windows xp professional for distribution with a new dell pc only

Hope all is well,
I have my Dell studio 1558 that has windows 7 home premium installed, I bought XP professional CD disk ( windows xp professional for distribution with a new dell pc only installed on any dell machine)
I am thinking of installing it and have two dual system , W7 and XP professional,
does anyone know if XP will work or not ,, do I need to activate it , or should I use my COA in my Dell...
the XP CD disk comes without any activation keys.. but as it's said it;s for only Dell PC...

Yep, it would need to be activated. However, the Product Key that would activate this is/was printed on a sticker that is/was on the computer that this copy of XP came with. That means that the seller shouldn't have been selling this in the first place and they should have just thrown it in the garbage because it's useless on other computers. Even if they included the Product Key, the chances of it activating aren't very good because that goes against the End-User License Agreement for OEM Product Keys. Once activated, an OEM Product Key cannot be reactivated on a different computer.

The Windows discs that come with a computer have to stay with that computer. They can never be sold, not even with the Product Key. It's only for the computer that it came with and cannot be transferred to another.

In other words, I think you were ripped off here and I feel that whoever sold it should probably be reported for selling it. Either that, or the seller is totally unaware that they aren't allowed to sell these.

Thanks for the reply,
yes it was my mistake , it;s a friend of mine who bought this by £ 4, so in order to make this work , it should have the same COA that came with the computer when i bought it and have the same windows installed
Thanks for the reply and clarification

I just thought, as this one for dell pc would work for any Dell pc. but it's wrong

nuflia said:

Thanks for the reply,
yes it was my mistake , it;s a friend of mine who bought this by £ 4, so in order to make this work , it should have the same COA that came with the computer when i bought it and have the same windows installed
Thanks for the reply and clarification

In order for it to work, you have to have the computer that this copy came with because not only is the Product Key on a sticker that's stuck to the computer's case, but that Product Key was very likely activated on that computer as well. Therefore, that Product Key cannot be used on any other computer. Even if it had never been activated, it may have already been set up for that computer in some way. So, this copy of XP is useless for any other computer. The COA wouldn't help. It's just a COA.

nuflia said:

I just thought, as this one for dell pc would work for any Dell pc. but it's wrong

Yeah, at least it was only £4. Still, the seller did not have any legal right to sell it. It wouldn't have made it any better if they had included the Product Key because it's an OEM Product Key and so it probably wouldn't have activated anyway.

The only hope that I can see is that XP may be old enough to the point where Microsoft just doesn't care anymore. That's all I can say on that.

Many thanks to you guys for the reply, you've made it clear, I'm just wondering why people are selling it, they should know it is illegal and stop doing it...

nuflia said:

Many thanks to you guys for the reply, you've made it clear, I'm just wondering why people are selling it, they should know it is illegal and stop doing it...

Yeah, well some people know better and some don't. I think I would say that most don't. Within these two, there's a variety of reasons why someone would sell it ranging from totally innocent with good intentions all the way to knowing what they're doing but only caring about the potential financial gain, to everything in between.