So my old Win2K machine's HDD died and I don't have a legit copy of WinXP to use with the hardware. I've got legit copies of Win98 OEM and WinME which was the first and last MS OS I bought, because I felt suckered or cursed (much like Vista purchasers must, I imagine).
I tried a illegitimate copy of English-language XP and though it installed, "Windows Genuine Advantage" prevents patching or additions to the base install. Without Global IME, I can't use Japanese applications or drivers, and most of my h/w is Japanese (Buffalo, Corega).
So I've got this clunky old desktop with a working 80GB drive in it but no recent OS. At this point I'm leaning toward trying Linux, maybe one of the friendlier flavors like Ubuntu. But the just-a-little-different feeling of the OS will most likely prevent my wife from using it at all. (e.g. She dislikes OpenOffice, claiming it's a big PITA compared to MS Office 2003/XP/2007) -- Does WINE really run apps like Office within Linux?
I'm willing to pay for XP or Windows7 if there's something like a student/educator/cheap-bastard version. If OEM copies of XP come with used h/w I'd be up for buying a clunker laptop for the license, but my non-researched impression is that laptops moved from install-DVDs to instead use HDD partitions. I guess they /might/ have manuals with a Product Registry Key, but would that work with the XP install disk I have?
Anybody have any clever ideas?
