screwed-up bad

[Nate_Marks]

I just finished building my PC and went to download my windows xp when I realized that I just have the upgrade version and not the full version (bought it from and online ebay retailer). So my friend suggests I hunt down a older copy of windows, boot-up from there, then up-grade later. My question is how far down can I go? I've already sent a lot on the comp. so far so I'm not interested in buying an expensive old o.s. that I'm only gonna use for 5 mintues. Which of the older versions (95,98,nt,2000,etc.) can I use for this without paying so much?

[pam123]

Get ahold of any older copy from 98 on up ( I've heard that 95 will work despite M$'s discalimer but that's practically archeology.).
Anyone of them that someone isn't using in their computer is legal, ask around.
You don't need to boot with it, just put it in the drive when XP asks to confirm that you have the older OS cd.
Then take it out and put XP back in and continue the install.

[flanzig1]

With the upgrade version of XP, you don't have to load an old OS first. You just need a real copy of an old Windows OS(any will do/95 on up). When you put in the XP CD, it will ask for a CD of an older version of Windows, put that in, it reads it, then put XP in and finish installing.