My company is ordering 24 Dell OptiPlex PC's with Windows 7 Enterprise 32 bit installed on each of them. I would like to Sysprep one of these OptiPlex PC's and install desired software on it. After that Image the PC and deploy the Image to the remaining 23 OptiPlex PC's. Will I have any Windows Licensing issues with this proposed deployment? Thanks in Advance.
If the block of 24-PCs are being purchased with pre-Activated standard OEM licenses, I see no issues with that deployment. The resultant license on each of those machines will be the same, which is exactly the way they were received initially. OEM licenses are not managed the same way as End User licenses... MicroSloth is not involved once the OEM license has been established with the manufacturer. ...and you can always ask the OEM to be absolutely sure rather than rely on the word of a silly Frog
The Dell PC's have three partitions: 1. Diagnostics. 2. OS. 3. Restore If I select only the Diagnostics and OS Partitions to image, what IFL restore options would I select for restoring the image expanded to the entire destination drive (No restore partition and use all of the destination drive space)? Thanks in Advance.
Check the Restore partition in Disk Management. If it is the System partition then it contains the booting files. That is a typical Dell Win7 setup.
Buying computers with Windows 7 Enterprise preinstalled… that doesn’t sound right. Windows Enterprise is only available via Volume Licensing, not OEM. If you are buying computers with Windows 7 Enterprise and the licenses for these computers aren’t being supplied by your organization, I would seriously question if the licenses are genuine. On the other hand, if you are buying computers with Windows 7 Professional on them and you want to reimage with the Windows 7 Professional image, there should be no issues with activation as long as you Sysprep and enter each license key individually. If you are buying computers with Windows 7 Professional OEM licenses and supplying your organization’s Windows 7 Enterprise licenses via Reimaging Rights, again, there should be no problem so long as your MAK or KMS has enough activations. Brandon Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro Windows for IT Pros on TechNet
