Any Documentation of Channel ID for Windows 2003 Server?

[Guest Will]

This Microsoft knowledge base article 889713 partly explains how to

determine which channel your installed Windows 2003 comes from:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889713

 

Open Explorer and right click My Computer and select Properties. The

Registered To section of the General tab contains a five digit number which

identifies the general type of Windows you are using. The following three

digits are the Channel ID, and that is what tells you whether the copy is

Retail, Dell OEM, HP OEM, Retail, Generic OEM, MSDN, etc.

 

Unfortunately, the above document does NOT define the Channel IDs!! As

amazing as that oversight is (what is the point of the document that tells

you where to find the magic code but doesn't document the code's possible

values?!?!), is there any documentation available on the values for the

channel ID?

 

We have an installation of Windows 2003 Server standard 32-bit here and I am

trying to document where the install CD and key came from and I cannot

locate either the install CD or find documentation about the code. I

wanted to go by channel ID to give me some clues. I also wanted to

clearly document for all of our installations which of our keys are retail

and which are OEM, as the way they have it documented now I only have the

machine name and key value itself. If I want to clone a configuration and

use SYSPREP to force a license change with a different key for the new

computer it is critical that I use the same type of key as was on the

original or you end up having the new key. For reasons I cannot understand

Microsoft doesn't let you change license types across different channel IDs.

You would think they would at least let you upgrade an OEM version to

Retail.

 

So the bottom line where do I find documentation of the Channel IDs so that

I can figure out what we already have installed. If no documentation is

available, then at minimum I would like to know the Channel IDs for:

 

- Retail

- MSDN

- HP OEM

- Dell OEM

- Generic OEM

 

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Will