Using ICE to read WES7 BIOS Embedded OEM PID on HP Thin Clients

[mcgeezer]

Hi there,

I'm hoping someone can shed some light on if what I'm trying to do is even possible.

My company purchased over a thousand Hewlett Packard t5740e thin client terminals a few years ago, the terminals have an embedded OEM product key set in their BIOS.

When a stock HP T5740e image is installed a package in the image must automatically read and activate windows because no key is ever asked for.

However, the HP image comes with quite alot of bloatware and what I'd like to do is create and deploy my own image for the t5740e with a much lighter footprint... however, using the Image Configuration Editor for Windows 7 there is no option that I can see to have the OEM product key automatically read to activate Windows.

So my question is, am I barking up the wrong tree? Should I be able to do this with the tools I have to hand or by deploying my own image to these terminals am I breaching a license agreement between MS/HP and ourselves?

Any help would be really appreciated..

Thanks,
mcgeezer

 

[NoelDP]

The Key is installed from the disk - not from the BIOS. The BIOS contains a SLIC table which holds certificates which match the Key and validate it on every boot. This also requires license that are present on the installation media.
Your best bet would be to contact HP and request a special build for your machines - otherwise you're going to have to enter the COA Key on each machine.