A whole raft of useful info there, with thanks. I tried a couple more examples from the Internet Archive, but although they both install ok, neither actvate and need a coa. Also tried an 8.1 example, with the thought that it should work in an 8.1 shipped machine, but the same result. From what I can see, to auto activate without online or phone access, the bios slic data must match the data on the install media. Need to do a bit more digging on the slic thing, to see how that is generated and included in the bios. Also, how to extract that from install media and bios, which could save a lot of time on test installs. Internet Archive also has a dvd "OEM Preinstallation Kit", and wonder if that could be of any help. Meantime, do a bit of digging on the slic subject, but really annoying that have a legit copy, with valid coa, and it should just work, however old it is. uSoft are such hard work...
It is possible to look for slic table with rweverything
I believe nir sofers little firmwaretablesview can also show the slic table FirmwareTablesView
Your machine must have the hp slic table so there is no need to look
Just for information this is the dell one, the others are similar
You could apply the image from the install.wim and then copy the contents of the $oem$ folder to the windows directory that has just been applied before booting into it.
copy
\sources\$oem$\$$\setup
and
\sources\$oem$\$$\system32
into the just applied windows folder.
If you dont know how to do the apply method, winntsetup makes it easier
Thanks, i'll give that a try. I did find an slic toollkit 3.1 at: AfterDawn - Software downloads, reviews, tech news and guides, which looks interesting. Really could not stomach the 8.1 install, so using Rufus to create a usb stick from the 7 ultimate iso, and resinstall 7, Only takes 15-20 minutes using s usb stick, Then use the toolkit to see what it says. Bit of a learning curve, this, getting systems running with older windows. Also found an old artcile on superuser: "Windows (all) OEM activation", with quite a few comments...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/down....aspx?id=51212
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