Windows 2000 pro reinstall

Hi
My friend has a second hand computer she bought from a shop selling old business machines. (now no longer trading.) Sold with no disks just preinstalled with 2000 pro and sticker on the side of the machine.

She has lots of errors including internet explorer and outlook express not working properly, and she is unable to install her orange livebox.

She would like to format and start again but did not get any disks with the computer just the licence key sticker on the side of the computer.

If she can borrow a 2000 pro disk can she install this with her licence key? (Cheap option) Or will she have to buy a new copy of windows? (expensive option).

Any help appreciated.

 

Why not? The disks are the same regardless of who owns it. Well, tech-speak, we don't own Windows. We are licensed to use it one 1 machine at a time. The only difference is the license. I would be concerned about the validity of the license though. Can she update Windows? If she can, chances are her license is good. Things I'd do:

1. Clean registry. Scan for malware thoroughly. Do a full scandisk. Defrag the drive. Update Windows to latest service pack. Try it out for a week.

2. If that doesn't fix the issue, a clean install of windows may be in order.

 

Just a suggestion. You might look at Windows Explorer directory and look for the Folder cmdcons, if it is there you might be able to repair using the safe mode. Check out the Help, Troubleshooting and Maintenance.

 

I've had a lot of trouble installing W2000 over the years...

I solved it by pulling the Internet connection wire from the tower, and formating the hd with W98's fdisk feature.. then pull the battery for about ten minutes.. then run the W2000 install, formating yet again... Add the W2000 updater 5, and the W2000 rollup, both from a CD... Add Tiny Personal Firewall from a floppy, and set TPF to block Everything.. then plug the Internet cable into the tower, and add the Ethernet software, and teach TPF what I want the PC to connect to... Then install, update, and run: Spybot S&D, Bit Defender, CCleaner, EasyCleaner, RegScrub, and Defrag... And run CMDiskCleaner's custom registry scan for: macromedia, shockwave, showbehind, backweb, and desktopmessenger.. deleting only those custom finds, not the other stuff it finds... I found that CMDC is so thorough that it finds all your personal prefs as bad registries too... I never use a duplicates cleaner.. it's just too risky...