Re: Lost OEM XP home CD

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Bill wrote:
"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:uVFvnJhGGHA.3944@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bill wrote:


Gave my son my 2001 Gateway PC a few months back with all the
software cds, including Win XP home ed,  and he has lost them all the
CDs.
Of course he has not kept the system clean and is experiencing major
problems. The only solution I can think of is to reformat and install
the OS.


Before resorting to such a draconian step, why not desribe the problems here. post them here; it's possible that someone can help you and a reinstallation won't be required.



Not surprisingly gateway will not send me a replacement OS
system too old and out of warranty) and I don't want to invest in a
new purchase especially with Vista on the horizon. I plan on calling
MS on Monday see if they can help at a reasonable price. I still have
the invoice etc


Microsoft won't help, at a reasonable price or not. They will replace CDs at a low price if they are retail copies, but not at all if they are OEM ones.




My question here , and I hope not to offend anyone as I do not want
to do anything illegal, is can I use my Win XP home ed, that came
with my new PC and install it on the old gateway using the gateway
activation/cd key as it still shows that info on the OS. Hope I
explained that properly. Would that work?


It's not illegal, as long as each copy is installed with a different product key. If they were both Full retail copies or both Upgrade copies, it would work. If they were both generic OEM copies, it would work. But many OEMs use BIOS-locked copies and they won't install on anything but the original computer.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup



Ken,

Thanks for your reply.

The problems are of course virus/trojan/spyware related. After spending many hours of scanning with all the popular programs both online and offline, the PC remains sluggish. Also did the usual cleanups, scan disk, defrags etc etc.. Programs are opening and running slow and it just doesn't feel right. I can tell as I had the PC before in my business. So I think the best solution is to do a reinstall.

I now have a Dell with XP home and am thinking of trying it (original OEM) but of course using the activation/key from the Gateway to see if it would work. Of course I have to locate that :-) should be in the OS somewhere?

Bill



It won't work. Has to be a Gateway OEM to work on a Gateway PC. You're pretty much stuck with having to buy XP, either generic OEM, upgrade if you have 98, W2K or Me lying around, or retail.

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