Windows question

[crane]

I know this is an Ubuntu linux forum and all but, I have a question concerning windows and figured that some one here could help. Please don't attack me or answer with "you should install linux".

My wife's company has aquired a couple other small companies. They are wanting to get everything computer wise cleaned up and hooked to the network.

Her and her employer feel the same was about running boot legged software. We have found 17 computers with windows 98 to XP installed and all have Office installed. We have only found 7 copies of windows with keys and 2 copies of office.

Our plan is to run OO.o on most of the computers but we were wanting to know if there is some way to see what cd software keys are on what computers so we can put the disks with the systems they belong to and uninstall the rest.

Is there and easy way to do this?

Thanks for any input!

[BWF89]

So are you guys going to leave the computers running legal Windows alone and install Linux on the bootleg Windows computers?

When you guys swtich to OOo, are you going to use OpenOffice's native file format or are you going to use the Microsoft.doc format?

I'd imagine that if you just called up Microsoft they could do a systemcheck and see if your running "The Genuine Windows Experience" :grin: or a bootleg.

[jeremy]

You can find the keys in the 'registry', run 'regedit' then search for the keys.

[crane]

So are you guys going to leave the computers running legal Windows alone and install Linux on the bootleg Windows computers?

When you guys swtich to OOo, are you going to use OpenOffice's native file format or are you going to use the Microsoft.doc format?

I'd imagine that if you just called up Microsoft they could do a systemcheck and see if your running "The Genuine Windows Experience" :grin: or a bootleg.

They plan on using Linux a little, more of an experimental bases. Right now Linux nor firefox support the x-ray software that they use. And the total cost of the X-ray system (software, server, and legalities) insures that they will not move to something that does not support it :???: .

They basicly want to match the cd's to their systems and purchase however many copies are needed for the rest.
I couldn't get them to move to linux btu they are moving to OO.o \\:D/ .
Thats the other part. Match the few office cds to their rightfull computers and install OO on the rest.

[crane]

You can find the keys in the 'registry', run 'regedit' then search for the keys.
This will not show the key itself. So I can match it to the cd 's I have.
I may end up just calling Microsoft but I hate talking on the phone or worse yet being put on hold until the next available customer service rep is available :roll:

[TravisNewman]

" They basicly want to match the cd's to their systems and purchase however many copies are needed for the rest.
I couldn't get them to move to linux btu they are moving to OO.o \\:D/ .
Thats the other part. Match the few office cds to their rightfull computers and install OO on the rest."

That may not be as easy as you want. I would imagine that many copies of each were installed using the same key. Either they had to hack the activation, or they're all legitimate, so why would they bother using a keygen? Finding the one "legitimate" install from one cd will be almost impossible.

[TravisNewman]

This will not show the key itself. So I can match it to the cd 's I have.
I may end up just calling Microsoft but I hate talking on the phone or worse yet being put on hold until the next available customer service rep is available :roll:
There's a tool somewhere called the "magic jellybean keyfinder" that will display the key used to install Windows.

However, that didn't always work for me for some reason.

[crane]

There's a tool somewhere called the "magic jellybean keyfinder" that will display the key used to install Windows.

However, that didn't always work for me for some reason.


Cool thanks! I'll give that a try. I know if I try to use windows update it would tell me if it was legit. But I'm not sure about office. I'll give this program a try and se what happens!!

[drizek]

maybe i misunderstood, but why not jsut reformat all the pc's and reinstall office/windows on them again? this might sound like a bad idea at first, but windows pc's need to be reformated every 2 months anyway. ;)

BTW, if you plan on buying windows licenses for the illegit ones, get win 2k off of ebay or something.

also, i was using office 2k3 yesterday and i tried savign a file as an xml. very cool. its about 11kb for a two page text document and 15kb with wordart. rtf jumped from 8kb with text to 46kb with text+wordart. .doc went from 23kb to 27kb with wordart. i havent tried opening an xml in openoffice/koffice yet, but im sure that it will work better than a .doc. i opened one in notepad and all the text is there and its coverd in formatting. a .doc is just random crap. xml is a much much better file format than .doc, and doesnt go crazy like rtf when you add any non-text in it.

but make sure to use .odx formats when exchanging files between the OOo pc's.

[Kapre]

I know this is an Ubuntu linux forum and all but, I have a question concerning windows and figured that some one here could help. Please don't attack me or answer with "you should install linux".

My wife's company has aquired a couple other small companies. They are wanting to get everything computer wise cleaned up and hooked to the network.

Her and her employer feel the same was about running boot legged software. We have found 17 computers with windows 98 to XP installed and all have Office installed. We have only found 7 copies of windows with keys and 2 copies of office.

Our plan is to run OO.o on most of the computers but we were wanting to know if there is some way to see what cd software keys are on what computers so we can put the disks with the systems they belong to and uninstall the rest.

Is there and easy way to do this?

Thanks for any input!


Don't know if this will help..but in the office (which we're using Win2K), there is a program that is called "MyDetails" which shows all info about the PC (IP, Volume and Serial Number).

I just thought that you can match this with the CDs that you have.

K

[crane]

maybe i misunderstood, but why not jsut reformat all the pc's and reinstall office/windows on them again? this might sound like a bad idea at first, but windows pc's need to be reformated every 2 months anyway. ;)



Reformatting is not needed. We basicly want to make sure we don't have two or more PC's using the same serial key. I think reformatting a PC every 2 months would be kind of silly. I have no reason to reinstall if the OS or program is working good. We are just trying to get everything orginized and legit.


Thanks for the tip panickedthumb!! The magic Jellybean worked great. The only issue it had was it was unable to find office 97 keys. Going to give the program Kapre metioned a try for that.

Thanks for the help everyone. :) :)