k64

Thanks for those suggestions. I'll try manufacturer (Novatech) first, then other means of acquiring a DVD.

Excuse my ignorance on this but, having had an XP system, with Install CD, for some years I now find myself with a Vista Home Premium system which only has a "hidden" reinstallation partition. No DVD. Is there a way to create a slipstreamed DVD from this situation? Could it be done if I bought a Home Premium to Ultimate upgrade DVD? Many thanks.

Thanks, John, I did exactly as you suggested and now I have XP SP3 running in Virtual PC. My next aim is to integrate IE7.

The SP3 I'm using is WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe with size 331,805,736 and MD5 BB25707C919DD835A9D9706B5725AF58

Sorry, johnhc, but I don't understand what you require here, what's MD5?

johnhc, The ISO is 515MB and the lastsession.ini is attached Thanks. Last_Session.ini

I've tried running a fresh WinXP install from nLite SP3 disk both in VirtualPC and on a real spare partition with (almost) identical errors during the first automatic reboot after copying files: Real partition: After the Setup restarting message, a window appears (very briefly) as follows: isass.exe - System Error Insufficient system resources exist to complete the APIthen the system reboots again, continually. VirtualPC: Exactly the same result as above, but without the error message. The disk partition is 5GB, and 4GB is available to VirtualPC. Is this too small? I thought XP's minimum requirement was 1.5GB. [Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop, 1.5GB memory, 80GB disk, Windows XP Pro SP3]

Do you remember how you got past this error? I'm getting exactly the same endless restart.

Brilliant! That's got me past the software key OK. Thanks, g-force.

Three years ago I used nLite to create a WinXP SP2 disk, this booted OK but I never needed to use it. This week I've used latest nLite to create a WinXP SP3 disk from my original SP1a disk and the SP3 download. I now wish to use this to install a clean XP SP3 in a different partition, but I can't get past entering the software key which it says is incorrect. I'm confident it is correct as it's the same as on the label on this laptop. Of course I can't use the original SP1a or the nLite SP2 disks because "the version of XP on your computer is newer than the version on the CD". What could I have done wrong here? [Dell Inspiron 8600 running WindowsXP Pro SP3]