Dell XP Professional CD

Callan

My Da brought a Dell Xp Professonal CD home from work. It dosen't have a cd key with it. Can this be installed on a non dell machine?

Chalk

it can be installed on any machine
*but*
you will need a cd-key for it

aidan_walsh

No. You would need to have the license key. In spite of all that, this is an illegal use of the CD, because the company will only have bought enough licenses to cover themselves. You'll be using it illegally.

sceptre

The CD key is probably stuck to the machine at work (on a shiny sticker on the side of the machine). There's also a good chance that the copy he brought home is locked to a Dell BIOS, meaning it may well not be possible to install it on a non-Dell machine.

the_syco

Callan wrote:

My Da brought a Dell Xp Professonal CD home from work. It dosen't have a cd key with it. Can this be installed on a non dell machine?

If its a Dell CD, it'll only work in a Dell machine. I repeat; it'll work on any machine made by Dell
The CD key is on the side of the PC (usually the left side, on the bottom, but sometimes underneath the PC).

Capt'n Midnight

Callan wrote:

My Da brought a Dell Xp Professonal CD home from work. It dosen't have a cd key with it. Can this be installed on a non dell machine?

NO ! That license is bound to the Dell hardware. Microsoft terms & conditions - ie. if the computer dies or gets stolen the license goes with it.

If the machine you want to transfer it to already has XP PRO then you can use magic jelly bean thingy to write down the serial before you RE-install. Again the CD won't work no non-Dell PC's

Wintell

Microsoft want you to buy a retail license. So either buy a license, keep the existing OS or use BDS/Linux which has an open license.

Mac daddy

the_syco wrote:

If its a Dell CD, it'll only work in a Dell machine. I repeat; it'll work on any machine made by Dell

It does work with any pc i have installed several system that way :rolleyes: :rolleyes: i know it is illegal

The difference if you have the XP Home copy you get the ****y Dell support stuff installed - If you have a Copy of Professional it is a normal install nothing different -

Mac daddy

sceptre wrote:

is locked to a Dell BIOS, meaning it may well not be possible to install it on a non-Dell machine.

It has nothing to with the Bios that installed on the system -

jessy

This depends on a few things. Manufactures usually ship either a full install or a recovery disk. A recovery disk is defiantly locked to the machine it was shipped with. Where as the reinstallation disk isn’t. You still need a license for them though (If you’re worried about that sort of thing)!

Is it even legal to lock a copy of Xp to the BIOS, suppose the motherboard has to be changed then what? you have to buy one with the same BIOS.

axer

It should install fine BUT it is def illegal to do so - It has an OEM licence (only allowed use the serial/licence on the computer it was originally installed on) but technically if you had the serial number then it would work fine - used a dell xp cd to temp install xp on a new machine that i put together myself to test it.

Jammer

ive installed XP Home with a Dell recovery disk on a non-dell bios/hard drive/computer, but using a legal CD key (my xp CD is scratched to bits) and it works fine.

snappieT

I installed my dell XP pro onto a non dell PC, and all it did was warn me that it wasn't a dell pc AT THE END OF INSTALLATION - AFTER IT HAS BEEN INSTALLED!

Try it out - it can't hurt