Whee to get best rate on XP Pro

Microsoft says I have a bad XP pro. I know I paid for it but guy sho put computer together for me could have used any copy he had around. I didn't get my copy back. Anyway this was 3 years ago. Need some info on where to get XP pro reasonably.
thanks

 

Google time:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_...m_keyword=xp+pro+buy&mode=g_us_b_s&skd=1&rd=1

 

You could get an OEM version of Windows as long as you buy a piece of hardware (buy something cheap) with it.

I would wait for Vista though....

 

no point in buying xp when vista is coming out... just wait another week or so... itll be worth it

 

Hardly. With the very steep hardware requirements to activate the 'fancy stuff', and all the extreme DRM foolishness, I'll pass.

Some light reading.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

 

I doubt a three year old PC will run Vista without some serious issues or sinking a lot of money into upgrades.

 

I'm not trying to turn this into a Vista thread but for Aero and all the other feature you only need 1 GB of RAM, a 1GHz processor, an a 128 MB graphics card. That's not much.

 

I'd wait at least one year.

 

You need to be very careful with "too good to be true" prices on Windows XP Pro. If you see the OEM version for less than about $130-140... beware. Full retail version less than $190... beware. Otherwise you may have the same problem all over again.

 

That's barely enough to run XP decently. Does this come from a real world test, or some MS PR sheet?

 

It's from MS's site but I've seen people running XP with 256MB of RAM.

 

I've seen Windows XP selling for real cheap at a flea market booth run by a Nigerian.....Is that suspicious???

Regards,
Rollin

 

Well MS wants to sell their product. Running with 256MB? I it's more like a walk. And I like my SPDIF audio output, to see it disabled over some Vista DRM nonsense is unacceptable.