Just like any of your other CDs/DVDs/Tapes/Whatever - you are ENCOURAGED to
make a duplicate copy for archival purposes.

You would use your third party CD/DVD burning/copy application to replicate
the CD or find instructions on the Internet (using Google or your favorite
search engine) on how to not only make a copy of it - but slipstream
(integrate) service packs and many security updates into a new copy of your
original CD/DVD for installation - saving you time and effort if you ever
have to install from that CD/DVD.

Yes you can.

You can also slipstream your copy to update it.

Sure is, in fact it's pretty easy.

You use CD burning software that allows for creation of exact copies of a
disk.   Simply make a copy of the CD.

Simply copying files will *not* make this work, as there are key boot files
you can't see in specific locations you can't control with simple copying.

It's not a bad idea to burn at low speed, as this can help maintain
integrity.

To test, insert the finished CD, shut down your system, and restart it.  As
long as your system is set to boot from CD, it will start into Setup.  You
can cancel at the first opportunity; the CD is working.

HTH
-pk

Yes you can make a copy of your XP CD. To do that you will need third party
CD Burning software that has copying capabilities as XP's built in CD
Burning software cannot do this. There are many such commercial programs
such as Nero but there are good freeware alternatives. One excellent free
program is found here http://www.cdburnerxp.se/features.php Just make sure
you use the CD Copy function to copy your original disk then put it away and
use the copy if you need it.

You also ask about making a full system backup to CDs. Once again you need
third party software. There are many such programs which are typically
called imaging software as they create an exact duplicate or "image" of the
system. This image can be compressed and spanned across multiple discs to
create a set. When you restore the image you will need all of the discs in
the set. Remember that a typical blank CD-R will only hold 700MB of data. If
your system has a large drive filled with data you might find that you need
many, many CDs to create the set. If even one of the discs in the set
becomes damaged then the restore will not complete. You will also find that
a restore may take many hours if you have many discs to keep swapping in and
out of a drive. A better solution for creating full system backups is to use
DVD's which can hold as much as 8.5GB of data if you have a Dual Layer DVD
burner and Dual Layer discs or 4.5 GB on a standard DVD Burner.

However, in my opinion, the best approach to full system backups is to use
an external hard drive. Hard drive enclosures are very inexpensive and you
can purchase very large hard drives quite inexpensively. An external drive
plugs into a USB port and you simply use the Imaging software to dump the
image to the usb drive. You can then safely remove the drive and store it in
another location, off site, until it is needed. This way if you have an
extreme problem such as house fire, disaster, robbery or such you backup is
safe to be loaded back.

I use Acronis TrueImage for this purpose. I have several hard drive
enclosures. I make periodic system backups and swap the drives around. It is
a simple routine to get into.