In my case even more basic than they won't set my key again -- the CD disk itself is "unreadable" and they won't replace it.
So much for buying a software license from Microsoft -- their word is about as good as their plastic they used in their CDs.
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If my XP installation CD were good I'd use it to set up a dual boot on my new box as some of my old XP game collection is still worth playing occasionally.
As it is, I still have a couple of Windows laptops running around that I can use for that duty.
I have a copy of Serious Sam on one of them that has lots & lots of modifications that were current when the game was relatively new. I got a mini-gun that fires a 12 gauge buckshot shell instead of a 308 round (you can flat dig a trench in a stone courtyard with it and it mows down them charging bulls just like grass).
My nephew wants my XP gaming laptop when I die as he has never seen a game as cool as my tweeked and modded Serious Sam.
I showed him how to fly up right above the Ugg giant at the end of Far Cry and have Ugg catch all the rounds from all his various helpers as they try to shoot at you and then you can have Ugg stomp all over them as you lead him around in small circles by flying in front of his face.
In Far Cry I showed him how to take just the silenced small machine gun and how to SNEAK effectively, hide
inside plants and pop everything in the headbone, just one head shot per baddy.
It is a flaw in the game that if you are totally still, and are inside some foliage, they can't see you at all -- but you can see them as the leaves move in the breeze and they will walk up and stop about 10 yards away and look around and around for you.
<pop> (I've built piles of bodies on a path, just for the fun of it)
In Far Cry I got a sniper rifle that has 150x magnification available. The bullets explode like rockets when they hit (one shot per small baddy).
I got a lightsaber with a variable length blade instead of the long butcher knife. I can fly and go through walls as needed.
Another favorite tweeked game was No One Lives Forever 2 --- I used to run through the Japanese village hitting each of the wooden alarm bells in turn until every female ninja that could be spawned was running in a line behind me. Then I'd pull my sword and kill them all just as fast as they could catch up (or until I caught to many flying shirken and died).
"Ouch, that hurts --- ooooh, I'm bleeding"
Use the crossbow and the scope to pin an arm or a hand against a wooded wall from a distance, then walk by them while they are still alive and kicking.
In the original NOLF you could use the spear gun the same way, just pin one foot to the floor and walk on by the Turkish dudes while they jabbered nonsense at you in protest.
In NOLF2 the crossbow with the scope and all the assorted poison and exploding ammo you could get by the end was the cat's meow at the you had to off all those augmented powerpacked eyeblasting type monstrosities.
I guess those were my three favorite games -- they just got better the more you tweeked at them.
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