Hi, I am confused on our Liscencing issues. I have PC's purchased with Windows 7 OEM, with downgrade to XP liscence. The XP cd's that we have are all OEM CD's, from other machines. My question is, i need to build these machines as XP images, but am unsure on how to do this and keep within the liscencing reg's. If i try and put an XP install on the machine, will it fail due to an incorrect liscence?, or can i use the windows 7 liscence on the case? and if i use an existing, in use key, will i have issues later on, re: actiavtion, upgrades etc. Thanks in advance, Carl

If the OEM discs are from the same manufacturer, or if they are generic OEM discs, they should work to install the XP system with a new unused OEM key. A current disc with XP & SP3 may be required. For the most accurate answer you should contact the manufacturer of the systems you wish to downgrade. See info @ http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/contact-support

Hi, First, you still need a retail version of Windows XP to downgrade. The OEM versions of Windows XP cannot install on other OEM machines. If the OEM BIOS brand and the Windows XP OEM version cannot match with each other, activation fails. Also, please refer to the article Downgrade Rights for Windows 7 Desktop Software: OEM Versions of Windows 7 Eligible for Downgrade Only certain OEM versions of Windows 7 include downgrade rights: Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate include downgrade rights to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate. Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate include downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, or Windows XP x64 Edition. Other OEM Windows 7 versions (for instance, Windows 7 Home Basic and Windows 7 Home Premium) do not include downgrade rights. Regards, Sabrina

hi, thanks for the replies, sorry for the late response. so as far as i can see, i would need to purchase a Retail version of XP, install this one my base machine, and then use that to deploy to my cient machines? is this right as option 1? Option 2. the machines in question were purchased with Windows 7 Pro, WITH downgrade option, but we never recived any Downgrade CD, or partition. As far as i am aware, the manufacture surely MUST provide 1 of the option for us, otherwise the machine have been supplied legally "not fit for purpose" and surely they must be legally obliged to supply 1 or the other option? In this case, we would recieve OEM cd's for the machines, install the base machine, the sysprep, image and deploy. Obviously, i am assuming activation would work in both senarious? Sorry if i have seem to have missed anything, i am not too hot on liscensing, and ned to make sure i get this all done properly.

hi, thanks for the replies, sorry for the late response. so as far as i can see, i would need to purchase a Retail version of XP, install this one my base machine, and then use that to deploy to my cient machines? is this right as option 1? Option 2. the machines in question were purchased with Windows 7 Pro, WITH downgrade option, but we never recived any Downgrade CD, or partition. As far as i am aware, the manufacture surely MUST provide 1 of the option for us, otherwise the machine have been supplied legally "not fit for purpose" and surely they must be legally obliged to supply 1 or the other option? In this case, we would recieve OEM cd's for the machines, install the base machine, the sysprep, image and deploy. Obviously, i am assuming activation would work in both senarious? Sorry if i have seem to have missed anything, i am not too hot on liscensing, and ned to make sure i get this all done properly. And you still need to contact the manufacturer of the systems in questions. This forum is by no means qualified to answer licensing questions as yours. And, it's up to the manufacturer to supply you with the discs and the support for your situation. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/contact-support

Windows XP does not have pre loaded drivers for SATA drives. While loading XP in text mode, there would be a STOP (0x0700....) blue screen error which is because the XP HDD drivers and the installed SATA HDD is incompatible. To resolve this, please go to BIOS setup and to Advanced BIOS settings and change the HDD SATA mode to AHCL or ATA. This will result in proper booting from the windows XP CD/DVD. The other option is if the HDD is SATA, you would need to have the HDD's drivers, this can only be achieved by loading the SATA HDD drivers via a floppy disk at text mode Windows XP setup, press F6 and follow the options on screen to load the SATA drivers. If the HDD is IDE and the MB logic is SATA, you would need to use an IDE to SATA hardware converter which is a 40 pin female adapter which fits directly into an IDE HDD and receives the SATA data cable.