A friend of mine gave me an old P2 400 to mess around with. I am thinking about wiping it and installing Linux.

He had installed XP on it (it ran like crap of course). His kids used it mostly.

1. There are four user accounts set up, but they cannot remember the passwords for any of them. Is there any way that i can get into the machine on ANY of these accounts?  I really just want to get on there so i can run some hardware recognition tools before I wipe.

2. Is it technically legal for me to use the XP LICENSE to install on another machine, as long as there is only ONE machine using that license. For some reason, my gut says no, but in my opinion that would be a bunch of crap and I would find it very hard to swallow.


PKDo you have the real XP CD and a COA (the small sticker with the 25 digit code in the format xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx)?

Regarding the plan on what OS to install, what are the other hardware details on the P2 machine - RAM, HD, OPTICAL drives, brand of computer or motherboard, etc.?Yes, I have the COA and CD.

The P2 is a Gateway. That is why I wanted to be able to get into those locked accounts, so I could run some tools to tell me more information. I can probably find out through other methods, but tools such as CPU-Z and SysID make it so much easier.

I know that it is a P2 400, 10 GB Hdrive, 3 RAM slots (PC100 i believe - at least THATS what is installed), AGP port with a 16 mb STB Velocity card (Nvidia TNT??) -- thats about all I know. Looks like a good Linux box to me.

PK[highlight]Elephants.[/highlight]Here is a free trial of Passware Kit and you baicaly create a floppy and restart pc and it will reset teh password for the adimistrator account.. so give it a try here is the link... just download the trial the full version cost big BUX.. so get the free trial it WORKS the same..

http://www.lostpassword.com/windows-xp-2000-nt.htm

It would make a much better anything box than an XP box. What version depends on how much RAM is in there. You should be able to get that information from the BIOS or during boot. Let us know.Mark, you're slipping.  

Just boot a Knoppix Live Linux CD - that'll detect most if not all of the hardware.Yeah, I told him not to bother installing XP on it, but he said that it worked good enough for the kids.

I am not sure how much RAM will be left when i get done shuffling things around. I have a bunch of 64 and 128 MB sticks that i want to try to sell and buy some 256's. Depending on how that goes, it will have between 256 and 512.

I never thought about the Live Linux CD.  I was actually thinking about Puppy Linux as the flavor though.  Will it give me the hardware details that I need?  I guess worst case scenario I can just figure it out as I go.

pkIt sounded like you knew the important things already - processor, graphics, hard drive.  

That is enough for Vector Linux right there.Any input on question #2?

By the way, this is an OEM copy that he bought on ebay (new of course). Will that make a difference?

I REALLY do not want to have to buy another copy to put on that P3 and its wasted on the P2.

PK
It will probably be OK, but call Microsoft and ask them. 1-800-MICROSOFTSome OEM licences forbid installation on any hardware other than the hardware supplied with the OS.  You can comply with this requirement fully by taking the last remaining screw from the old machine, and upgrading it by adding a case, motherboard, power supply, hard drive.......I have used this little trick to wipe out the pass word accounts, near the battery there should be three pins with a blue or brown plastic jumper connected to two of them, I just turned the system off, put the jumper on the empty pin and the center pin, start up the system,shut the system off and return the pin to the original position, that wipes the administrator account clean and you can be the original administrator, the original jumper is usually the center pin and the pin to the right of center.But that is for a hardware (BIOS) password, not a software (Windows) password.I called MS today and explained my situation. I was told that OEM licenses cannot be transferred. Retail yes, OEM no. It is a one machine forever install. I don't think we understood each other at first. I think she thought I meant it was a branded OEM version, but we straightened that out. She basically told me that even if the old system CRASHED and burned, i would still not be able to ever use that license again. My only option regarding the P3 would be to either buy the full retail (not an option) or the updrage since it has Win98 installed and I have a Win98 CD.

She also claimed that the OEM versions are not as complete as the full retail and may be lacking some features???

So basically, if we look at things "legally," i have two new giant paperweights.

This really annoys me.

I guess now my question is....will it WORK with the OEM version that I have? I am not asking if i should or shouldn't....just will it work? It sounds like an unknown, which is my fear.

PK