Windows XP: which version?

OK- it's easy to find out which version of XP is installed; if it's Home, Pro, or Media Center. But how does one figure it out if it was installed from an upgrade CD? or from an enterprise/corporate/volume licensed CD? For example: if the PC doesn't have a product key sticker, and I need to use something like ProduKey or KeyFinder to get the key to re-install Windows, how do I know which version was installed? Upgrade product keys and corporate/volume product keys, and regular full version product keys are not interchangeable. So if I pull the key off the PC I'd need to know which CD to use to re-install it.... any ideas? I do some part-time PC 'tech' work, and it seems that 90% of the PC owners do not have their Windows install CD's, or driver CD's... what's up with that? And it also seems that if there's no product key sticker, then there's absolutely no way the owner has ANY discs. At all. Ever.

 

Have you tried Belarc Advisor? You get a very detailed report of all installed apps.

Jason

 

Hmmm... no I haven't; I don't think it would tell me if the XP install was from an upgrade CD or a corporate CD but I could be wrong. I'll check it out and see what happens. Any other ideas out there?

 

I'd have to double check, but it used to be that msinfo32 would tell you if it was an upgrade or not.

 

It is, for sure an interesting question (I do not know if what I Am going to ask is right in this thread, but...) How many "flavors" of Win Xp are out there???

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/evaluation/compare.mspx for number of versions/editions. Beyond that, it is often important to know what Service Pack (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx), if any, has been installed to the version of XP.
Sheesh...and Vista puts this to :***.