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A few days ago, my 5 year old Compaq Presario computer crashed, for no apparent reason. My "puter" friend says they are designed to last about 5 years, and if you get more than that out of them you're lucky! So, off I go to Wal-Mart at midnight, to see what they've got, and lo and behold, they now sell the towers by themselves! Great. Don't need a new monitor anyhow. I picked up another Compaq Presario for $300.00, and was back on line in just a few hours!
The only thing is that this one came with Windows Vista, as they all do now, and it sucks! Do any of y'all have a Windows XP installation disc you could mail to me? I'll send it back after I get it installed.

wal-mart at midnite in Alabama........

LOL Jamie. That's a good one

Chuck, unfortunately, starting with Windows XP, Microsoft started making online registration mandatory. So, this means that after the 90 day "trial" period on Windows XP, you either have to register it or it deactivates key features of the operating system. I don't know if this is still the case with the latest versions (SP2) of windows XP or not.

Now, this may not sound like a big deal except that this registration helps Microsoft to ensure that a specific copy of Windows XP is only registered once. So, if I were to send you my copy of XP and you registered it using the registration key that is attached, then the online reg process would know that there are now two copies of that XP installation running. It's even likely that it could be known by Miscrosoft that one copy is running on an IP address in Virginia and the other is on an Alabama IP address!!

So, to make a long story short... you're far better off to go drop $100.00 on a fresh copy of XP that you can call your own...as unfortunate as that may be. There are a lot of places online where you can buy... I'll try to reply back with a link later this morning.

By the way...congrats on getting back up and running so quickly!

Did you h ave XP installed on your previous computer? i.e. do you have a Windows XP registration code from your old machine? You may be able to borrow a disk and use your old registration code... I did this once and ended up having to call Microsoft to tell them that I replaced the Hard Drive in my machine and had to reinstall the OS. They understood and allowed me to re-register my old copy.

Here's where you can buy a new OEM version of Windows XP from Amazon.com. It's $89.99.

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows ... B000JTFVME

Good luck!

Thanks for all the info, y'all. But I've decided that I'd better just accept Vista, and leave stuff alone for now! The same thing happened when they moved from Windows 98 to Windows XP. I didn't feel comfortable with XP for a while either. So, I'll just "buck up" and accept Vista, and learn what I can and can't do with it. Now it's time to get out there and go after those big Blue Catfish. Our freezer is empty of all things fishy!
By the way, Rick, I have been having a ball with my Mag Lite!! All my cop friends like it but say it isn't practical to carry because it's too big. I tell them that they could always THROW it at the crooks! Later, y'all

my freezer is empty of fish too....I had to have steak last nite-

HEY punk. What did you do with my Lisa girl? She'd better be there and alive and well. That csteak looks mighty suspicious.

Good luck with Vista, Chuck. I refuse! lol

Jamie..that's a rough lookin' steak lol