If you bought a computer with WinXP installed, you are pretty much at the mercy of the computer builder as to what support is available. The OEM builder is responsible for all support of the "OEM Windows" supplied with a computer. An OEM builder pays a "per copy installed" fee to Microsoft, but it is a bit less than the price of a separate "retail version" for each machine. OEM builders are permitted to make modifications to the OS, and some do some pretty bizarre things to make the OS "compatible" with their own objectives.

It makes some difference what brand of computer it is, as different OEM makers provide different "flavors" of restore disks. Gateway, in one sad example I've encountered, supplied a clearly labelled "restore" disk, but it isn't the Windows restore disk. Another disk with some vague name that I don't recall is the one you have to boot from to reinstall Windows, and the "restore" disk is for "finishing Windows and installing all the other stuff." In the Gateway example, both disks were DVDs, and not CDs. This appears to be common now, but IMHO is questionable, as DVD drives are probably the first component likely to fail, leaving you with no way to repair anything else. CD drives have significantly better, although not perfect, reliability.

Unless there was an easily and clearly stated reason for it that your son should understand, anyone who advised "not to use the disks" probably was not "WinXP qualified" to be giving advice.

Most machines with preinstalled Windows come with more than one disk. The Windows XP install disk should be bootable but may have almost any kind of name on it. You may be forced to the procedure I used with the Gateway mentioned - put in a disk and see if the machine boots from it. When you find one that boots, it's probably the real WinXP reinstall disk.

WinXP should inform you of a missing .dll file and ask for the right disk to get it from if the service shop installed from the disks that came with the machine. If the .dll is required by some device or program that didn't come with the machine, you may need a disk (or a driver download) from whoever made the device or the program.

When WinXP is installed, you have the choice of whether to install help files, so the service person may have left them off. You probably can add them back, and also provide the ability for Windows to look for repair information like the missing .dll simply by going to:

1. Start | Settings | Control Panel
2. Double click on "Add or Remove Programs"
3. On the sidebar, there should be a place to click "Add/Remove Windows components." Click there.

This should give you a list of "Windows parts" you can check whether to include or omit from your Windows setup. If you click on one of the items, you can "expand" it, to make detailed choices about things like (sometimes) whether to include help files for the stuff in that part. YOU WILL NEED THE DISKS THAT CAME WITH THE MACHINE (or the ones your "service person" reinstalled from) in most cases for anything new to be added.

Unlike earlier versions like Win98, with WinXP it is ALMOST NEVER NECESSARY TO REFORMAT AND REINSTALL if WinXP "starts," since WinXP includes "fixits" that can be used for almost anything likely to happen. You do have to learn where they are, what they do, and how to make them work for you.

WinXP SP2 is, IMO, mandatory, and you may or may not have gotten it with your serviced reinstall; so that needs discussion later, perhaps.

John