windows xp where to buy cheap

4743hudsonj

wilson1973 wrote: »

Hi to be fair a guy at work built it years ago(desktop) it came with xp but i wasnt given any discs with it after about 4 years i had problems with it i deleted a few things it appeared i shouldnt have and was stuck with a knackered pc,only after using a pc at the local library(over 6 months) after googling, i discovered an os called ubunbtu i ordered their os which was delivered to my door free of charge , i was able to get my pc to boot from cd and i loaded ubuntu wiping the remnants of the xp that no longer worked a few months down the line ubuntu has only been good in the way my son can play lots of shoddy on line free games without infecting my pc,but i miss xp i had been using it for years and would like it again but im out of work at the moment and so would need to find it at a good price

i know it may be a long shot but maybe try kubuntu?

it runs on the KDE desktop not Gnome so looks and feels different to ubuntu although it is made by the same people.

it looks more like windows vista in my opinion and doesn't seem to different.

plus its free!

so maybe a compromise between free ubuntu and familiar windows?

http://kde.org/announcements/announce_4.2-beta1/desktop.png

Money_Grabber13579

So then you should have a key for the XP installation? If so, then you only need the CD, which probably could be borrowed off someone.

Run this program to see if you can find the key on your computer. Might or might not work though!

robredz

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

So then you should have a key for the XP installation? If so, then you only need the CD, which probably could be borrowed off someone.

Run this program to see if you can find the key on your computer. Might or might not work though!

If the OP installed Ubuntu as they described, the HDD would have been vaped & reformatted for Ubuntu, and all keys would be history, so the only option would be an OEM XP disk and a disk partitioning to dual boot or a complete reformat & XP install. Problem will come when they need drivers for the hardware. 4743hudsonj's idea is good also as KDE can be made to feel more like windows than Gnome and Kbuntu would be a free legal download.

In practice Ubuntu is a good OS and Wine can allow many windows programs to run OK.

Money_Grabber13579

robredz wrote: »

If the OP installed Ubuntu as they described, the HDD would have been vaped & reformatted for Ubuntu, and all keys would be history, so the only option would be an OEM XP disk and a disk partitioning to dual boot or a complete reformat & XP install. Problem will come when they need drivers for the hardware. 4743hudsonj's idea is good also as KDE can be made to feel more like windows than Gnome and Kbuntu would be a free legal download.

In practice Ubuntu is a good OS and Wine can allow many windows programs to run OK.

Yeah, I thought that might be the case.

robredz

There is one thing that the OP may miss if they do manage to get XP, the relative immunity of Linux, compared to any incarnation of Windows, to malware circulating on the net.

ukbill69

ebay is cheap. You do know xp is discontinued support now. Id maybe use vista.

Baldur

ukbill69 wrote: »

You do know xp is discontinued support now.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?alpha=Windows+XP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP#Support_lifecycle

On April 8, 2014, all Windows XP support, including security updates and security-related hotfixes will be terminated.

BillTrac

ukbill69 wrote: »

ebay is cheap. You do know xp is discontinued support now. Id maybe use vista.

all depends if the PC has the capability of running Vista. Not exactly resource friendly, and if PC is a few years old it might struggle

robredz

ukbill69 wrote: »

ebay is cheap. You do know xp is discontinued support now. Id maybe use vista.

The OP said the PC is fairly old but ran ok with XP, it may run like a dog on Vista. Windows 7 would most likely run better than Vista though. With a PC so old getting used to Ubuntu and using Wine to run some Windows apps may be best if one is skint.

wilson1973

when installing xp will it automatically find and configure all drivers,when i installed ubuntu it seemed to pick everything up