DO NOT GET XP off Torrent Sites.

[inkhead]

Many of you no doubt own copies of Windows XP, but figured it would be easier to get some of the prepackage torrents available on the internet. Let me make this easy for you.

DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY WINDOWS TORRENTS that say for mac intel

Demonoid:
It's a brokent french version

The Pirate Bay:
Broken French Version (says english) but gives lots of errors during the installer (tried several times)

Tracker. Torrents Kick Ass.
(French Version, even though it says english, broken), and the other french version is broken.

Save yourself the frustration. Also if you make a disk image of your Macbook pro for "restore" later, it PLAIN won't work. OS X for intel just craps out when you try to restore disc images on intel partition scheme, worse still it wipes out your existing data, and then quits halfway through..

I have yet to find a way to backup your current intel OS X, and put it back on your macbook pro.

[The Viking]

I have yet to find a way to backup your current intel OS X, and put it back on your macbook pro.

As far as that goes, I used Carbon Copy Cloner to back up to external Firewire HD, then Migration assistant to import back in-- zero issues.

As far as torrents, etc. go, of course no one on this site advocates attempting to get an illegal copy of XP EVEN IF you already own a license. However, I have several legal licenses from OEM installs of computers I don't use anymore, but the OS is on a restore disc that I can't use to install on bare metal. Is there any way to have MS exchange these for a plain-vanilla legal copy of OEM XP?

And pleeeeeease don't use these forums to discuss illicit activities, it gives the entire XoM scene a bad name.

[WarWraith]

However, I have several legal licenses from OEM installs of computers I don't use anymore, but the OS is on a restore disc that I can't use to install on bare metal. Is there any way to have MS exchange these for a plain-vanilla legal copy of OEM XP?

Sorry.

No you don't and no there isn't.

If an OEM copy of Windows has already been installed on a machine, then (as far as Microsoft are concerned), it is locked to that machine. OEM licences cannot (legally) be transferred to a different machine. It's all in the fine print on the OEM EULA.

In terms of obtaining an legal OEM copy of Windows XP, you need to purchase it with a piece of hardware that is necessary for a machine to run.

It's a bit tricky... you can buy it with a stick of RAM or a hard drive, but not with a printer.

(caveat: This is the way it works in Australia. YMMV)

[CyberDoberman]

I purchased a new 500Gig drive $299 at Frys, and the XP PRO SP2 OEM ran me $159.

[urashid]

Newegg will sell you OEM XP with required hardware like a molex power cable, AND give you discount equal to the price of the cable.

[FrostyFire]

What? You mean people didn't pay for their copy of XP? Blasphamy! ;)