[brownsfan019]

Since I will be reformatting at least 1 computer, probably 2, just wondering if it's worth the time savings to purchase a XP SP3 disc. I have XP SP2 that came w/ the computers.

Is it worth buying one to save time and do a clean install w/ SP3? If so, can you recommend any good sites to purchase from? A couple sites also said you need a pre-installation kit as well... What is that?

Thanks everyone!

[sevensa]

I wouldn't. If you have lots of PC's and you really want to save time, then maybe, but not for two. SP3 is about 300MB to download and took far less than an hour to install.

If you are going to buy XP with SP3 already included, you will have to buy one for each computer you want to install it on since you cannot install it on more than one computer.

If you download SP3, you can kick it off on both computers at the same time and be pretty much done within an hour. Unless an hour of your time is worth more than two copies of XP, this is probably not worth buying it.

I am not really sure what a pre-installation kit is.

[Kiwi]

No.

You can either do a SP2 then SP3 addition or you can slipstream SP2 into SP3 to create your own SP3 install disk. Its not a hard process (I did it from SP1 to SP2 but can't recall the exact process - pm me if you want and I'll dig thru my urls to find one that gives you step by step instructions).