My PC at home is eight years old and is really starting to slow down. I've found a place that sells IBM PC's with XP COA, which means you get the XP license and Certificate of Authenticity, but not the OS. I've been reading and some people have trouble activating the OS license when they buy these PC's. Can I have some thoughts comments, so I can decide my next step?

Harry

I would beware of these kinds of sales. I believe that may be a license for a workstation on a volume license agreement.

If that is what it is then that is against MSoft volume licensing agreements. The flag should be that people are having trouble with activation.

What is the attraction that makes you consider a deal that you have bad vibes about? Are the computers really cheap? Post back with pricing, if you would.

EDIT

Just had a thought, If these are IBM machines are they new or used?

"I've found a place that sells IBM PC's with XP COA, which means you get the XP license and Certificate of Authenticity, but not the OS."

Brand name systems virtually always come with an operating system but it's OEM licence agreement is tied to the original brand name software installation and often also to the mboard it has in it, or a small group of mboards. With very few exceptions, you do not get a regular XP CD with the system.
You get the operating system, but not the regular CD for it.
(An exception - You CAN get a Windows CD for a discounted price as well if you order a Compaq system from the US web site and order it at the same time you order the system)

If you load the original software for the system, or if it has already been re-loaded for you, if it has the same mboard it originally had with the brand name's bios version on it, and if no hardware, or no more than the allowed amount of hardware, on the system has been changed, it should already be Activated when you get it if they re-loaded the software, or it should Activate no problem if you re-load the original software yourself.

When the original software has been installed, in either case, the Activation is done during the last stages of installing the software, probably in the background without you or whoever installed it seeing screens about it.

If the original software has not already been re-installed, in order for you to be able to do that, you need either:
- the single Recovery CD or DVD for the system, and for the second partition on the hard drive to have the original data on it intact so that you can re-install the original software.
- or - you must have a set of Recovery CDs or a DVD that can restore all the original software even if the hard drive is empty. If the seller doesn't provide that set of Recovery CDS or a DVD, then you must be able to order them/it from the web site of the maker of the system,
or if Windows is working fine on the computer and the original software is on it, you can make the set of Recovery CDs or the DVD in Windows yourself using a program placed there by the brand name builder.

If you didn't want to load the original software, there's a very good chance the Product Key on the XP COA may not work with a regular XP CD installation of Windows, or it will allow you to complete Windows Setup but will not Activate, which you have to do yourself if you install from a regular XP CD, especially if it's a different version (e.g. if you used a regular XP Home CD and the original version was XP Pro).
If the Product Key is not accepted by Setup as being valid there's nothing you can do - at minimum you need to use a regular Windows CD and a valid Product Key for that version - preferably you also need the valid COA that came with it.
If the Product Key is accepted as valid by Setup but you can't Activate Windows, you can phone them and supply the codes on the screen seen when you get that message and probably then be able to Activate it.
Or if hardware has been changed beyond that amount allowed you could try changing the system's hardware back to the way it was originally, or closer to the way it was, and trying to Activate again.
E.g. the most "weight" is given to the networking chipset; if that has been changed, install the old card if it you have it, or if it has one use the onboard networking port rather than a card.

OEM Volume License CoA is worthless, as stated above, the BIOS has a Code which is read during install, therefore during install the input of a KEY is not required.

You could phone IBM Support and see what their stance is, with DELL they said providing the Original CoA was still attached it was OK to use any DELL XP CD providing it is the same version ie Home or Pro.

It is termed SLP see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System...

I recently purchased one of those IBM desktops as a backup machine, and possibly used for testing.
Mine has a COA sticker on the case. It also has XP Pro installed. I used SIW to gather the system info on the machine and that lists the machine Serial Number and a Product Key. One can assume that key is from the volume license of the previous owner. The two keys are different.
Long story short.......... I plugged in a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Plugged it into my home network router and booted up no problem. Then proceeded to Windows update and installed all the necessary updates. Downloaded and installed XP Pro Sp2, which had never been installed. Somewhere in the process I was informed that I needed Windows Genuine Authentication and I agreed to it. The download (I think it was for Sp2) continued without incident. It rebooted after the install and is up and running like a trooper.
There was little to nothing installed on the HDD so very little cleaning was necessary. I installed my usual utilities and everything is working fine.
It's a 2.4Ghz machine and adding Sp2, and a defrag, seemed to speed everything up so for $109.00 I think it's a pretty good deal.
There are three empty PCI slots available.
Mine has a working floppy, a 40GB HDD and a CD\DVD drive. It has a primary and a secondary IDE controller but there is no room in the case for a second HDD.
It shipped with 512MB memory and works fine for surfing and email, which is about all I've done with it.
I had Crucial run their memory scan and two sticks of DDR memory is crowding $100.
Methinks the 512MB will be sufficient!
If there is anything I forgot I'll gladly try to help answer your questions.
Oh, by the way, I own another copy of XPPro and have the full CD. My original idea was to run a Repair install with that and if necessary, use the Product Key from the COA sticker on the case. If I remember correctly that works fine. It wasn't necessary......... it booted up without problem.
Cheers..........

What are the specs of these computers? Are all ofthem the same? The $109 include shipping? Is that just the bare tower, or does anything else come with it?

A large variety!
Go to Geeks.com and look around. Look under
Desktops......
http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?c...
It's a continuing process. They buy stuff off-lease and refurb it. You never know what's available until you check and then it may be gone by the next day.
Don't just jump at the first item you think is a bargain. The next one may be better!<G>
I've bought a lot of stuff from geeks.com over the years without any problem. Their shipping charges are great compared to some of the other eSellers.
It's worth watching!

I just checked that page. Another thing to consider is the appearance rating...A, B, C,etc.
This one was classed as B with only one scratch on the top of the case.......... maybe somebody moved a monitor around with a burr on it's butt??

I ended up buying a refurbished IBM P-4 with Windows XP installed & licensed.

Harry

OK. Thanks for tying up the thread.