Windows XP MCE - Does it matter what disk I use?

[Guest]

I work for a charity, teaching people with disabilities how to use computers.
One of my students has a PC with XP MCE installed. His harddrive crashed and
took the XP installation with it. Packard Bell, the manufacturer of the PC,
did not ship a recovery disk, and insist that I use the "recovery partition"
- however, this no longer works either.

I have now downloaded a copy of the Windows XP MCE disk via bittorrent. I
don't intend to deploy it on any other computer than that belonging to my
student, and since he has a lincese for XP MCE I didn't think this would be a
problem.

But I'd like some authoritative confirmation that what I'm doing is legal
and, more importantly, whether it will actually work or not. Any comments?

 

[Guest]

It should work provided it's the same service-pack level as the sticker on
the PC. If not, it may not accept the serial.

Technically the bittorrent disc is NOT legal, but then if you copy the i386
folder to the C: drive once you're done, that is essentially what you had in
the first place. Then, if Windows asks for setup files when adding hardware,
point it to c:\i386.

HST, what PB are doing is technicaly not legal either, as MS OEM rules
state that there should be a method provided to recover from a disk failure.
So, I think you are at least morally in your right. A genuine disk will cost
about £40.

 

[David B.]

Keep in mind there is more than one version of Media Center, as long as the
one you downloaded matches the product key you should be ok. The legalities
are another story.

 

[Guest]

Cheers Ian, that's really good news. I've downloaded three versions of MCE so
hopefully one of them will be the same service pack as the serial number!

I had a feeling that the bittorrent disk might not be legal, but then I came
to a similar conclusion to you - that morally I was in the right, so bugger
the law. When I spoke to Packard Bell they wanted £37 for a disk which is a
bit much, especially considering that they never shipped a disk with the PC.

What concerns me is all the people who don't have much computer experience,
and get into a similar situation and end up buying a whole new XP
installation.

Thanks once again for your help,

Jim