Windows XP Key not working

[fmapsc]

Hey so my dad brought a old pc from his company and told me to make something of him and so i turned on and noticed that a operative system wasn't installed so i clicked on f1 to boot and it started to install windows xp but then it asked me for windows xp key so i put the one that was behind the laptop and when i clicked enter it said that was invalid. Then i decided to install a different operative system with my own laptop and then put it in the pc that my dad brought but i noticed that didn't have an usb port it only had an cd and my own laptop doesn't have a cd my question is what should i do? I have an usb pen drive with 32gb and an empty cd with 8gb also my dad also brought a lot of cds that went with the laptop.
The pc is a compaq presario 900

 

[Grobe]

Hi.

There shuld be USB port next to the fan, found this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrGokN0PGTM
At 1:35 it show the lid is open - are your laptop diferent from this?

Btw: to get a usable computer that you can connect to internet, please forget about XP and use Linux instead, even if it takes some while to learn. For that particular computer I think that Bodhi Linux is a proper choice (32 bit version is named Legacy Release).

 

[fmapsc]

Thank you so much I didn't noticed that I could open that and also had an USB because the pc was so old but thanks that's a big problem solved but yeah I agree I can't use xp. In the past I used to have an Linux and one thing I remembered was I couldn't install anything was all Windows files. How do you get used to it is just my only question but thanks I will use It also because I don't have more options to be honest. And also can I put the operative system on a USB pen drive with my laptop and then install it with the USB on the compaq?
Thanks

 

[Grobe]

Because Linux is so very fundamental different from Windows, it does takes time to get used to it. But, there is help to get out there. There is a lot of video on youtube and also each distribution (distro) have their own website and user forum, most have devoted members that want to help newcomers get started.

Just a couple of thing to mention - this is what I beleive can be a problem using such old computer:
1: CPU probably 32 bit. Nowdays many Linux distridutions have decided to drop support for 32 bit architecture, so it kind of limit the number of distros to choose from.
2: The CPU may not have SSE2 support. That mean in short that no web browsers will work. That said - no web browsers support XP either as I know about.

Two distribution I have used myself is Peppermint and Bodhi Linux, both still have a 32 bit version. But there is other distros out there.