Cd drive question-Goes to explore mode, sometimes doesnt' recongnize cd, and ask to format? its not blank?

I had prob install office xp, first in vista premium, so installed a virtual drive, and installed xp pro, well after I installed xp pro on the virtual I go to install my office xp, click D drive and goes to like the explore page where you have list of whats on cd, well I go down to install each individually word, excell, access ect. won't let me install it due to invalid key, so I put the question in yahoo answers, well in meantime I eventually come back to computer and just try it again, and double click the d drive and then it works? ya know opens up the installer to where it downloads all programs at once(kinda like autorun) well input key and like I knew it was correct got it installed. I have had issues with this in past, where it will do this with other software. So my question is how do I make it run all at once, and not get the explore option? So I wonder if it really wasnt prob w/ vista? somtimes when click d drive ask me if want 2 format cd cause its blank, but i know its not

You are having either software of hardware issues preventing your cd drive from reading the cd. You can however, install office without the key. You won't get all the features of all the programs, but most users would never notice what they are missing. Every time you open an Office program, it will ask you to activate it, but just ignore that.