windows xp serial number question

[tigersaw]

So, we are upgrading a server / client gizmo at work, and the whole upgrade, which includes new servers and moving the clients from win2k to xp has to be done in a very short downtime.
Now to speed things up, we prebuilt a spare client with a new drive, new xp. It asked for registartion so we plugged into the outside world and got the microsoft thank you. Unplugged, cleint applications installed and tested against the servers, ok.
We then cloned that drive 6 more times ready for the changeover. We tried a clone drive in another loan client, worked no problem.

Now all I'm concerned about, is once its all up and running, will windows notice all the XP versions have the same serial and get the hump? It will never be connected to the outside world, it will sit there in its private little world. The same thing was done with win2k, there was never a problem.
Its not that I dont have a stack of licences, I do, but we wanted a stack of drives ready to push into the clients - and we can't get to them until the night. They are all identical to the last nut and bolt, so we dont expect any issues with drivers etc.

[L3nny]

Should be fine. If you want you can always change the serial number anyway

[tigersaw]

Originally Posted by L3nny

Should be fine. If you want you can always change the serial number anyway

Thanks - is that easy enough, would it require connection to MS again? Once we transfer them over, there is pretty much no access unless a fault develops.

Once they are up and running, they have sit in a bunker running KVM's to users, well just a monitor, there is no keyboard and mouse.

[fizzwheel]

XP I think you'll be OK with as once its registered with MS thats it.

How did you clone it with Ghost or something similar.

I've had issues with Vista / Windows 7 where the cloned OS have asked for registration again with MS though..

[tigersaw]

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

XP I think you'll be OK with as once its registered with MS thats it.

How did you clone it with Ghost or something similar.

I've had issues with Vista / Windows 7 where the cloned OS have asked for registration again with MS though..

Wasn't ghost but something similar. We just installed xp, connected to the internet and registered when the prompt came up, then ran the motherboard disk, tweaked the registry and set all the network names up etc. The client application then loaded which runs and askes for the machine ID for IP configs etc. At that point we stopped and made the clones. I took a clone and put it into another loaned client, ran it up and continued the process and it then connected into the private network no problem. We checked my computer/properties and it appeared to have a number, and no ms registration requests came up.

Be careful that the specs on the system are the same, it can ask for the serial number again if major compnents are changed, you can also run out of activations as I have done before after many upgrades, I just used the phone system to activate the PC again.

[tigersaw]

Originally Posted by m1tch_1987

Be careful that the specs on the system are the same, it can ask for the serial number again if major compnents are changed, you can also run out of activations as I have done before after many upgrades, I just used the phone system to activate the PC again.

Specs will be identical, though the bios ID and MAC address will be different

[L3nny]

Haven't used XP for a while but I know you can change it somehow.

Just did a google and found this

http://www.ehow.com/how_2196189_chan...al-number.html

[TSM]

You may have some problems with AD unless you used Sysprep on your clones unless MSFT fixed that problem, it used to be when you cloned a machine the SID stayed the same and this caused an issue.
It may have been easier to just create unattended installer from PXE boot.
But if all systems are the same you may get away with yr clones, they may just barf at the serial at a later date.