I have begun to notice that it's hard to get Windows XP anymore; lots of places are out of stock. I decided to get an extra Windows XP CD while it's still possible to do it. I know that Windows XP can run a lot of retro games very well so I thought it would be good to always have a copy for future installs. It would be possible to keep a cheap computer around with WinXP and DOSBox on it and play games from 1985 forevermore. I went to a third party vendor on amazon.com but it looks like I might have gotten screwed. The person seems to have sent me a CD that came with some computer.

http://tinypic.com/r/4ta4c6/5
http://tinypic.com/r/zxnx4w/5

Would I even be able to use this CD to install Windows XP on a computer? Or would there be some goofy copy protection that would prevent me from installing it in the first place?

Did I just get screwed?

You should be okay, that oh so shiny sticker in the corner usually comes on the computer that the Windows XP disk comes with but they were kind enough to include it. You should be good

It's an OEM package rather than a fancier retail version.
You also could just have made some backup copies of your existing disk; the CD key is the important thing.

you'll be fine as long as the key is valid. You can also move to windows 7 ultimate which has XP mode specifically for retro software.

Windows 7 Professional also has XP Mode, BTW. (That may have been something that they added to Win7Pro just before release, because I was certainly surprised when I found that I was able to install it on my laptop at work; I was pretty sure that it was an Ultimate-only feature). One other nice thing about XP Mode is that it no longer requires your CPU to have virtualization support (for those of us running 7 on slightly older hardware).

Once you have a running system with XP installed, you might want to look into making a complete system image for backup purposes.

Bye
Thanee

Also, in my eyes, you should be good to go with just somehow aquiring an OEM CD with the OS on it.
As long as your Key is legit, the Disc from which you install it should not matter, if you don't install it on several Systems at once.

if the plan is to use XP only to run dosbox, it seems a bit wasteful.

XP will also run games made for XP and a certain number of games made for 95/98.

However, yes, at this point, buying an actual 95 machine might actually be cheaper than buying an XP disc.

I don't know if this discussion should make me feel good or bad about the fact that my main gaming computer still has Windows XP on it.

Given that it still runs all the latest games I've tried putting on it (And with lower system requirements) I guess it is fairly good.

It still makes me laugh when I notice that Vista/7 system requirements are basically double that of XP system requirements.

Edit: That disk will totally work if you have the CD key. It is exactly the kind of disk I used to put XP on my current computer.

The licenses on OEM versions of Windows are usually more restrictive. In theory, they shouldn't be sold without a 'computer' (usually the processor itself) and the OEM versions shouldn't be transferred to 'new' computers since they are in theory locked into the computer they are sold with. So, in theory, when you buy a retail version of Windows, you can keep buying new computers and re-using the same copy of Windows, as long as you un-install it off the old computer first. While, in theory, with an OEM version, you can't do this.

I don't think those license provisions are actually enforced though, so there generally no difference between the OEM and retail versions of Windows except the packaging.

I recently heard about companies that will sell OEM Windows with any piece of hardware except RAM, so apparently it's not that big of a deal.


Karoline - no, nothing wrong with using XP (for now). However, XP has a hard cap of about 3.5GB of RAM (unless you're running 64-bit) and, apparently, directX10. For most people, that's fine, but yes, in a few years, Windows 7/8/9 is where it will be.

Still, it's not a bad place to be. Windows 7 is Windows Vista, except fixed. Whether Windows 8 sucks or rocks, you know when you are ready to upgrade, you'll have something good to jump to.

Just for the record, the "hard cap" for the RAM has nothing to do with Windows XP (or whatever OS you are using), but with the bit version.

32bit OS can address no more than 4GB of RAM (4G = 2^32). Since some of those 4GB are used for other tasks than to address the RAM (like video RAM), you cannot even use full 4GB of RAM.

So, to use more you need a 64bit OS, which I suppose will be the standard soon enough (actually I expect Win 7 64bit to become the standard OS over the 32bit version already).


The requirements for Win 7 can't be that bad, considering it runs fine on current Netbooks, which are not exactly known for their system power.


You can use XP just fine up to April 8th, 2014. After that, there won't be any updates anymore, which means security holes will remain open.
Microsoft will then turn Windows XP into freeware with a last update that will disable the registration/activation functions.

Bye
Thanee

technically a 32-bit computer can make use of more then 4GB of ram, only its by using readdressing tricks so that each program only see 4GB each.

also, windows have a extra complication, iirc, as the video ram is added to the address space of system ram. So if your video card have 1GB, windows cant address the whole system ram if its beyond 3GB.

and btw, i recently ran into a game that had a vista/W7 requirement. A real oddity as the installer would not complain, but the actual game would give a dialog window on xp...

also, never heard about the freeware XP before.

DirectX 10+ only?



Havn't heard or read a whole lot about it either, but I did read about it somewhere.

Bye
Thanee

If you have either a Duo Core or Quad Core you should get plenty of life out of your computer yet for games. The next big hurdle is your graphics card. I know better but I am going to say it anyway, when you upgrade your system my vote would be for a full-sized tower that has an ATX board. Those micro-ATX boards and tiny towers are a monster pain to upgrade these double sized graphics cards in!

Windows 7 is doing a lot more than XP though. I will say that Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista and has proven to be much more friendly to the software that I use.

Having been burned multiple times now, I will never again buy another assembled system...proprietary cr@p keeps me from upgrading.

Anyway, my next computer build is going to be an i7 920, 64-bit, 12 GB RAM, with a FirePro v8800 graphics card, 150GB solid state drive for the OS and certain core programs, then a couple TBs of SATA drives.

Windows 7 marginally uses more memory than XP (like less than 32 meg difference) when you turn all the extra stuff on both. Vista's memory management was built differently and runs faster in particular situations that 80%+ of people don't use (I'm a rare exception). Linux also has an interesting "fix" for the 32 bit issue, you can load some software (that for the life of me I can't remember the name) that would address the extra memory as swap space providing the motherboard supported it. You can also get XP 64bit but I wouldn't, the driver support is terrible.

[edit] on licensing, Microsoft wont waste the resources on tracking down one OEM copy used on your machine. Its just not supposed to be used unless your building a new system. The license is supposed to be tied to the hardware. They just don't want system admins to buy 500 machines from Dell then install OEM licenses from another vendor (can be cheaper). Or more commonly taking those Dell licenses and installing them on IBM hardware when the Dell died. That they will go after! There is also NO freeware XP. If someone mentioned a freeware XP I would guess its either a PE version (used for corporate imaging or trouble shooting) or Wine.

Yeah, that is clearly the best. Never done anything else for my PCs (even though I do not really upgrade them).


@tete: There is no freeware XP. There will be. In 2014.

Bye
Thanee

Linkage? because I don't believe it.

I have been looking for an english-language page, that says so. This is the best I could find.

"Microsoft will also support the activation of Windows XP throughout its life and will likely provide an update that turns activation off at the end of the product's lifecycle so users would no longer be required to activate the product."

http://www.microsoft.com/norge/piracy/activation_faq.mspx

It's not really the same as actual freeware, as in you will need a valid copy. That wasn't quite the right term to use, but I wrote the explanation of what they (supposedly) consider/plan to do up there (considering that this is true, of course), so it was hopefully clear what I meant.

Bye
Thanee

Thats just end of life, just like win 95, 98, NT. They will no longer support it. Turning off activation so their servers are no longer getting hammered or tech support calls. Not the same as freeware, any installed copies will become illegal (probably not prosecuted because its not worth the time or money) yes, illegal, read your terms of service. Microsoft can yank the license at anytime. Even when you buy a copy of Windows you don't own it, you just get the license to use it for a time to be determined by Microsoft. Its a very different beast than freeware, more like abandonware only the company is still around and could take you to court if it was worth it to them.

I'm pretty sure Win7 already addressed this issue, no? Or is 64-bit allowing for EVEN MORE RAM than the 32-bit (with the 32-bit permitting more than XP)?


As for 'freeware' XP - Microsoft will never ever in a million years permit competition, especially free competition, for their own selling products. XP won't be supported, but it certainly won't be free.

Yeah, I'd imagine that if they did make it free, someone would pick it up and start doing their own patches to it, and a bunch of people would be using free XP with custom patch updates. It wouldn't be long before those updates weren't needed as hackers moved on to the much more populous 7 (or 8 or whatever). Basically they would be creating their own linux competition.

I've actually only heard good things about Windows 7. So as far as sticking with XP goes for reasons besides for retrogaming, I think the key thing to have done was to have effectively skipped Windows Vista. LOL, Vista.

Its 32 bit vs 64 bit. 32bit cpu registers can only handle 4 gigs worth of memory addressing or 2^32, where as 64bit can address 16 billion gig or 2^64.
Its not OS dependent its hardware. Linux just had a work around if you were using a 32 bit install on a 64 bit system.

XP had 3 versions. Home (32 bit), Pro (32 bit), Pro 64 (64 bit) each sold separately
Vista/Win 7 every version except for Home Basic/Standard/Whatever they are calling it now, has the 64 bit and 32 bit disk included. Even Home Premium includes both disks.
Most people are using Home Premium or above so its only a relative small number of computers (like netbooks) that only include the 32 bit disk.

You could go the route of getting MSDOS 6.22 from MS (still available I might add) and installing it to a virtual machine. Virtual PC is free from MS. I believe MSDOS is as well.

I've got a working MSDOS 6.22 virtual machine that I use to play my older games. 617k of lower memory free too. I'm an optimizing fiend from the dinosaur days at a tender age of 35.

FreeDOS is free (Its not MSDOS nor is MSDOS free) and it is 100% compatibility supposedly. Microsoft does not give software away for free. Virtual PC/Server/Hyper-V only became free (it used to cost money) because VMWare is THE standard virtualization software and Microsoft wanted in.