Ok, I have a 10 year old nephew with a laptop. This was purchased by his IBC mother (my sister) at a pawn shop for cheap, and, of course, without the original XP media.

Need I say more?

But, I'm stuck getting XP back on it.

The machine is not up for Vista, nor Win7 (pity, because I have a spare Vista upgrade), and Linux (Ubutu, etc) just is not an option for the spawn of IBC.

So, how do I get a reasonable version of XP?

now now, 'reks, Bill wouldn't like you blasting out VLKs...

Ooo, delightful!

IBC

I cannot ever understand Al's cryptic posts.

Ignorant But Cute?

My vote is for Irish bean counter although I suspect that Nate might be right.

Well by Shelly's link I've got my money on Intermediate Bulk Container.

I fucking hate XP

If 90% of the specialized software I use wasn't Windows only, I would be Mac-only myself. XP and Vista are maddeningly random in their performance. So far Win 7 is much better, but really too early to tell.

I fucking hate XP

Here here

It is too bad that there is a lot of Windows only software.

that's what VMs are for.

And I may go that route at my next computer replacement at work. I think a maxed out MAC Pro might make a nice little workstation.

XP isn't that bad, and hell it's 7 yrs old now....

Vista got a bad rap due to crappy early driver support and despite ending up as a pretty solid OS was never able to change that early perception.

Windows 7 has been very good so far.

XP isn't that bad, and hell it's 7 yrs old now....

Vista got a bad rap due to crappy early driver support and despite ending up as a pretty solid OS was never able to change that early perception.

Windows 7 has been very good so far.

QFT

The problem with both XP and Vista is it takes a lot of tweaking to get them to be stable and perform well on a regular basis. At least that is my take. In addition Vista does some pretty intrusive shit that also takes up a lot of CPU time and cannot be turned off, at least not easily, without causing cascading problems. On the other hand OS X is not trouble-free either.

The problem with both XP and Vista is it takes a lot of tweaking to get them to be stable and perform well on a regular basis.

While I agree about Vista (it's buggy as all hell on my home laptop) I've had nothing but good luck with XP from a stability standpoint with no user interference required. It's still my preferred OS given the software I have to run. OS-X has certainly been more stable on my macbook than any other OS I've run but I also don't mess around with that laptop like I do my other computers.

that's what VMs are for.

Yeah, but then you're still running Windows -- just within a VM.

Also, the integration sucks.

I never agree with these type threads (XP/Windows bashing). Although I do agree that I don't much care for Vista.