Buying windows XP

I've bought 5 windows XP CD's off newegg in the past 2 yrs. I'm going to need another one soon and they are still $100 for xp home.

Is there an alternative? Like buying it from MS cheaper or something? I thought MS had a program going on for selling windows OS licenses...

 

Windows XP Home is only going to be available for purchase until June 30th of this year, and even as it is it's technically only supposed to be available to OEMs selling ultra-low-cost PCs (i.e. netbooks).

Why do you need XP? It's nearly 9 years old; there's a good reason they don't want you buying it any more. Windows 7 is more secure, more feature-rich, and faster on any modern computer. Windows XP is likely to have compatibility issues with modern hardware as many device manufacturers aren't shipping XP drivers anymore, especially for laptops. Windows 7 Professional would include XP mode if you have a specific application compatibility issue.

 

XP uses a lot less RAM so it is better for older units with lower RAM capacities. Not that much of a noticeable difference really. If you shop around local geek repair shops will charge about 65$.

 

This may be slightly true and the minimum requirements of 7 are higher than XP's but I've seen Windows 7 on 1GB and XP on 1GB with advantage t one or the other. 7 will use pretty much 100% of whatever memory you give it as it will make use of memory by caching application data rather than let it sit idle, consuming power for no reason.

You can find plenty of unused and retail XP licenses on Craigslist as companies are forced to begin upgrade procedures before Microsoft stops support (not that they pretty much haven't already). Make sure you aren't buying a COA of a used OEM copy though - if it was ever used previously, it technically can't be activated on a new pc (although Microsoft has been forgiving to people about this).

 

Technet.

Its like 300-350 a year and you get 10 keys to every OS and office program and much more that M$ has ever made. Very good deal if you do multipule installs on different systems

 

TechNet was offering a 25% or 30% off deal which made the deal even sweeter.

To the OP, you should give Windows 7 a try. It's a really solid OS with many of the Vista annoyances removed. It even runs fast on older computers. A friend of mine installed it on a 4 year old Toshiba with 512MB of memory and he says it runs faster than it ever did with Windows XP. Plus Windows 7 is a great looking OS if you're into Bling !

 

You should also tell people that the license terms on this are for testing only, no business or personal use. Now I know Microsoft doesn't enforce this in any way but recommending this for a person to install on machines for anything outside of evaluation is not very responsible.

If this is going to be used for any type of business use, I would strongly urge you to NOT follow the above advice. Audits, although rare, DO happen to businesses and you don't want that headache.

 

Technet is only for development. It's not for deploying to offices or end users, and doing so is a violation of the EULA I believe.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/bb892759.aspx

 

That doesn't help if you're trying to buy a license, which it seems the OP doesn't already have.