Reloading Windows (XP)

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I teach computer classes and frequently “clean up” classroom computers by reformatting, reloading everything. I’ve recently ordered some Windows XP systems – and I’m beginning to worry. Will I be able to reload? Will I need to re-register? Will Microsoft let me register the same system several times? I’m REALLY worrying about Office XP when I get forced into that one, but I’m not facing that one yet. Words of wisdom are requested.
Thanks.

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Each time Windows XP is installed one must “Activate” it, Windows XP, NEVER has to be “registered”, this is optional. This can be do as many times as one needs to as long as you do NOT add, replace or remove to much hardware.

Also if you have a cd burner, you can burn “images” of EACH computer and restore these eimages each time. Just make sure that the Image software will work with Windows XP. Note that a lot of these programs will NOT work with NTFS.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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If you do “cleaning up” many identical machines on a regular basis, consider to purchase Norton Ghost. This utility allow you to create an image of clean installation and restore that image, totally sweeping out all files, in fifteen-twenty minutes (you can do many computers at the same time) without any trouble. Since you will reimaging the same computers, there are no legal objections to do it. It will be a life saver for your techs.

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If you ordered systems with an OEM version of WinXP preinstalled then they are not supposed to require activation. Your problem here may be what the vendor gives you as a back-up copy to reinstall. If you are getting retail copies of the software then product activation applies.

You can read about Windows Product Activation here:

http://aumha.org/a/wpa.htm

How often do you “Clean Up” these computers? If it is less than 30 days, you will not have to activate at all. If you do activate it should install on the same hardware with no problems but if there is a problem it should just take a call to MS (no experience here just repeating what I have read).

OfficeXP on the other hand gives you 50 starts before you have to activate. But, Office creates a file called data.dat that has the activation info. Just copy that and as long as you put the same copy on the same hardware you can copy it back and it will still be activated. I have reformatted a hard drive and reinstalled OfficeXP and it was still activated after I copied data.dat (that I had saved to a floppy) back to its original location.

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