katajoy said:
,My son is running xp home and would like to format his drive. Problem he
does not have an installation disc. If he was to use someone elses disc
then
download and run the windows product key update tool. Could he reinstall
windows this way.
If your son can find an exact duplicate of the XP Home he currently has
installed (Home retail, Home OEM, Home provided by Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.)
he can use that disk to reinstall Home on his computer and use the key from
his computer to activate the product. There is no need to use the key from
the friend's license key at any time and therefore would not need to use the
product update tool. He may even be able to use a generic OEM disk to
install using his key that was a major system supplier computer like Dell or
HP.
Of course there is always the possibility that the computer has a rebuild
partition (to return the computer to it's factory shipped state) on it but
since we don't know the make or model of the computer we can't be certain.
