Look for something like this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/116016876092?itmmeta … ABk9SR9CsgvDOYw

Your best bet would be a large company like Dell, HP, etc who were large enough to have a special OEM licencing partnership with Microsoft.
They would always have the COA sticker with the key on the side of the PC somewhere proving the PC is licenced for a copy of XP
Keep in mind though that most of the time the key on these stickers are locked in with a CD from the same company. You can't use a generic OEM CD.

It is possible to find generic PC's with the COA sticker but much rarer and no guarantee the insides of the case haven't been replaced (If that matters to you)

Not quite what you asked but it's still possible to buy new old stock OEM or retail copies of XP from places like ebay.
Just keep in mind though both OEM and Retail copies need activation which no longer works over the internet and will either involve a phone call or crack.

Just keep in mind though both OEM and Retail copies need activation which no longer works over the internet and will either involve a phone call or crack.

This is correct. On the other hand, since you are also i terested in a Win95/98 machine, this may be a bit easier, since the licence key is often printed on the sticker and no phone activation is needed.

Actually Windows XP can still be activated without cracks or phone activation.

https://www.xpforums.com/threads/windows-xp-a … 8/#post-3270414

Lots of shady sellers on Ebay so if you want to make sure your copy of XP is genuine you're better off buying a Dell/HP etc. PC that came with XP so you'll have the COA sticker on the PC.

Thank you to everyone that responded. I really appreciate it. I've been checking ebay and contacting the sellers. Some have given a straight answer others not really.

Stick with those that are Top Rated Plus.

They offer 30 day returns.

It is also worth considering if such a machine may be just somewhere close to you. Especially if you dont want to pay for ( sometimes highly inflated) prices. (see for example this post:
Retro PC assembly/refurbish to order - does anyone do this in the UK? . )Lots of such machines are still around unused in basements and attics.

If the reason you don't want to use a pirated copy is that they are cracked, modified, etc. and you don't trust that, that's not a problem.

You can simply get an image of a Volume License (VL) release of XP and burn it to a CD, enter a serial number during installation, and it'd just work. Those releases don't need any activation.

You can probably buy such discs from ebay if you don't want to burn it yourself.

I personally don't want an illegal copy of the software.
I found a couple pcs on ebay was wondering if anyone could let me know if these would be good.
Thanks in advance

https://www.ebay.com/itm/226009195919?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256458314210?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186353014830?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235415871190?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

It really depends on what you’re gonna use it for, the one with 8GB Ram wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the extra ram without having WinXP x64 Edition installed as 32-bit OS/Systems can only use up to 4GB Ram.

Also please do not mistake x64 edition with 64-bit edition, 64-bit edition was made to run on Intel’s Itanium CPUs (now discontinued) x64 edition was made to run on the more (un)common x86_64 architecture by Intel & AMD on many home and business environments from the time.

tduncan212 wrote on 2024-03-28, 22:58:

I personally don't want an illegal copy of the software. I found a couple pcs on ebay was wondering if anyone could let me know […]
Show full quote

I personally don't want an illegal copy of the software.
I found a couple pcs on ebay was wondering if anyone could let me know if these would be good.
Thanks in advance

https://www.ebay.com/itm/226009195919?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256458314210?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186353014830?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235415871190?mkcid=1 … temis&media=SMS

I can vouch for the Optiplex 960 in the first link. They're excellent rock solid machines and easy to work on, and IMO they look really nice visually. Keep in mind it has BTX motherboard and not ATX though, so it won't easily accept two-slot GPUs.

HP's of this era are best avoided as the bios have been gimped by HP, making it useless for any other purpose other than what they intended. i have a HP Pavillion a262n (Asus P4SD-LA, 478 pentium 4, 865 chipset) from around 2004/2005 which came with XP, After re-installing xp i found my intel 865 chipset drivers setup refused to run as it couldnt detect an intel chipset, and also my nvidia driver setup also wouldnt run as it couldnt detect an nvidia chipset, did the same thing no matter the Os, this seems to be intentional buggery on HP's part, luckily someone found that theres a bios from a differnt asus board thats similar and somewhat compatible, it unlocks the board so drivers can detect your chipset/gpu, downside is this bios breaks fan control, so you have to deal with a cpu fan spinning at over 4000rpm.

Thank you. I never had a Dell, just wasn't interested. But I'm look at the Optiplex 960. And the seller has been responding.
He said:
"The Windows XP install on this machine uses the same recovery media that Dell originally shipped with the machine, so it’s a legit installation. If you want/need an original recovery disc included with the machine for reinstallation purposes in the future I’m happy to provide that as well."

That could work out quite well.
Sometimes Dell recovery media doesn't require activation, instead been locked to the BIOS

I'd also go with the Optiplex 960. For XP faster is better but agree HP's quality was pretty cheap/crap.
Far better to drop a better CPU in the Dell if needed IMHO.

My personal favourite is the custom PC but makes for a low end XP PC, but would make a high end Win98 PC

Yeah I'll be going with the Dell most likely.
Does anyone happen to know the speed difference of XP with HDD vs SSD?
Thanks for the help.

Watch out for the dell’s and hp’s a lot of these are work or generic home computers and many are 64 bit.
And you will have a nightmare with obtaining cards to fit in them.
Research the cpu and motherboard before bidding

I’m currently working on 2 of them
The first one I’ve got xp / win98 working but I’m still tweaking it with drivers and such and they are also offline computers (ie cracked OS) win98 is being unhappy with a few drivers.
The second one runs xp having trouble with win98 (sata driver issues). Have spare motherboard with better pci slots.

Will be selling the first one once fully functional

Greywolf1 wrote on 2024-04-12, 12:22:

Watch out for the dell’s and hp’s a lot of these are work or generic home computers and many are 64 bit. And you will have a nig […]
Show full quote

Watch out for the dell’s and hp’s a lot of these are work or generic home computers and many are 64 bit.
And you will have a nightmare with obtaining cards to fit in them.
Research the cpu and motherboard before bidding

I’m currently working on 2 of them
The first one I’ve got xp / win98 working but I’m still tweaking it with drivers and such and they are also offline computers (ie cracked OS) win98 is being unhappy with a few drivers.
The second one runs xp having trouble with win98 (sata driver issues). Have spare motherboard with better pci slots.

Will be selling the first one once fully functional

The ones I looked at are similar except ssd and hdd.
And I'm mostly interested in using for older probably pre 2005 software and games.
Here's a description of one I was interested in. I'm not real computer literate these days.

Specifications of the machine are as follows:

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3 GHz (quad core processor)
-4 GB DDR3 RAM (around 3GB usable with Windows XP)
-AMD Radeon HD 3450 Graphics
-500GB hard drive
-Windows XP Pro, 32-bit
-DVD-RW Drive (DVD and CD recorder)
-8 USB 2.0 ports (6 back, 2 front)
-Gigabit Ethernet port
-Dual DVI Port (on included DMS-59 cable)
-Audio out/line in ports (front and back)
-Serial Port
-Parallel Port

Greywolf1 wrote on 2024-04-12, 12:22:

Watch out for the dell’s and hp’s a lot of these are work or generic home computers and many are 64 bit.
And you will have a nightmare with obtaining cards to fit in them.

It shouldn't matter if the CPU is 64-bit, they still run 32-bit software and OSs perfectly as if they were a 32-bit CPU. They have a nice side benefit of accepting a 64-bit OS if OP ever decides to run Windows Vista or 7, for example.

There's shouldn't be much trouble putting single slot cards in a BTX motherboard like a lot of these OEMs use, though the cards will be upside down. It is an issue for dual slot cards though as the bracket won't be able to screw in unless the bracket/slot cover is removed, but then the card isn't supported properly. My friend and I came up with janky solutions to get dual slot GPUs running in Optiplexes, it was kinda fun.

tduncan212 wrote on 2024-04-09, 22:02:

Yeah I'll be going with the Dell most likely.
Does anyone happen to know the speed difference of XP with HDD vs SSD?
Thanks for the help.

SSD will be significantly faster for on any OS. Optiplex 960 has onboard SATA, so should be no trouble using a modern SSD. You may need to put the ports into compatibility/legacy/IDE mode during installation so XP sees it as a regular IDE disk and won't need special drivers. Otherwise, you can try to find the SATA drivers for it and put them on a floppy, then use F6 during setup to load them and have full SATA and AHCI support.

HDDs have the benefit of being more period correct and some enjoy hearing the HDD spinning up and doing work as the heads move around. You could also get the best of both worlds by using an SSD as your boot disk to keep the OS snappy, and use an HDD as your data/games disk.

tduncan212 wrote on 2024-04-12, 16:37:

The ones I looked at are similar except ssd and hdd. And I'm mostly interested in using for older probably pre 2005 software and […]
Show full quote

The ones I looked at are similar except ssd and hdd.
And I'm mostly interested in using for older probably pre 2005 software and games.
Here's a description of one I was interested in. I'm not real computer literate these days.

Specifications of the machine are as follows:

-Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3 GHz (quad core processor)
-4 GB DDR3 RAM (around 3GB usable with Windows XP)
-AMD Radeon HD 3450 Graphics
-500GB hard drive
-Windows XP Pro, 32-bit
-DVD-RW Drive (DVD and CD recorder)
-8 USB 2.0 ports (6 back, 2 front)
-Gigabit Ethernet port
-Dual DVI Port (on included DMS-59 cable)
-Audio out/line in ports (front and back)
-Serial Port
-Parallel Port

Looks good!

@cosmic wouldn’t 64bit hardware cause compatibility issues and wouldn’t it butcher your cpu as well?
I tried using a laptop with 32bit vista on it and it still had massive issues with pre xp games so how can it be usable?
Thought for it to work you would still need a 32bit capable cpu.
I’m a novice with this stuff but I’ve hit a wall with anything 2core or greater when playing my old games
Only success I’ve had is with a P4 32bit.