You should aim for the pro version, if available, an unattended installation (I dare say quite hard to find a legit one for sale - but many versions exist in freer places on the net) and sp3 at least to be usable but as of 5 or 6 years ago, needing 4 to 6 important patches to sort out minor technical issues for more modern times - like full access to wifi hotspots to name one thing most people would want. The unofficial sp4 might be better suited for your starting point though.
Get an iso, burn it on a cd. Take a second computer and execute the xp keygen generator from endermanch. Use that to activate windows