More interesting posts. Most of the kit in the lab is connected to a dedicated machine the vast majority of which are stand alone, ie no internet/network connection. I hear people about up to date kit but why should electronics and by extension computers need to be “current”, it if does the job and is still running then its good enough for the job.
Update:
1) Called the MS number which is an automated service, after typing in the gazillion digit number it basically said “too old or stolen”.
2) We also tried a few other XP codes from other boxes but they didn’t work
3) Tried to put the drive into another old XP box but the boot stopped early with a NTDLR (?) error
Finally BIL said he will have another look round for the old machine, agreed as above that a repair of that maybe the best option. We had asked him more than once if he still had it
Aside. Was interesting to see some boxes with a mix of Sata and IDE connectors. Also old XP box had 256mb of RAM !