That's about the same price I'm seeing from other dealers - keep it in a safe place

As far as I know, HP/Compaq only ever supplied "restore CD's" that were meant to work on a particular HP/Compaq laptop. They were not real XP CD's. They had a drive image of what was supposed to be on that model hard drive when sent from the factory. They'd probably check for HP/Compaq hardware at some point.


Unlike nearly every other manufacturer, Dell supplied (or used to supply) real XP install CD's. They do check for Dell hardware at some point, though it may only be for the activation. But there's the chance that the old version of XP on your CD has no means of detecting the SATA hard drive on your new laptop.


Check eBay. Do NOT get a 64-bit version or you'll have problems with games. You want a 32-bit XP.


It's legal as long as you have a license (though it doesn't sound like Cruise02 has a license). When people slipstream drivers or service packs into Windows CD, they HAVE to use a burned CD because the original CD can't be changed to add the drivers/service packs. But you have to have a license for it to be legal. Full retail versions of XP have licenses for up to 3 computers. There are also XP discs described as "for system builders" that cost less but have a license for only one computer.


There are different ways of burning. Usually iso images are used for operating system discs. For mixed media CD's you'd want to use something like bin/cue.

Here's a site that tells more about disc images and different types of image files.
http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-whatiso.htm
I have not used that particular software that they're selling.

Here are instructions for burning an iso image
http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm
You can see that burning an image is a little more complicated than just copying files over.

Yeah, I should have been more clear about that. That particular copy of a Dell XP operating system is also still installed and activated on the original Dell computer.

Jenny, I checked on ebay about an hour ago, found and bought this one -

Retail XP I bought for $88.15

Shall I ask MaG to delete the references to illegal discs in my previous posts about Win XP or should I edit these posts and delete them myself?



Ok, MaG, I won't ask for help with burned copies of OS's anymore - in fact, I just bought a retail XP disc so that I will no longer have any need to want to use/ask for help with a burned OS installation CD - thanks for reminding me.

Now I have a question: What if, say 5 - 15 years or so down the road when I have my computer repair business, and a customer comes that wants me to set up a 32-bit Windows XP system for them (so they can play XP games that won't install/run very well in the newer OSes/they're having problems trying to run XP games in the newer OS's) after Microsoft's support for XP has long ended - how will I be able to activate Windows XP for them (after they've bought a retail version somewhere off the internet) without violating any rules/laws?

XP will be 15 - 35 years old by then and long a thing of the past.

Like us.................. relics from the past.

You won't be able to activate it unless Microsoft releases it as open source/freeware (and there's not a snowballs chance in you know where that's ever going to happen. They own the rights, and that's just the way it is.

In all probability someone will release an emulator/replacement (like DOSBox or ReactOS) -



You and Drac are making me feel my age - I still recall running DOS/Windows 2, and debugging 3.0

Me too, Inland. Loved that old 286 too!

Here it is, folks - a pic of the new laptop!

My New Acer Laptop

Is it b/c all the new motherboards are now branded, is that why I got a BSOD last weekend when I tried to install XP (OS reinstallation disc from the HP Compaq laptop) b/c this disc was an OEM XP CD?

It happened after I shrunk the Win 7 partition, created a new partition for XP which I did a quick NTSF format of (according to the how-to I printed out).

Probably. But all the messing with your new laptop with no regard for the warranty probably had something to do with it. Like I said, I certainly wish you luck as it sounds like you're going to need it.

Is the video card switching working now? That sounds like a neat feature to have on a laptop.

Probably. Restore discs are usually linked to a particular model. But even if it did install, it would have wiped out everything on your hard drive and laid down the factory image of the HP/Compaq computer, complete with all the wrong drivers for your Acer. Most brand name computers use restore discs rather than XP install discs. Dell is the only brand name company I know that used real install discs that could be used for setting up a dual boot. Places like ecollege supply you with a real install disc, but they aren't selling brand name computers.

In that case, would it ignore the 2 partitions (shrunken Win 7 and the new NTFS (for XP) partition) and erased both partitions, and with the wrong drivers, my laptop would be almost useless?

My retail XP disc arr. today, and from what I believe (as well as what it says here from the instruction booklet), I will be able to do a fresh (new, clean) install of XP onto this new NTFS partition, and obtain the drivers by going to the manufacturer's website, d/l & installing them?

The disc I got says "upgrade (incl. SP2)" but I think it's a real XP installation disc that has the service pack upgrade on it - am I right about this?
Also it has the product key on the tri-fold holder.

Instructions from Retail XP CD

There does exist the possibility that you'll have to disable AHCI in the BIOS. There don't seem to be any AHCI/SATA drivers for XP for the Acer Aspire 5745G on the Acer website.
http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers
So you may have to disable AHCI in the BIOS if your drive isn't detected during installation.

You can read more about the problem ***here***. Unfortunately, without any AHCI/SATA drivers for your particular laptop, you can't just slipstream them into the install disc. But I don't know that you'd be using the AHCI functionality anyway.

If it's a system restore disc - yes.



That's correct.



I've not seen a retail version that contains SP upgrades; they usually ship as XP SPx. Maybe Jenny or Drac has run across one.

Edit -

Jenny's correct - this could be an issue for you.

There does exist the possibility that you'll have to disable AHCI in the BIOS. There don't seem to be any AHCI/SATA drivers for XP for the Acer Aspire 5745G on the Acer website.
http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers
So you may have to disable AHCI in the BIOS if your drive isn't detected during installation.

You can read more about the problem ***here***. Unfortunately, without any AHCI/SATA drivers for your particular laptop, you can't just slipstream them into the install disc. But I don't know that you'd be using the AHCI functionality anyway

I haven't run into any SP upgrades on an XP installation disk either. The more recent ones come with SP2 or SP3. I would have some concern about the box saying Upgrade on it. All the XP upgrades I've purchased required some prior version of a Windows Operating system.

I agree that drivers are probably going to be a problem for this endeavor. When I had my XP drive in the computer I built, I had to disable AHCI in the BIOS in order for the drive to be recognized. That may not have been the only issue, but it just never ran well.

The link Cruise02 gave leads ***here***. Part of the description reads

So it has SP1.

Cruise02,
It looks like you may have an Upgrade version instead of a Full version of XP. But if you have an old Windows CD that you're not using, such as a Windows 95 disc, you can use that for qualifying media. ***Paul Thurrott's website*** tells how to do a clean install of XP. The part relevant to doing a clean install using an upgrade disc is

Note that where he says "these products cannot be upgraded to XP" he's talking about an "in-place upgrade." In other words, if you have Windows 95 on your computer, you can't just install XP over your Windows 95 installation and keep all your old Windows 95 settings. You have to do a fresh install of XP on the Windows 95 computer.

And assuming that cruise has a 95 or 98 version of Windows to install in order to complete the upgrade to XP, she will have to find some way to disable anything more than 1 GB of RAM. I've installed legal copies of Windows 98 on 3 computers with 2 or 4 GB of RAM in order to upgrade to Windows XP. Windows 98 will not install on more than 1 GB of RAM. Easy to do on a desktop, but not so easy to do on a laptop.

She doesn't have to install Windows 95 or 98. You just put the Windows 95/98 disc in the drive when the XP install asks for qualifying media. When it's satisfied, you put the XP disc back in and continue the install.

Does it work like that on a new unformatted hard drive? When I did those upgrades, one was on a disk that was already running 98, so I just had to pop in the 98 disk when the XP installation disk asked like you said - of course with no RAM issues because 98 was already installed. But the other two were on new hard drives and the upgrade would not work until I actually installed the 98 OS (having to remove RAM to do it). Perhaps the difference is that the new drives were not formatted? Cruise has already formatted her new partition, so it might work for her.

Maybe I'm way off base here though. I just know that both the upgrades I did on the new drives would not work until I actually installed 98. Operator error is always a possibility too!

One concern I would address is with the person I bought the software from.... if it did not state upgrade then I would not want or expect upgrade. I would go back and ask for explanation and the complete xp software..
edit
Well I just read this on the link provided. It was in Red. Would lead me to belive it was an upgrade.
"A great choice....at a great price!!....Never got around to upgrading your old operating system...now you can!!"

Yes, it clearly stated that it is an upgrade, not a full installation disk.

According to Paul Thurrott's website (and several other websites on the Internet) all you need is the disc, and you don't actually have to install the old version of Windows.

Also on p. 21 of Windows XP Inside Out, 2nd edition, it says:


Since I don't have an upgrade version of XP, I've never installed from one myself. But there's plenty of information saying it's supposed to work.

So did I get cheated out of my money? Did I get suckered into buying this XP software thinking it was a full retail version?

Am I a fool? A computer sucker?

It's a retail upgrade version instead of a full version. But as long as you have an old Windows CD you should be able to do a clean install with it.

You have to read eBay auctions very carefully. Unless they say upfront that it's a full version, you have to email the seller to be sure.