So I just bought my new computer, and the plan is to reformat my old PC and give to to my gf's family (well, technically to her dad for his birthday on wednesday). This computer is over 4 years old...pushing 5 or 6. It's 1.6GHz and has 1 gig of RAM, iirc. nVidia 6600GT video card. It was one of the best bang-for-your-buck builds out there at the time. Anyways, I've run XP on it for a LONG time...and unfortunately the source was of questionable legality. I simply turned off automatic updates in the past year so I'd never have to do whatever the current registration procedure is.
Anyways, I
need to reformat and I have no idea how I can get around this issue. I'd rather not gift a box to someone that has this issue surrounding it. The PC will be primarily for homework (Star Office ftw) and "some" gaming. Games like Diablo, Quake 2, Civ 4, etc. Nothing
too strenuous. Pretty much throws Linux out of the question (plus the family has NO linux experience.
What can I do as far as an OS for this setup? If I simply clean the hard drive via My Computer > Manage, I'm not really giving them a fresh computer. This was going to be a gift for her father, and I don't really think I should turn it into a gift as expensive as a new copy of XP would cost. Any suggestions?
Posts
Those are about the only options you can discuss on these boards without breaking the rules.
I've no idea why Windows XP is still so expensive.
There are hordes and hordes of second-hand XP retail licenses floating about, but confirming their authenticity is going to suck.