Hi there

Woundering if anyone can help, I have XP Media Centre Edition 2005 my laptop is out of warrenty and by two years, i have about 3 hours ago, ordered a recovery cd from the tech guys for my Advent laptop. It was £35 "ADVENT 7096 UK recovery DVD" (which i should have done before trying to 3/4 install Windows Home Edition service pack 2)...moving on

My previous problems with my laptop couldnt be solved with a system restore. So as my os came pre-installed i had no recovery disks or any other windows disks......so decided to use my neighbours Windows Home Edition Disk.....yes im very very stupid

After a telephone call i found out that their old pc with the 25 digit product key/sticker is in her loft (and they cant get the tower out without her husband being there)

So I have to wait till the weekend to get the product key which isnt so much of any issue.....(I dont think) so here are my queries, hope you can help me get my head round them...

My pc is stuck in installation mode for Windows Home Edition even when i reboot im back to the installation again, also there is an F8 option which takes me to advanced options....but I have just left laptop switched off at the moment.

1. Luckily I have no work/photos worth saving, so there is no issue there

2. Do i have to wait for the product key and complete installation on saturday before I can use the recovery cd for XP Media Centre Edition?

2. When my recovery cd arrives in the post for XP Media Centre Edition, and say I have managed to installed Windows Home Edition on the pc fine, Can i insert this cd and revert back to the old installation settings)? (30 working days to possibly wait for cd in post)

3. If i manage to register my neighbours product key on Saturday on the Windows Home Edition CD I have here, would i have to ring microsoft and register the old product key in my new name?

Thanks in advance
Lots of questions
Yours very stupid )

You cannot use XP Home CDs with a Media Center licence, Media Center is essentially XP Home in different colours flagged up as XP Professional. You really need a Media Center CD, not a Home one. By repairing your installation with an XP Home CD, you'll create a hybrid setup which will throw up all kinds of wierd and wonderful errors that you'll never find resolutions for.

Since you've now ordered a recovery CD from PC World/Tech Guys, you may as well wait for it because the CDs will wipe the machine anyway so that solves the entire installation problem.

2) See above regarding Hybrid setup if you're repairing Media Center as opposed to fresh install via wiping.

3) The restore CD will wipe the machine and restore to factory default settings - as you originally brought it.

4) It will most likely require telephone activation but if you use your recovery CDs it becomes irrelevant anyway.

Hello Neil

Many thanks for your reply and for putting my mind at rest to the questions

Just one more quick question, How do i get the restore CD to acknowledge on my pc?

Would i power up my laptop and quickly insert the new advent restore cd and hope for the best that it will ignore the home edition set up i half finished?

Joanne )

The restore CDs will only check that they're licensed to ensure to run on that computer. Once they pass that, they then don't care what's on the drive and will proceed to wipe it regardless. In most cases you just boot off the CD in the same way you started XP Setup.