Recently had a mother board go bad in Compaq Presario 5310US (inherited 
from granddaughter) , dropped an Intel D845-WN board into the case along 
with ATI video, etc. Yesterday loaded the XP Home that came with the 
machine. I had slipstreamed from the recover disc  XP to make an install 
disc that previously I had used to load system after installing new hard 
drive. Oh, that was from the original Compaq install. Took all day to 
finished loading all the software, drivers and had a stable machine.

Went to activate XP, which I had done previously with no problem online. 
Online activation didn't do the job, resorted to telephone, and this old 
phone with poor audio and tones wouldn't work with the system. Had to 
read 40 characters to female person in far off land, transfered to 
customer service that seemed USA based male, he didn't know what to do 
with me, back to activation and a far off land male after entering 40 
tones. Read the 40 tones to him, he read 40 characters back to me, a 
couple of clicks, read 40 more characters back to him. He declared I 
should go to Compaq for a new key. I explained that this was what came 
with the machine, had just changed the motherboard. He said go back to 
Compaq, and I knew they would as minimum like to sell me a new 
motherboard that I don't need. Scrapped the idea of XP on this machine, 
it's my backup, networked to a near extreme machine with XP PRO, 
formated the partition XP home was on, and reloaded Win ME. Both 
machines dual boot with Linux, but the getting to a stable Linux machine 
has been a struggle. Everything from suddenly not taking password to ATI 
driver issues. But do want to migrate away from Bill Gates!

Have since found online, this is a possibility, the issue of XP is tied 
to the motherboard ID. I couldn't find any EULA, including the original 
Compaq getting started book.  was looking for some wording that tied the 
machine and OS together. The only thing I found was on the XP home 
edition setup brochure, on the back the "Certificate of Authenticity" 
was remove, exposing wording that the manufacturer was to attach it to 
the PC, and it is on the case. I interpret that XP is married to that 
case, and I should be able to do that, but can't fight city hall. ~)

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