I've been trying to stay away from the problem at hand since other members are helping and just tried to explain the OEM copies available for sale at computer stores as well as on-line stores compared to Retail and Upgrade. All other flavors including Corporate, VLK, VLM, Enterprise, Student as well as Manufacturers specific OS re-install disk are not obtainable from a regular store by just anyone.
If the install had to be activated, then it is not Corporate, VLM needs activation and they are sold with as many licenses that were purchased with it meaning so many computers can be activated and when that number is reached activation is refused by MS data base. Corporate, no activation and unlimited installs.
If one of these systems went through few hardware changes and the VLM usage has reached its limit, the activation will not go through and a phone call is needed or the upgraded components need to be replaced with the original components in order to activate without a phone call to MS.
The way to tell the disks apart for sure is to look at the PID in the setupp.ini file in the i386 directory.
Examples:
•Retail = 51882 335
•Volume License = 51883 270
•OEM = 82503 OEM
If the install had to be activated, then it is not Corporate, VLM needs activation and they are sold with as many licenses that were purchased with it meaning so many computers can be activated and when that number is reached activation is refused by MS data base. Corporate, no activation and unlimited installs.
If one of these systems went through few hardware changes and the VLM usage has reached its limit, the activation will not go through and a phone call is needed or the upgraded components need to be replaced with the original components in order to activate without a phone call to MS.
The way to tell the disks apart for sure is to look at the PID in the setupp.ini file in the i386 directory.
Examples:
•Retail = 51882 335
•Volume License = 51883 270
•OEM = 82503 OEM