John said:
I have a name brand PC with XP Home OEM but no XP media. I want to
"genericize" it by formating the hd and installing the retail upgrade version
of XP Home. How do I make the upgrade version work after the drive has been
formatted? Can I use a Win98 CD to trick the upgrade?
Yes, that should work.
Simply boot from the WinXP Upgrade CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. 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.
--
Bruce Chambers
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