Is the Windows XP on our Thinkpads "corporate" ?

[keleko]

Does anyone know whether or not the Windows XP Pro (Preloaded/Recovery CDs) that comes with our ThinkPads is actually a Corporate Edition? Or could it be that it functions in a similar manner? We do not need to activate, so that leads me to believe that it is.
I'm asking because I am unsure if I should opt not to have NLITE remove oobe.exe from the so called "slipstreamed install CD" (oobe.exe controls the product activation).

Oddly, I didn't find anything searching under those keywords. It seems to me like a question that has probably been asked before. Thanks for any responses.

[dr_st]

It's a pre-activated OEM.

[jdhurst]

So far as I know, there is no such thing as Corporate Windows. There is XP Pro and XP Home (rubbish) and either can come OEM or Full. Corporations can purchase a volume license agreement for Pro where they get a Key for x licenses and an install CD. But it is still just Windows XP Pro. ... JD Hurst

[d lehmann]

The version that is widely and commanly known as the Corporate version is as jdhurst said just is a volume lisence version of xppro.

The difference between it and the retail and oem versions is that although it requires a cd key to install, there is no activation requirements.

The oem versions that come on the tp's as mentioned is pre activated, but does not require a cd key to install.

There are other oem versions that require both the cd to install and activation before 30 days.

[keleko]

Thanks! I understand better now.

[dr_st]

So far as I know, there is no such thing as Corporate Windows. There is XP Pro and XP Home (rubbish) and either can come OEM or Full. Corporations can purchase a volume license agreement for Pro where they get a Key for x licenses and an install CD. But it is still just Windows XP Pro. ... JD Hurst

Basically, you are right, but I'll try to summarize it better.

Like you said, there are two versions of the WinXP OS - Pro and Home (leaving the 64-bit versions aside for now).

The Home version comes in two flavours - OEM and Retail.
The Pro version comes in three flavours - OEM, Retail and Corporate (also known as Volume Licensing Key, VLK). Like said, it is the version that requires no activation.

Functionality is exactly the same. The difference is in some of the setup files that exist on the CD, which identify the particular copy as one of the two (in case of Home) or one of the three (in case of Pro).

Each flavour comes with its own set of serial keys, and these are incompatible. You can only use a retail XP Pro key with the retail version of XP Pro, etc.

For laptop vendors, MS leases OEM keys and preactivates them to save the trouble for the end users. If you tried to use that key with some other copy of XP OEM on some other computer, you would need to activate it.