Below is a link to a post on bleeping computer that has a link to one, scroll down to the post by Mike_Walsh near the bottom of the page.  I recently used this one to recover an old HP ( vintage) that had a hard drive failure.  This machine was used for a video camera/monitor setup on the production floor of a client, and was not connected to the LAN or the internet in any way.  I scanned it with Sophos and Malwarebytes and it came up clean and has worked without issue for about 4 months now.  I will warn you though, when you transfer the iso to a bootable USB, do not change the volume label that Rufus auto generates.  If you do, it will not self activate correctly.

bharathealthcares.com

If you feel uneasy with this, you can still purchase a full retail version here, where they will send you a download link about 10 minutes after purchase.

I may check this out - like I said I have a volume license key for XP but Microsoft removed the download link.

Do you know if this is 32 bit or 64?

They are both 32 bit.  64 bit XP is very rare. It was not even released until April of , pretty close to the end of XP's run.

If I remember correctly, the iso on Bleepingcomputer used a VLK for its activation.

It's a very long and drawn out story that involves servers crashing and being down for a week in the middle of a server migration and some other not pretty and stupid things. The download above just finished so we'll see if it works. I don't even need it for more than a few hours - I just need XP to convert some things and then I won't even need it any more.

mjrowell wrote:

It's a very long and drawn out story that involves servers crashing and being down for a week in the middle of a server migration and some other not pretty and stupid things. The download above just finished so we'll see if it works. I don't even need it for more than a few hours - I just need XP to convert some things and then I won't even need it any more.

Now though, keep a backup of the ISO image now, because this things come up more often than not. Be prepared :)

Always keep your old software discs, ISOs, upgrades, etc. You never know when you'll need something from the old days. I've got stuff that's 25 years old and I still need something off the disc every once in awhile. Sometimes it's just documentation, but there's no guarantee that you'll find it on the web for something that old. We also use software that you aren't going to find a download of on the internet. When something has a very specific use for an industry they don't post it on the internet. Good Luck!