New
#1
Windows 7 Licensing
I have recently found out that MS/Dell no longer have COAs on the outside of their computers as they're trying to cut down on piracy. Instead, they use a SLIC table in the BIOS. Our general procedure upon receiving a new computer from Dell is to immediately wipe the factory image and install our company's own. In this case, what license key are we to use? We use an XML file to apply the key and it would suck to have to manually change it for every system.
When we ran into this in the past, we were told that the COA was the real license and that any OEM key would work. We installed Win 7 from an OEM cd, used keyfinder to get the key, and use that with all of our installations. Is this still (was it ever??) a valid procedure? What is the industry accepted way to do this?