Surely it wouldnt have that, if Windows XP hasn't been relseased when she bought it?

no it wouldn`t have it doesn`t mean much anyway typical Microsoft

She said it was bought about a month before XP came out. Microsnot normally release the product to system manufacturers many months before it is released to the public so that they can build, test and certify their systems. If they certify with the logo scheme, it means that the system has been fully tested and there are no incompatibilities (allegedly). Because it was bought only a month before XP came out, there's a high chance that it has been tested.

Sometimes upgrading to XP fails or it doesn't behave properly because the motherboard or some other device isn't compatible. My laptop is old, but it has a 433MHz processor and 256MB of memory (good enough to run XP), but it is incompatible with Windows XP

For a list of XP tested Packard Bell equipment see here:

http://testedproducts.windowsmarketp...t=Packard+Bell

You can check other equipment eg scanners, printers etc on that site.

These are genuine ones they just don't come with a cd key so not much use to the typical user. They are also the disks that Dell install the os onto ppl systems that they have paid for but don't get the windows disk unless they pay again for it and the back up disks.

There are ways round that .

Thanks for all your help everyone I have tried phoning her to see what the model is but she isn't in so I will try and find out this weekend

For once, Thank God for a Mac (and OSX Panther). Nothing like as complicated! - and I have the backup disks!

MacSnorri

I know .

The only problem is that they keep updating the tool whenever someone finds the way around - think they're on version 2 now.

Nevermind, I believe that the security fixes via Windows Update works regardless, it's only when you want to update certain things like Windows Media Player etc that it comes into play.

You do know that you can save all your updates(before they unpack themselves) and pass them on to ppl with out legal copies of windows. So it does away with ms's security it just takes someone with a legal copy to do it (or not)

XP saves them automatically anyway - they're hidden (not very well ) on the drive. MS are looking at validating those updates against the PC specific activation file because they know people do that - I think it is due to be implemented next year with the new Windows Vista

What is windows Vista then - is it to replace XP