search for OEM XP

Many chinese websites have genuine OEM XP CD images for download. Since you bought a brand name laptop, you can search for the image for that particular brand. If you have a genuine XP CD for a different brand, you can replace the OEM files on that CD with the OEM files (OEMBIOS.BI_, OEMBIOS.DA_, OEMBIOS.SI_, OEMBIOS.CA_) for your brand and slipstream a new XP installation CD. OEM XP is activated by a string in BIOS such as "Hewlett-Packard", no need to enter the license key or activate over the phone. Can pass WGA and download updates without any problem. There is plenty of info about OEM XP on chinese websites.

As others pointed out, the key is to find all the XP drivers. Try to get all the hardware information using Everest. Go to the chipset vendor's website to download the drivers. Typically the chipset is either NVidia or ATI. Both provide XP drivers on their website. Finding drivers for Intel chipset is a bit harder, since their website is so chaotic. The lowest quality chipset would be VIA. That would be a good excuse to return the laptop. Once you have all the drivers, you can slipstream them into your XP installation CD. See my previous post about slipstream drivers using nLite.

My preference is XP/Vista dual-boot. Download EasyBCD. You can configure which OS to use in EasyBCD very easily. In the future if you are tired of one OS, you can simply blow it away and keep the other one.