Windows XP
 

• Can a Windows OEM license be added after windows installation.?
   
• Why would a OEM license placed as on my machine, not work with my windows cd.
   
• Recovery solution for a clean install with a replaced harddrive or missing recovery media.

Windows Vista

• Patching Windows Vista to accept only 256MB memory at install.

Can a Windows OEM license be added after windows installation.

Yes. Many people has the problem of re-installing a windowsXP after a virus attack, and use the license that came with their machine, if no recovery partition or media was supplied. this is often the case when a machine is sold as a second hand or on the yellow pages. You get the license as it follows the machine, but you are unable to backup the license installed and re-enter the key at the bottom or side of your laptop or stationary pc. Many solutions on the web suggest that one known method is to backup a wpa.dbl file in the system32 directory, and when you install your pc, you just copy this key back to your system32 directory and then its activated and you do not need to visit microsoft again.

Back to the top

Why would a OEM license placed as on my machine, not work with my windows cd.

A OEM license placed as a label on your laptop machine, needs a special edition of windowsxp from your manufactor, to be able to actually enter this as productid, if you wish to reinstall your machine because of some problems with the installation. In most cases your supplier would supply a recovery cd or have a partition set up as recovery for your machine, if the problem should occur.

Back to the top

Recovery solution for a clean install with a replaced harddrive or missing recovery media.

When you buy a used machine and the license is still attached to the machine, but you do not have the medias for it or a recovery partition avaiable, its a problem to do a clean install.

- Backup the file wpa.dbl  in {windows}\system32
  Load the Registry editor
- Choose "START" and "Run...", enter "regedit"
- in the registry editor goto the key;
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
- rightclick the key, and choose "export".
- Save the "selected branch" Edit the saved registry file.
- remove everyline after second appearance of "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE", down to the "WPAEvents"

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WPAEvents 
   "OOBETimer"
   "LastWPAEventLogged"

 In the first area, remove lines, So it includes only the following lines
  "ProductId"
  "DigitalProductId"
  "LicenseInfo"

- Save the file.

- Goto the key;
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
   "ProductId"

Save this information into a new registry key.
If you wish you can merge both registry files into one file.
Your final result should look like below, but of course not with these values.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion]
"ProductId"="XXXXX-OEM-XXXXXXX-XXXXX"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion]
"ProductId"="XXXXX-OEM-XXXXXX-XXXXX"
"DigitalProductId"=hex:01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14\
"LicenseInfo"=hex:aa,bb,cc,dd,ee,ff,aa,bb,cc,dd,ee,ff

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WPAEvents]
"OOBETimer"=hex:01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01
"LastWPAEventLogged"=hex:01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01

You can copy these 2 files, the registry file and wpa.dbl to a USB key or another storage,
while you install your "temporary" windows again. When you are finished with the installation
just execute the "registry.reg" file and copy the "wpa.dbl" into the {windows}\system32 folder.

This solution has been tested and works with all types of windowsxp medias.

NOTE: This is only intended for use with a lost recovery media or as a solution when you cannot
          insert the original license into windowsxp during installation and need to use another
          supplied product key, which is not your own at installation stage.

Back to the top

Patching Windows Vista winsetup.dll to accept only 256MB memory at install.

Windows Vista does run(slow, but runs) on a pc with only 256MB of memory, but Microsoft choose to leave out this option for people. In some cases an installation with only 256MB is nice to have for testing purposes.
This vista installation hack will help you install and ignore the lower memory issue.

If you can open the binary file winsetup.dll found in \sources\winsetup.dll on your DVD with a
binary editor programme, the position you need to change bytes are;

Location in binary:   offset:  0x7B1A8  77 07 3D 78 01  should be changed to E9 04 00 00 00

This can be done using WinHex as example.

For installation afterwards, you got 2 choices.

- Create a Vista6000 folder on your hardrive, copy the contents to your harddrive, modify the winsetup.dll
as explained. and run setup.exe
- Use an application like PowerISO to copy the binary back to the DVD and write a new DVD to be able to do a clean install with harddrive format capability.

Back to the top