i know there have been other post asking about this, but i have a friend who is willing to give me a Dell reinstallation CD of XP Pro SP2, i have recently bought a new comp that has no OS installed on it, nice and fresh. I was wondering if i could install this on it and how would i go about doing it.. i'm comp savvy but not at the same time, so maybe dumb it down a little bit

1. It is illegal to install Windows on more than 1 machine.
2. If the edition of XP you have offered to you is the OEM version, this dies with the machine onto which it was first installed.
3. Members of this forum will not help you break the law.

Having said all that, technically there is no reason why the Dell software should not work on any other PC providing you don't expect the drivers to be compatible.

as far as i know it has not been installed on any other machine, they just bought a new dell computer but already had their own copy of Vista to install on it.

Dells restore disks are keyed to the motherboard BIOS and cant be used on any other computer. Also most restore discs arent an OS disc but an image of the installation so If you used it on another system it wouldnt work because the drivers and system files for the original computer would be installed.