and WinXP. I also have some "older" Antec ATA-100 drive carriers with an assortment of Barracuda 40 GB and 60 GB drives with a few older Quantum ATA 7200 RPM drives that I can boot into Win98SE, Win95, WinME, WfWG 3.11, MS-DOS 6.22, FreeBSD 4.7, Netware 3.12, WinNT Server 4.0, WinNT 3.5.1 Server, etc. Some are data-only drives formatted with NTFS that use to store for video or audio data on.

=====> to infinity. . .

I also have 2-each Antec Ultra-160 SCSI drive bays that I boot Win2K with for non-linear video editing using a Cheetah X15.3 and a couple of Atlas 10K.1 data drives. These have an LED screen on the front of each drive carrier that show drive temperature, SCSI ID, etc.

Before drive carriers, for many years I used stand-alone external SCSI drive enclosures and simply powered-off/powered-on the required attached drive enclosures, or occasionally unplugged and re-plugged external SCSI cables as needed. This worked fine, but was a bit more expensive due to the price of decent external SCSI drive enclosures (CI Designs) and they took up desktop space.

• 
  
  Supermicro SC760

 

[Ralf Hutter]

...Each HDD is in a mobile rack and I swap them in and out as needed. One is my main working OS, the other is for...

WOW! Ralf Hutter! Surprised to see you here. How's Florian Schneider doing??? 8)

He's doing fine, he should be home eating dinner right now. We'll be going into KlingKlang again tomorrow morning to continue working on the new album (as we've done every day since 1991). It's coming along pretty good, may be done within about five years. :wink:

 

[time]

It must be fairly arduous, commuting from home to Australia each day?

 

[Splash]

It must be fairly arduous, commuting from home to Australia each day?

Eh... Düsseldorf, unless Florian has emigrated recently.

 

[time]

They're on tour in Australia ...

I guess they might be home again by now.

 

[Splash]

They're on tour in Australia ...

Well, now that I think about it, this would be a fun-in-the-sun summer tour for the deep frozen Teutonic duo -- sweating it out in Sydney, melting down in Melbourne, and broiling in Brisbane, along with wrestling great whites and tickling taipans in their off-time.

January/February isn't so nice in the greater Düsseldorf + Duisburg + Dortmund + Wuppertal + Essen + Köln (DDDWEK) megalopolis.