What to look for on eBay? XP for Bootcamp

[roland.g]

I have a 2008 Unibody MacBook that I will partitioning and loading XP on to give to someone. They don't need/want Vista or 7.

My question is what to look for? I don't think they need a 64 bit version. They'll be running Office XP (2002/2003). And mostly booting into OS X for personal stuff. They want to keep personal and work separate so no Parallels/Fusion.

I saw some eBay full OEM versions with COA and product key for XP SP3 for $45-70. I think they were all 32 bit which I think is fine for their uses. I just wanted to make sure I got the right version/didn't miss anything in getting it that wouldn't install, etc.

Is that price range about right?

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[SpinalTap]

Currently versions of Mac OSX don't facilitate running XP (only Windows 7).

While there is a 'cheat' to fool the Mac into installing XP, when you try loading XP for the first time it doesn't open properly.

Best to look for an OEM version of Windows 7 Home instead.

 

[mfvisuals]

More specifically, 10.7 Lion or above will not support running XP via Boot Camp.

The main reason for that is because the Boot Camp support software (version 4) that Apple provides to install onto your Windows system only works with Windows 7.

If you have or can find an old copy of the Boot Camp support software (version 3) it should work fine as long as you don't use Boot Camp Assistant to do the installation. (The BootCamp 3.0 updates off the Apple support website do not count, as they update existing installed BootCamp software.)

You'd have to:
(a) Partition part of the hard drive to FAT format using Disk Utility.
(b) Load up the XP installation disk and choose that partition for installation.
(c) Install Boot Camp 3.0 support software from disc or usb drive after starting XP for the first time.

Also, keep in mind that although XP is fairly versatile, but it may not work well with newer hardware, although a 2008 MacBook should be okay.