Windows Activation and Norton Ghost

[Tw00sh]

Hi,

I have a classroom of 24 XP professional computers that I just configured. Each system came pre-installed with XP professional and has a seperate key.

The problem is there is no internet in the classroom. I am in the military and the software we are running on the systems is not allowed to be connected to an open network.

So how do I conduct windows activation? I am getting the message that the system will be disabled if not activated in a certain time frame. Is there a resigtry setting to turn this off? I will not need window updates or anything of the such.

Also, can Norton Ghost make an image of more than one partition on a single physical hard disk?

I have a C and D drive that I wanted to ghost into one image to use on all the systems, they all have the same HDD and partitions. Can I do this with Norton Ghost, or will I need another 3rd party software?

[tenchi86]

Call up ms, go to activate and chose the option to activate by phone.

[nicspits]

yep for tenchi's recommendation. Norton Ghost won't support imaging two drives into one so you can either create two different images or use something like partition magic to combine them and then ghost or however you like to do it. I'd just make two images.

[Tw00sh]

Call up ms, go to activate and chose the option to activate by phone.

That seem impractical for 24 PCs that would never be connected to the internet?

Norton Ghost won't support imaging two drives into one

That is not what I am trying to do. I am trying to image two PARTITIONS into one image and than have it image the two partitions back on a drive with the same exact partition sizes.

[nicspits]

Yeah, I got what you're trying to do, I just wrote it out wrong. It won't do it, I've tried.

[Xtreme Barton]

yes call MS. if you try to work around it, than you may find yourself breaking the law. and i know you dont like peeling potatoes..

anyways if you explain your situation to MS they will give you the best bet on how to quickly get it done. but given that there different machines with different id's then you may have to do it 24 times.

[redwraith94]

Yeah, it'll definately suck a** I think their product keys are better than 30 characters long. But look on the bright side, the automated female recording sounds like one damn fine chick :p Maybe you could convince your co to switch to win2k, that's what I use, is much friendlier, in some ways. Or you could just us a cr...<smacks self> :cry: ...oops, I forgot that this was the forums...:D

Seriously though, if you can not connect to the internet, then you will HAVE to do phone activation. Unless like xtreme barton said, you like the idea of a court-martial; 24 'puters x ~$150 U.S. ea. = FELONY (3600 in software piracy)

...Or you could just connect them all to the internet, but somehow I see your stuperiors caring a lot more about that than the piracy :p