Win XP Pro Upgrade

[Thomas]

I am a student at a university and currently have WIN XP
home. I need win xp pro. Our university offers xp pro at
a discount, but it is the upgrade. I would like to know
if I can install the upgrade as a clean install instead of
over xp home. I want to do this because I have had
problems in the past with upgrading the OS over an older
one.

 

[Guest]

That will work fine,just install xp pro cd,restart computer,boot to xp cd
select,install,new copy.XP will reformat the hd,then install with pro.

 

[Patti MacLeod]

Hi Thomas,

Yes, you can install the upgrade version as a clean install, so long as you
have the install CD from a previous qualifying version of Windows. As far as
using Recovery or Restore CDs that are supplied by the computer
manufacturer, in case that is what you have, I don't know if they are
recognized or not during the verification portion of Setup.


Regards,

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

It's quite possible to perform a clean installation using the
Upgrade CD. You'll be offered the opportunity to delete, create, and
format partitions as part of the installation process.

Simply boot from the WinXP Upgrade CD. The Upgrade CD checks to
see if a qualifying OS is installed, and, if it finds none, it asks
you to insert the installation media (CD) of that OS. Unfortunately,
an OEM "Recovery/Restore" CD will not work for this purpose; you must
have a true installation CD, complete with the "\Win98" folder and
*.cab files, or the "\i386" folder of WinNT/2K.

Alternatively, or especially if all you have is an OEM Recovery CD
for the earlier OS, you can even start the upgrade from within the
current Win98/Me/NT/2K installation, and still elect to perform a
clean installation, to include formatting the drive. In this case,
there's no further request for the qualifying OS's installation CD,
because the installation routing "remembers" that you started from
within the qualifying OS. This process is more time-consuming, but
you get the same results: a clean installation of WinXP.

Some people will recommend that you perform a clean installation,
rather than upgrade over an earlier OS. For the most part, I feel
that these people, while well-meaning, are living in the past, and are
basing their recommendation on their experiences with older operating
systems. You'd probably save a lot of time by upgrading your PC to
WinXP, rather than performing a clean installation, if you've no
hardware or software incompatibilities. Microsoft has greatly
improved (over earlier versions of Windows) WinXP's ability to
smoothly upgrade an earlier OS.

WinXP is designed to install and upgrade the existing operating
system while simultaneously preserving your applications and data, and
translating as many personalized settings as possible. The process is
designed to be, and normally is, quite painless. That said, things
can go wrong, in a small number of cases. If your data is at all
important to you, back it up before proceeding.


Bruce Chambers
--
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