Hi!

I have a friend who did a dumb-a** thing and bought a Compaq
Presario SR1503WM a little over a year ago.

I don't know about that. Some of the Presario family were surprisingly good
systems. I got a lot of mileage out of my 5004 before a basement flood ate
it. It was used well beyond what Compaq ever intended...I ran Windows 2000
Pro on it and did a lot of virtualization work with it.

Is there any way I can get my hands on a set of these CD's or is there
another alternative (besides troubleshooting the registry problems)?

What OS is the system running? What problems are there and when did they
start? The problem might be fixable, but we'll have to know more. If it's
Windows Me...just forget it. Go out and grab a copy of XP or
98/98SE...whichever you think the hardware would be better able to handle.

You could always load a retail (or OEM, if you can get a new, unused one and
don't mind bending the rules a bit) version of Windows on it, or possibly
even consider another OS, such as Linux. Secondhand copies of Windows can be
found, just be sure they are legit before you buy.

Finally, there is the chance that someone here on the group or in your area
has the same system. Most of the Presario line sold relatively well. Finding
someone else with the same system shouldn't be too hard--ask around at
computer stores, maybe put up some flyers or put an ad in a newspaper.
(Around here, at least one newspaper has a so-called "good neighbors" column
that is free to use for "wanted" or "I have this" ads.)

William