WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Have an old Dell belonging to a pensioner chappie.. Bought in good faith off eBay by an innocent - I'm sure you all know the story. So now it's got the 'counterfeit' nags all over since it turns out that it is one of the barred VLK licenses.

I'm basically looking at the quickest and cheapest option as the machine really has no value and the old chap is not wealthy.

Can I do a repair install over the top of the VLK with a 'legit' OEM serial. Will this work or do I have to 'bare-metal' and reinstall from scratch?

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

From scratch dude

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

I agree with David (nee Zinglebarb) the only to be sure you've got rid of all the nags is a clean install.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

I agree, that's what I would do normally and have done in the past.

It's more a matter of interest than anything else. Wondering what corners I can cut to do the job on the cheap.

There's a limit to how much time I want to waste on an Optiplex GX110.. 533Mhz pentium 3..
I've already chucked a freebie stick of ram in there so I'm not waiting half the day for it to boot.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

sorry i didn't mention enything to do with illegal in this particular thread i just asked him to try my method which was sent in a pm to him

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

If you want to speed up the install, & remove some of the unnecessary crap MS installs, have a go with nLite.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

My thanks to all who have suggested different routes.
Although I'm tempted to put this old wreck back to Windows ME I'll probably end up donating one of my spare XP Home licenses..

Just soft I am..

;)

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

You can still use nLite with that. :) Be warned though, if you go beyond the simple stuff like making it an unattended install, removing unnecessary drivers, disabling useless services etc, & head into automating extra stuff that it doesn't handle completely on its own, it can get rather addictive & take up a lot of your time. :disturbd:

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

I'm not quite *that* geeky..

I've used nLite to make a slipstreamed SP3 disk but that's about where I draw the line.
I played that game to it's ultimate conclusion years ago with a skinny version of Win98. Now I can't be arsed anymore. I'd rather bang in more memory and leave it bloated..

:cool:

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

SP3, and maybe the RyanVM Post-SP3 update pack to minimize the amount of updates needed.

If only ReactOS was ready for the big time - http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html
This is NOT Linux + Wine, though it does have a synergistic relationship with Wine.

It is still, as they say, not feature complete, though some applications can be run, but in terms of feature completeness, Linux + Wine probably has a major edge on it at the moment.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Aha.. The obligatory Linux comment..

;)

now my thread is complete. My work here is done..

:waving:

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Haha :D

And it is Linux+Wine with Wine doing all the important stuff which I'm not sure is a great idea (sorry Off-topic!)

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

My suggestion would be to inform Microsoft and tell them where you got it from. I think they then sell you a high-discounted key and then go after Mr Pirate.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

I like that idea :)

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

The offer was free for those that has a fake CD that had to be sent back to Microsoft along with a full report on purchasing details.. If you have a pre-installed windows with a VLK licence then you ended up with very little discount on a genuine item... (there's not real evidence for them to prosecute without physical evidence..and the discounted price is actually more than an OEM copy)

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Reactos is NOT Linux + Wine, it is reverse engineered NT style kernel + Wine.

Yes, Wine is wher the higher level APIs come from, but instead of layering on top of Linux, the aim is am NT style kernel, and ultimately, it seems, the abilty to use Windows drivers.


Personally, I think MS will let them get so far, then drop so many obstacles in their path, skating just on the right side of avoiding anti-competition problems. By the time "XP ressurected" gets anywhere near finished, it may even suit Microsoft's purpose if there is a non-MS alternative for Vista or Windows 7 refusers.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Nor am I... Ok, yes I am. :o:

Yeah, but XP has a load more bloat. Don't get me wrong, I love XP [especially XP64 :D], but it's more bloated than it needs to be. And don't get me started on the registry...! For example, there's loads of stuff in there just in case you happen to connect some obscure bit of equipment that the manufacturer doesn't feel like providing proper [or any] support for.

Having said that, at the moment I'm still working on automating the install & the adding of my various settings & customisations, & testing in a VirtualBox VM. [the latest version is really cool, especially if you have a CPU that supports Hardware Virtualisation] Once I get to a state that I deem acceptable, I'll finally get round to putting my new hardware in. Then I'll work on getting rid of more of the bloat. :D

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

That is really interesting. If it does mean it can run windows devices and a lot of windows programs in emulation then ReactOS could very well be a way forward.

I have just installed the latest build in virtualbox and it literally took 3 minutes. The image is less than 26 meg. I may well try it on the main system to see if it runs all the drivers . I know it is Alpha software but so far I like it

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

Sounds really interesting. I must grab that later and get the VM fired up.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

It did not install on my second machine dunno why it just loaded setup files then nothing perhaps it was a chipset issue but they think it will enter beta this year so perhaps then.

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

How are you liking the latest version of VirtualBox compared to VMware? I know you were using Workstation, whereas I was using Player, but I think VirtualBox feels a lot quicker than VMware.

If you're in the mood for a bit of OS experimentation, have a go with this:
MenuetOS. 64bit OS that fits on a floppy. :D

Re: WGA - can I escape from this?
 

I prefer VMware tbh

Will have a look at the other :)