CD Key from unattended install

[JustGretchen]

Greetings,

I've been a mac guy for quite some time, and I have the need to install Windows at this time for a specific application. Long ago, when I left the Windows world, I had created a slipstreamed sp2 disk using some program that I can't recall the name of to do that.

I had a Windows XP Pro license and Copy of SP1 from an old Dell I owned and used that disk to make an ISO and slipstream SP2 into it. I went on a scavenger hunt for that slipstreamed disk through all my old PC stuff I haven't touched in years, and I did find it, unfortunately, and somewhat uncharacteristically, I didn't write the license key on the front of the disk.

So here I sit trying to use Parallels on Mac to install Windows, but my unattended install off this old slipstreamed SP2 disk is prompting me for that CD key, so I'm wondering how to find it within the disk, or if it's even possible. I am 100% certain that I created the disk that way because I used it to reinstall Windows so many times on my PC when I had it and never entered a key.

In the research I did, the only thing I found was telling me to find the unattended.txt file on the disk. That, however, does not exist. This bums me out because it's a 100% legit license key that I paid for when I bought that Dell so many years ago.

Any help anyone can give would be great and much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[p.g]

have you tried boot camp? does that ask you for a license key?

 

[balamw]

Do you still have the Dell? Basement? Attic? Closet? The key is on the sticker on it.

That said, the Dell license is supposed to be tied to the Dell for good, you have no explicit "transfer rights" to move it to another computer. So even if you do find the key, Microsoft doesn't have to activate that license on anything other than the Dell.

B