Switching Operating Systems

Sparky Spartacus

Didn't get the Office disk with my W2K Pro pc purchased used. The original drivers disk was also missing. At least the previous owner did manage to find the COA and original W2K OEM restore disk. I Loaded Office via the XP Office disk I had for another PC, had to call MSFT once the Office was on and MSFT gave me the OK.

Ghosted a laptop OEM W2K HD and just for an experiment loaded the image onto an old Win95 desktop. Everything worked just fine, never asked for the reg number (not that it should have). And other than having to install drivers for the various hardware on the desktop so it'd all run in W2K, everything works just fine except the TV tuner which was made before W2K and no support was offered.

Make a backup parbreastion and experiment. You've got nothing to lose and everything to learn. Why buy first and then find it doesn't work? If you like the OS you can most likely fine a legal copy somewhere with COA for reasonable bucks to make your experiment legit - after you know it will work. No need to steal software but want to make sure it works before buying it.