Windows 10 license doesn't allow imaging?

[ttblum]

Hello,

We have several Dell laptops, each with it's own Windows 10 keycode. We would like to be able to deploy Windows 10 to one laptop with opsi, configure it, sysprep it, then take an image with clonezilla to deploy it to the others.

To try this, we deployed an unattended install to a laptop, did a sysprep, took an image with clonezilla, and then transferred it to another laptop of the same model.

When we booted the other laptop it went through the sysprep wizard OK. We got an error when we tried to change the keycode and activate:





We called Dell - they're saying that, without an Enterprise license, you can't legally image WIndows 10 from one computer to another, is this true?

[uncle_scrooge]

Microsoft welcomes you to licensing hell. Come back often as we change this place regularly.

This might shed some light on this issue:
https://redmondmag.com/articles/2017/02 ... ights.aspx

In short: you need at least one VL license. Media and key.

[ttblum]

Ok, I'm still curious to try:

- Load Windows 10 on system, without putting a keycode in or activating it
- Imaging this to another system
- Try to activate both systems with different keycodes

I wonder if this would work, and if so, if this would be legal.

[uncle_scrooge]

Err?
You have read the linked article? And you followed the link inside this article to "Reimaging Rights" licensing brief?

If your OEM devices come with Win10 Pro preinstalled you can reimage them with a VL licensed Win10 Pro 'golden image'. And it's legal.
You can't image them with Enterprise/Home/whatever flavour is en vogue.

[larsg]

so i got this right, your laptops come with windows 10 oem preinstalled?
under windows 7 oem we had this very issue alot, the provided key found on the case didn't work for activation after applying a custom image.

not sure if this still applies to windows 10 oem, but for getting the license for windows 7 oem, we had to export the actual license files on the original pc we took the image from, and re-import them on the other pc's. at least that way was guaranteed to work reliably. note, this only works for pc's from the same vendor and not neccesserily for all pc's from that vendor. to be save, make sure to export the license for every new modell/type of pc you get.

there are several ways on how to export the license files, easiest would likely be using this tool: https://directedge.us/content/abr-activ ... nd-restore

[ttblum]

Yes, Windows 7 OEM versions and vanilla versions of Windows 7 had different licensing and keycodes.

Windows 10 is different.

With Windows 10, the keycode is actually stored in the BIOS of each machine. The powershell command to show what keycode is stored in the BIOS is:

(Get-WmiObject -query "select * from SoftwareLicensingService").OA3xOriginalProductKey

As far as imaging Windows 10 from one computer to another (instead of clean loading like Opsi does), we found that the licensing actually makes it illegal to image Windows 10 to a different computer, unless you use a special volume license DVD image to install Windows.

We have a volume license DVD image, but don't have a volume license. Therefore it's legal for us to image from one system to another and use the built-in BIOS keycodes for Windows 10. However, when using the builtin keycodes we found that once we join a computer to a domain, sysprep is unable to strip everything out, so it can't be imaged anyways because the imaged systems won't activate.

[wolfbardo]

From a technical point of view one can try

• - create an Image wit the media creation tool an an activated and licensed client
  - use the created medium as a base for usage with opsi-wim-capture
  - redeploy a client with the captured image
  - try activate-win on the deployed client without key

edit:

opsi-wimcapture from testing (see viewtopic.php?f=10&t=10014)

regards,
bardo wolf

[SisterOfMercy]

Or run pykms on a server and separate the technical stuff from the rest. Use the normal kms client key on the client.

Even microsoft can't tell you what you're allowed to do and what not. It's a pain in the ass, just like uncle_scrooge said.
But if MS doesn't even know.. sigh.
If I deploy 15 windows 7 professional clients, and have 10 of them in a volume license agreement and 5 others in legally bought originals, they can stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

Oh, by teh way, you can also get a shitload of second hand licenses. If you're in the EU, this is legal, and microsoft has to accept it. Because of our largest customer we had to continue using microsoft office. Office 2016 is a piece of junk, but at 120 euro instead of 360 euro per computer it hurts less.