I bough a PC on sale (cheap) with XP home installed, and it came with THE xp sticker, a license booklet and a "restore" cd. What exactly is this restore CD, the I386 files or is it a normal copy of the full comercial XP? What if my HDD blows one day, how do I re-install XP? Thanks. Later.

http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/21386.html Response Number 11

cool, thanks!

I bought a computer once (HP) without the OS disk. When I got it home and found that it was set up like yours, I took it back and bought a Dell that has the CD. Too bad a little company like Microsoft has to be so worried about piracy that they make our computing experience so difficult. I believe that they made a lot of money before all this activation, no OS CD and this other stuff they are doing.

Well...not necessarily Michael. Some manufacturers actually will include a normal copy of Windows (either as the restore disks, or included with the disks). Compaq is known for doing this with their laptops, for instance. They are the "retail" copy for all intents and purposes but will usually have the system-specific drivers, etc on the CD as well. Other manufacturers will not do this, and their restore CD's simply contain a copy of the hard drive as it was when it was shipped from the warehouse. -=Bryan=-

In addition to Bryan's info, a Restore CD is also a useful way for an OEM to make certain that their advertising partners' applications and "Try Me" ware is restored along with the operating system. Some manufacturers do include the unadulturated OS CD and a separate Driver/Add-on CD . . . I like Twinhead and Dell for this reason.

With regards to 'what are the functional differences' between a retail and OEM version of XP; the answer is: invariable none at all. The OEM Windows XP Home / Pro will have all the Microsoft files. In the case of a recovery CD, these generally have been built using Norton's Ghost and will recreate the environment as it was when shipped. So partitions added since new will be deleted and so on. This does save you an hour or so of installation time in most cases. Regrettably some of the recovery disks may be set up in such a way so that you cannot copy the I386 folder onto your hard drive and reinstall windows in an unattended mode, preserving all applications and their registry entries, plus devices. Some manufacturers have system checking components added which will prevent the recovery disk being used in other than the original hardware [MOBO/CPU etc]. Where an OEM version differs from a retail version, is that the Licence to use Windows is restricted effectively to the original CPU/MOBO and owners are not licenced use this OEM Windows on a new configuration and dump the old hardware. However the 'cost' of the OEM product is dramatically less than retail full licence versions [around 30%], so in effect you get what you pay for.