Odd laptop battery problem

Have a laptop here (not with 7 though) that I have cleaned up as it has IE6 and XP SP2 only on it and in a terrible state.

Now there are three problems the worst by far is that I cannot get the machine to shut down with the battery in - out and it has not problems.

Secondly it has a terribly pop up on boot that keeps telling me to install the 2002 Office disk before it can do the updates!!

Thirdly the machine on idle keeps running the cooling fan up to max and then down again. I have checked with Core Temp and it reads 50C so I don't think it is a heat problem.

So anyone got any thoughts on these please?

First, the battery is toast. Gotta replace it.

Second (WAG): Automatic Updates is enabled in Windows and Microsoft Updates is too. Updates for MS Office were downloaded and ready to install on reboot. But the Office installation files were removed from the hard drive so the installation disk is required to complete the changes.
If you can do a System Restore to before the updates were downloaded that would get you out of the loop, but I bet that date has long passed.

Third: I bet this relates to #1.

Unless there are very compelling reasons to keep the current installation, I'd DBAN it (erasing the MBR as well) and reinstall XP.

On most oldish used machines that I buy for cheap, it's the fastest (and maybe only) way to bring them back into working conditions. If it still has IE6 I'm ready to bet it's filled of virus and assorted nasties.

As for the fan, check bios settings as sometimes there are odd settings.

hum well TV she is planning to get a new desktop and can manage without a battery I guess for a while and yes it was a VERY old install.
Bob mate the owner doesn't have a disk I think this was bought back in 2006 or even before.

Never mind at least I know what the problems are now and relieved it is not something I have done not that I thought I had but.....

Oh thanks for the time and patience and a happy Christmas to you both

ah, the lack of the activation code is a good reason. Most of the used stuff I have comes from businness and thus has the sticker with the code somewhere on it. It's weird for a laptop to not have it.

I used the same XP Professional install disk (actually a DVD and then a usb pendrive with slipstreamed stuff on top of an XP installation I ripped off the CD I bought) for every machine I reinstalled xp on, just entering a different activation code at install (which was on each machine's sticker, and they all had XP professional codes as they were used company stuff).

Yes Bob I have a spare XP disk here but for the length of time she will be using it plus all that download as it is one of three I bought from a company that had gone over to 7 and had a heap of spare CD's to get rid of.

Trouble is they were bare bones OS's and would need huge amounts of updates all the SP's for example so really a last resort for a decent machine I have a couple of spare working XP desktops here but for the time left for support is it worth setting her up?

I think she is better off letting me set up the new desky for her.

Which is why I used slipstreamed DVD/USB drives, to have updates and whatnot already there.

I don't know if it is worth fixing it, depends from what she is using the PC for. For very light use (internet and office-like programs) I managed to revive tons of old machines with Linux Puppy or Ubuntu or even Chromium OS where I installed Chrome and Openoffice (linux versions anyway) and saved the guy the money for a new machine. (asked a nominal fee for setup tasks only).
They are much safer as 99% of the virus you find on the net can't harm Linux and thus don't need antivirus.
Most boot and run like Win7 with an SSD even if they have outdated hardware (although OpenOffice is a bit heavy, sometimes I had to use Abiword as word processor and GnuCalc as excel-like program if the ram was really low, like 512mb).
For simple tasks and no real games (as the machine won't handle them anyway) the difference between Windows and linux is short. Plus they are cool to look at (standard or wary Puppy not that much, but there are some flavors of it with modern looks, like MacPup <-- look at the video).