Windows XP Pro licensing question

[emt8q5]

Hi there. about a year and a half ago, I purhchased a Gateway laptop with Windows XP professional included with it. I would now like to erase everything on the hard drive, and re-install windows. It seems however, that I have lost the Windows XP pro CDs that came with the computer. The sticker with the key code is on the bottom of the laptop, so I have a key, I just don't have the CDs. My qeustion is, could I use my key with a set of XP pro CDs that came with my brother's IBM laptop? Thanks in advance for any responses.

-Eric

 

[stimpyman77]

Eric,

You could do that if it were not for activation. The Gateway disks have some modified files on them that lock the activation to some data in the pc's bios. I have done this with disks from another Gateway and it works fine, however I don't think it will work with the IBM disks as they are most likely to be configured differently. If the IBM disks are not "system restore" disks and are truely Windows XP isntall disks, then you should be ok and will just have to activate manually, which should not be a problem if you have not done it too many times with that serial. I have a feeling that the IBM ones will be checking to see if they are on an IBM machine first and are most likely of the "system restore" type. Good luck..

Stimpyman77

 

[DaFinn]

IBM disks are restore disks, they will not work in your gateway. They include all drivers and software for the specific IBM lappy, and are not even usable between different IBM models. Just recently I tried to install a T40 from an R40 disk (both even had same specs), but it aborted saying something about hardware conflict/ specific hw not found...