Hi guys, I work in a company which has just over 1000 client machines. Currently our standard is Office 2003 Professional and Windows XP. We have just purchased 60 Dell 790 desktops for deployment. These come shipped with a OEM license of Windows 7 Professional and Office 2010 Home & Business What we want to have happen is be able to automate the builds via SCCM but we do not want to have to activate Windows 7 or Office during this process. In addition to this we must remain compliant with Microsoft licensing so that we have at least an OEM license to cover both WIndows 7 and Office for every machine that we deploy it to Any insights here? Can we just take an image of an already activated Win 7 machine with activated office and use this as our base build? If we deploy this to our new 790 machines we should still be compliant licensing wise? Our IT manager does not want to go down the route of volume licensing which is a shame Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Nick

Shorthand story is, no you can't, it's volume licensing that gives you enterprise deployments. Check this article: OEM and imaging - The rules of the game http://www.deploymentresearch.com/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/4/OEM-and-imaging-The-rules-of-the-game.aspx / Johan Regards / Johan Arwidmark Twitter: @jarwidmark Blog: http://www.deploymentresearch.com FB: www.facebook.com/deploymentresearch

Shorthand story is, no you can't, it's volume licensing that gives you enterprise deployments. Check this article: OEM and imaging - The rules of the game http://www.deploymentresearch.com/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/4/OEM-and-imaging-The-rules-of-the-game.aspx / Johan Regards / Johan Arwidmark Twitter: @jarwidmark Blog: http://www.deploymentresearch.com FB: www.facebook.com/deploymentresearch

Trying to deploy windows without volume licencing is a nightmere, I dont see how you could do this without having to activate each OS and office after you have built it. Although by using MDT you could store the OS lincense key against a computer record but office is alittle trickier. you would have to activate this after the build. You need to convince your IT manager to get volume licensing, its the only way. Louis

Right problem solved. My IT manager has negotiated the use of licenses without having to go through an activation process which is awesome (have been provided KMS and MAC keys) Thanks

Right problem solved. My IT manager has negotiated the use of licenses without having to go through an activation process which is awesome (have been provided KMS and MAC keys) Thanks