I had the pleasure of attempting this last night. I changed the hard drive over, and the N110 comes with a recovery cd which I'm pretty sure I can't install windows from. So I'm here to share what I learnt, extrapolating to other netbooks. This may well be common knowledge but it took me a while.
The netbook comes with windows xp home sp3 installed, the key on the base refers to ulcpc. The installed windows uses a different key to that on the base, I assume it makes it cheaper to manufacture if they all use the same key.
Neither this key nor the one on the base works with a retail disk, which is all I had available. It refuses the key. However, if you make an iso file from the disk, and change the line Pid=******* in i386/setupp.ini to be Pid=51882OEM then burn the new iso, it accepts the key on the base of the laptop. Source. So it appears that the key on the base is an oem key. The one it came installed with is presumably a volume licence key, but I'd rather use the one on the sticker.
It's remarkably easy to install from usb these days, thanks to some guys at msdn. I used the gui found here.
Hopefully this helps someone.
The netbook comes with windows xp home sp3 installed, the key on the base refers to ulcpc. The installed windows uses a different key to that on the base, I assume it makes it cheaper to manufacture if they all use the same key.
Neither this key nor the one on the base works with a retail disk, which is all I had available. It refuses the key. However, if you make an iso file from the disk, and change the line Pid=******* in i386/setupp.ini to be Pid=51882OEM then burn the new iso, it accepts the key on the base of the laptop. Source. So it appears that the key on the base is an oem key. The one it came installed with is presumably a volume licence key, but I'd rather use the one on the sticker.
It's remarkably easy to install from usb these days, thanks to some guys at msdn. I used the gui found here.
Hopefully this helps someone.
