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[Limedust]

A friend of mine asked me what I might be able to do for his spy-ware loaded laptop. He bought it used from a company that, in turn, bought them from Dell. He has the original issued CD key for WinXP, but the OS install disc has been lost. My question is this: Can I use any retail XP Home Edition install disc to reinstall a fresh run of Windows and use his CD key, or must I acquire a Dell OEM WinXP disc?

 

[Danj]

A friend of mine asked me what I might be able to do for his spy-ware loaded laptop. He bought it used from a company that, in turn, bought them from Dell. He has the original issued CD key for WinXP, but the OS install disc has been lost. My question is this: Can I use any retail XP Home Edition install disc to reinstall a fresh run of Windows and use his CD key, or must I acquire a Dell OEM WinXP disc?

You'd need an OEM XP Home disc, but it doesn't have to be a Dell one. The key series are different between OEM and retail box copies, so I don't think a retail version will work. If you know somebody else who got Home bundled with their computer and has an XP disc, that disc would probably work too.

Alternatively, you could get rid of the spyware; take a look at my Spyware Cleaning Guide for example.