Windows XP Key not working

Apr 22, 2018
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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
 
Solution
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).
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).
 
Solution
Apr 22, 2018
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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
 
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.