Win XP Question

ttreaders

ttreaders

ttreaders

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Joined
28 May 2007
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656
Hi guys, a friend of mine needs to format and reinstall windows xp home. He got it from a friend who had originally got it from some retailer and so was only given a recovery disk - the cd key label though is on the back of the case.

I am pretty sure the cd key would have been for a SP1 disc... I only have a windows xp disc with SP2 on it.. if I install using my SP2 disc will the SP1 key work with it?
 
You'll need a "matching" XP disk... the OEM license keys don't work with retail box CDs, and vice versa. It gets worse still if it's a tier one OEM machine. A Compaq OEM key will only work with a Compaq CD on a Compaq machine as it's all locked into vendor id strings in the BIOS. I suspect it's going to be recovery disk or nothing at all in this case. Examine the sticker on the box, you might be ok if you can get hold of an OEM XP disk if it's just a "white-box" small system builder type install.
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Thanks for the reply, oh dear sounds rather complicated. Ok the disc I have is actually OEM in a brown box (got from this site).

He thinks he has acquired a load of viruses - the computer boots into windows and automatically turns off after a few seconds. I haven't had chance to go over and check it yet (going tommorow) but it doesn't sound like I am going to be able to do a lot with it. How does the recovery disk work? Do I set the computer to boot from disk and run it?
 
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