I'm sure a lot of you have gone through the process of installing a new OS (XP in this case): put the CD in, do a format, and let 'er go. In most cases, before you get too far along, it asks you for the registration number (off the COA sticker) and if you don't have a good one, it stops.

A few years ago, I bought (eBay) a Dell restore CD, with SP3 on it. It came with a good, unused COA sticker, so I installed it. This particular one lets you install the whole thing and doesn't ask for the number until you try to activate it 30 days later.

Using the Magical Jellybean Keyfinder, I'm able to look at the key any time I want.

A few days ago, I was given a couple of Dell Optiplexes with flakey hard drives. I installed some drives I had laying around and installed XP (each computer had their own COA sticker attached). Hmmm. The little window warning you how long you had to activate it never came up. Using Keyfinder, I was told that there was already a key installed, and it was one I had seen before. Same thing for two computers (so far). Strange.

Last month, I was at a flea market and there was a guy selling used laptops. Apparently, he would service them and take them in for trade-ins, and now he wanted to dump some. Most of them were gone, but I did find a Dell D600 that would make a pretty good internet cruiser so I bought it. It was only $20, so how could I go wrong? Had a fresh copy of XP installed (by him, I presume) and a good COA sticker.

Brought it home and fired it up and, to my astonishment, it had the same registration key as the one referred to above. Three computers (so far), same registration key, never manually entered.

So ... is this some sort of "magic" CD that installs a pre-activated copy of XP? I could imagine it would be used by corporate site-licensed guys to do a lot of installs, but I never heard of it.

Anyone have any clues?