Tim's Tech Tips

Jeannie writes:

I bought a used laptop with Windows XP Professional, 2002. When I start the PC, my personal settings for window display and homepage show up after a 5 minutes delay. What cause this and how to fix it? Thanks for your help.

…after the suggestion to restore Windows from the CD, or format and start fresh since it was a used machine she just bought and wouldn’t lose any data…

The PC didn't come with any CD.

Well, Jeannie – You’re dealing with a problem that many people have faced before. How to re-install Windows without having the original system disk. The solution is, I BELIEVE, legal – However, I am NOT a lawyer, and one should be consulted before attempting this.

I believe that since you own the appropriate license to run MS Windows on the computer, you can safely download a copy of the operating system and use your license key to install it. If you don’t know much about piracy, I’ll walk you through some basic steps for using the torrent protocol.

Step 1: Download ProduKey. Use it to figure out your Windows product key associated with your installation. Write that down.

Step 2: Download Bit Tornado, a very lightweight Bit Torrent client. Install it.

Step 3: Go to www.thepiratebay.com and search for a Windows distribution that is identical to the one you were using, and download it. Remember, I am not a lawyer, but I believe that since you own the license to run the software, there should be no legal trouble from downloading it. Just make sure you get the same version of Windows that you had before. The file should come as a .iso or other burnable format.

Step 4: Download the .torrent file from TPB, and run it. It should open in Bit Tornado. Select your download location, and let the file begin downloading. It it doesn’t make any progress within about half an hour, and the download speed remains at 0kbps, you might have a tracker with no seeds for that file. This means you should find another .torrent file to download from.

Step 4.5: (This only applies if you’re on a network and using a router) Another option, before you try finding another file to download from, is to enable Port Forwarding on your router, and forward the ports you use for the Bit Torrent protocol, to your computer’s internal network IP address. This can be done by following the instructions on www.portforward.com.

Step 5: Once you’ve finished Downloading MS Windows, delete any “cracks” or “keygens” that may have come with the file, and burn the .iso or other disk image to a disk. You may need a DVD burner, depending on what you chose to download from TPB. If there is an option to do so, make sure you burn it as a bootable disk image.

Step 6: Boot to the Windows installer disk you’ve just created. If you can’t, then insert the disk and try to run it from within Windows. It should ask you to reboot before re-installing Windows.

Step 7: When it asks you for the product key, enter the one for your old copy of MS Windows.

That should do it! Your fresh new, legal (I think) copy of Windows is ready to go!

If you have any trouble with the product key, try calling Microsoft and telling them your dilemma. Don’t tell them that you’ve downloaded a new copy of Windows, but do mention that you COULD, and ask them if that would be ok – and if you could use your old CD key since it was the same version. Since you’re no longer using the license, and since the license is on a PER-COMPUTER basis, there should be no trouble with installing Windows again. They should be able to walk you through any steps you missed.

Thanks for visiting the site, and I hope this helps!