. Is this conversion really legal? Are the conversions violating the "anti" reverse engineering clauses I assume are in the EULA? you are not doing anything to the system illegaly, you are just turning on some options that were off and adding things that are already there but disabled 2. What about the tweak software to switch the id to make it appear as a workstation and not a server to be able to install certian 3rd party application software. (I can't recall the name ~ *NTsomething*) Again same question as #1 above. Same goes for the installation of the windows XP parts, Games, Themes, System Restore, etc. to convert 2003 to a workstation, you don't need to use that program, its just if you want to change 2003 to xp or if you want to change your 2003 standard to say enterprise edition or datacenter. that as far as i know is not legal 3. Assuming all this is O.K. to do, do you activate the product like usual? I suppose that you need to get an authorization/activation code. Is this to be done before or after the conversion process? you activate windows just like you would any other time, there is nothing different with the windows, you just have a more xpish type interface, with music and other such things 4. What about service packs and hotfixes? Will they still be applicable? After the conversion will Windows Update still work? Will it alert MS to something that wasn't intended to be done with their software? you can still get every service pack and hotfix, there is nothing done to your system that will not allow you to get that, you are just enabling things that were disabled 5. Has anyone run things like AutoCad or other application software on this converted OS? What were your experiences? autocad 2002 runs alot faster on 2003 than it did on xp, and most programs do, there are very rare problems with video cards not having the latest drivers and such, but other than that things run alot smoother on 2003 after you convert it to a workstation