That would be a license disk for Compaq SmartStart release 2.30.

I've only used SmartStart 3.60 a few times 10-15 years ago and I have zero professional experience with it - I just got a copy of it with an old Compaq Proliant 1500R my high school was throwing out when I was a teenager. So I may well be misremembering some things. But basically you'd put the SmartStart CD in your Compaq ProLiant or Compaq ProSignia server and it would boot Windows 95 off the CD (with a custom boot splash screen). Instead of the desktop you'd get a wizard that lets you:

• Configure your Compaq SMART RAID controller using a nice GUI application
• Create the Compaq system partition
• Install the EISA configuration utility, diagnostics utility, and array configuration utility to the system partition (a whole lot easier than feeding the server a stack of floppies to do the job)
• Install your server operating system for you (NetWare, Windows NT, OS/2, UnixWare).

I don't recall when it asks for the license diskette - probably when its finished booting and starts the SmartStart wizard (I don't think the diskette is bootable).

I've only installed NetWare 4.11 using the SmartStart CD and I'm very fuzzy on the details. I have a feeling SmartStart did most of the job for you and if you saw the regular NetWare install program at all it was only briefly. It also installed a bunch of extra Compaq server support utilities, drivers, etc, at the same time as well as the most recent NetWare support pack. NetWare is pretty easy to install normally but doing it via SmartStart automated a bunch of stuff making it even easier.

The SmartStart pack came with the SmartStart CD plus the CDs for your chosen operating system but did not necessarily include a license for the operating system. Based on the bits of paper in my SmartStart 3.60 pack, it looks like you'd order a license from Compaq by including the serial number for your program license diskette (stickers were provided), and Compaq would send you back an activation key unique to your license diskette. I don't know if you had to enter the activation key every time you reinstalled the operating system, or if it got stored on the license diskette. I just remember that my Compaq Program License Diskette alone didn't seem to let me install NetWare - I had to supply my own NetWare license during install. But it might just be my High School didn't buy their license through Compaq and so no activation key was applied to the diskette.

The license disk is inserted facing backwards as there is a window on the back of the package that shows the serial number on the floppy disk label.

That's interesting. This would allow Compaq to manufacture and bundle en mass large software packages, without the license information, which they can sell on to you later. Creating a software package that then installs and configures all of those disparate packages would make installation a lot easier for a novice user. This would have been particularly useful in the early days of computing, when there were still a lot of people who had never even used a computer, or only used one rarely.

It sounds like a good product for its time that solved a very real need in the market. Thanks for the history lesson and an explanation of the mystery disk.

Yeah, I imagine it was a decent selling point. Even today its probably still the easiest way to get a vintage Compaq server up and running. Looking a bit further Compaq would actually send out the SmartStart CDs and disk for free - only charge is if you wanted to buy licenses through Compaq rather than buying them elsewhere.

Based on the included poster, it could use off the shelf operating system and software install CDs and Compaq also provided special CDs for NetWare and UnixWare you could optionally use instead. And it could install more than just the operating system too - it could install software like Oracle, SQL Server, etc.

The below shows all release 3.60 could do as well as a little of what the UI looks like nd what the server setup process with SmartStart was:

Its been so long since I last looked at any of this I wish I had a Compaq server handy so I could play around with it again!

Wow. That's pretty amazing, actually. Each binder of software and license key is like a time capsule of server software. Very cool.