Here's the story so far:

2006 - got fed up of windows. bought an ibook. kept it for 2 years until the screen broke and the system got generally quite tired.
2008 - almost bought a macbook pro but the price put me off and I craved the old file management system of windows explorer (I never did make friends with apple's finder system)

TODAY:
- vista is unstable on my dell so I decide to dual-boot with xp.
- create partition (fine)
- install xp on partition (fine)
- xp doesn't recognise my wireless adapter
- so i carry computer and monitor to my nearby house which transmits my wifi signal (my computer is in my workplace)
- plug in ethernet cable directly to back of computer
- xp does not pick up the internet signal from my ethernet cable (!!)
- run back to shop, get blank cd, jump in car, go to mum's house to download driver for wifi adapter
- download driver, burn to cd, jump in car, go home
- driver doesn't install properly so still no wifi and no ethernet connection (!!)
- I needed the internet to download vistabootpro and .net framework 2.0 to complete the dual-boot process
- run back to shop for 2nd blank cd, jump in car, go to mum's to download vistabootpro and .net
- download files to cd, go back home
- double-click .net installer but am told I need XP Service Pack 2 first
- run back to shop for 3rd cd, jump in car, go to mum's to download SP2
- microsoft refuses to let me download SP2 because I'm using firefox
- open internet explorer but microsoft site doesn't let me download SP2 because Mum's computer already has it installed
- find 3rd party site. download sp2
- find sp3 on mum's computer so burn sp2 and sp3 to cd then go home again
- to be continued...

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