9 Legend

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16.1K Posts

March 7th, 2013 14:00

the XP license on your Dell is OEM and from MSDN it is retail. The keys aren't interchangeable. You need an OEM version of XP MCE or better yet a Dell XP MCE 2005 Reinstallation DVD which will automatically activate within the Dell BIOS without input of a product key.

9 Legend

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16.3K Posts

March 7th, 2013 14:00

You will need to try activation over the phone or use a Dell-branded installation CD.  XP is not as forgiving with mismatched business channels as Vista and 7 are.

3 Posts

March 7th, 2013 15:00

Thank's for the fast response!

Unfortunately, the original DVD shipped with the Computer is not available.

Is it possible to download the DELL OEM Install DVD?

Regards,

Tom

9 Legend

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16.3K Posts

March 7th, 2013 15:00

No.  You'd have to see if you can find one on eBay (or similar) ... they pop up from time to time, but MCE is going to be even harder to find.

3 Posts

March 7th, 2013 23:00

Too bad, that an retail install media does not work. On my Laptop (different brand), I just used the SN on the license sticker to install an ordinary Windows Vista.

Therefore I thought it would be common.

Anyway, thanks for all the replies. 

Regards,

Tom

9 Legend

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16.1K Posts

March 8th, 2013 02:00

For Vista, 7 (Retail Media from Digital River) and 8 (if you have a TechNet/MSDN media or a retail DVD) it works and is covered in my Windows Reinstallation Guide:

http://philipyip.wordpress.com/dell-community-forums/

However this doesn't work for Windows XP.

Regarding download links there are no download links for Dell OEM media although they are greatly desired. I made an idea on IdeaStorm a couple of years ago and got a large number of votes: http://www.ideastorm.com/idea2ReadIdea?v=1359724583158&Id=087700000008YVXAA2

It hasn't been implemented and probably will never be for any of these Operating Systems due to legal/anti-piracy issues with Microsoft especially Windows XP where extend support ends in about a year.

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