WGA - can I escape from this?

Dai · 17-09-2008, 16:45

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?

17-09-2008, 16:48

From scratch dude

Delta Whiskey · 17-09-2008, 17:04

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

Dai · 17-09-2008, 17:16

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.

Graham M · 17-09-2008, 17:52

Please do not discuss illegal methods of getting around this problem within this thread!

Thanks

Jonathan90 · 17-09-2008, 18:01

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

Alien · 17-09-2008, 18:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

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.

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

Dai · 17-09-2008, 18:49

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..

Alien · 17-09-2008, 18:55

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.

Dai · 17-09-2008, 19:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien

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.

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..

Matth · 17-09-2008, 23:01

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.

Dai · 18-09-2008, 07:57

Aha.. The obligatory Linux comment..

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

Graham M · 18-09-2008, 07:59

Haha

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

18-09-2008, 08:54

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.

Xaccers · 18-09-2008, 10:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by LSainsbury

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.

I like that idea