back-up needed?

[Jeff]

I'm running Windows 2000 Professional and would like to
change over to XP. Never installed an OS before and am
very worried about it.

Questions:

1. Is it necessary to uninstall Windows 2000 Professional
before installing XP? If so, how is this done?

2. Is it possible to install XP without uninstalling 2000
first? Is this what is known as an upgrade? In this case,
is it still necessary to back-up all files?

3. What's the best way to back-up files? Seems like it
might require dozens of CDs.

Thanks for helping out a greenhorn!

 

[Danny Sanders]

1. Is it necessary to uninstall Windows 2000 Professional

before installing XP? If so, how is this done?

No, but some suggest that you should perform a clean install by booting from
the XP CD and deleting - recreating - and formatting the partitions. This
way you can be reasonably sure you are getting rid of un necessary files
that may be carried over from an upgrade.

2. Is it possible to install XP without uninstalling 2000
first? Is this what is known as an upgrade? In this case,
is it still necessary to back-up all files?

Yes, just upgrade.

To backup or not depends on if you can do without the files you created, if
the upgrade fails and you have no choice but to format and reinstall. Having
an upgrade crash to the point where you can not get access to your computer
is a definite possibility. If you need your files you need to prepare for
the worst.

3. What's the best way to back-up files? Seems like it
might require dozens of CDs.

Tape drive, Zip them burn them to CD, some online sites have resources where
one can dump a lot of files for backup purposes, but you have to get online
to retrieve them so I would not store drivers there.

hth
DDS W 2k MVP MCSE