I just purchased a used laptop from a government auction. Of course, they did a total formatting of the Hard Drive. But the computer did come with the original serial key for the windows xp that was on there from the factory. I was wondering since I have the serial key that came with the original OS, if I just could download the windows xp install disc and enter my own serial, or try to borrow someone elses install disc and do the same thing. Or do the discs each only work with there own specific keys? And no, I don’t want to try to install an illegal copy or anything like that, if it comes to that I’ll just buy a new copy… but please if someone knows if either of my methods i was thinking would work, please let me know! Thanks for reading all of this rambling…