You have gotten good advice on how to disable the call home function
of XP...

As far as I know at this time that call home function on XP will not
disable XP OS functions if you are not hooked to the internet.. It
will likely generate annoying messages ad infinitum... I have chosen
to leave the call home function installed on the multiple machines at
my office as the OS are all registered and the machines have 24/7
internet access... At this point in time it is easier to go along
with Billy than to fight him...

Vista is a different kettle of fish.. If it is not able to tattle on
you it will selectively disable some of the OS.... I have no personal
experience with Vista, only what my vendors tell me.. Given that my
software vendors are showing little interest in dealing with Vista's
crap I am an XP user for the forseeable future..

I just bought an NIB Pentium yesterday, a really nice 2.9 gig HP with
a gig of ram and lots of bells and whistles... While we did not need
it at the moment the price was right and it has XP Pro on board so I
don't have to go throught the agony of unloading Vista and it will
work with our business software...

My retirement boat is under construction right now so in about 6
months I will be deep into installing the navigation equipment... At
that time I will have to survey the landscape and decide what OS to
have on board...

denny
MV 'Levitation', 50' power cat