Making disc images

[William Muriithi]

On 2 December 2010 11:02, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 02, 2010 at 08:54:01AM -0500, Mike Kallies wrote:
>> The licensing can burn you too.  It's important to go by the book.
>>
>> If they're really identical and they all have OEM licenses, and you
>> generated the image from an OEM preload, consider some of the parameters
>> on sysprep to ensure that the license keys are unique on the machines.
>>
>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577
>>
>> If you don't do this, Windows Genuine Advantage(tm) might give your
>> users serious problems in the near future.  My info might be out of
>> date, so it might take a bit more research for the latest fixpacks and
>> WGA stuff.
>>
>> As an aside... back in the day, Microsoft told me that the OEM licenses
>> did not permit "advanced" imaging techniques, and that even though a
>> machine shipped with XP Professional, it was not permissible to blow
>> away the crap-filled factory image and put a fresh copy on the machine.
>>  You had to either do a "factory restore" or buy a new corporate
>> license.  The information about this would come with the original media
>> Microsoft would have shipped from which the clone master was generated.
>
> I seem to remember reading that volume licensing was in fact based on
> the idea that the machines already had OEM windows licenses, so you
> were essentially paying your volume license to allow upgrading to a more
> flexible or perhaps newer windows version on all your machines and to
> permit imaging to be used.

Think volume licensing allow you to install Window to multiple
machines from the same platter.  You may need to pay more to use a
newer version of Windows or whatever software is volume licensed.

Volume license is therefore friendly to imaging, I would assume.

That being said, as long as you have an OEM license for every machine
in your possession, I do not think the would nail you for installing
all system from one image.  Their lawyers would find it hard to prove
they have a case.
>
>> Remember too, that it's "piracy" to create more than one backup copy of
>> the "original media" or to distribute copies to support staff unless
>> your agreements expressly permit it.
>>
>> If there are additional complex considerations, opaque licenses to
>> unravel, artificial costs and artifically inflated efforts involved in
>> doing things legally, then it should be factored into the cost of the
>> Microsoft platform.
>
> Confusing and frequently changing.
>
I have used acronis for Window system imaging and its fine.  Works
well too across hardware from different vendors, but you need an extra
license for that.

> --
> Len Sorensen
> --
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William
--
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