Reinstall Win XP

G

Guest

Because of reocurring problems I have decided to reinstall WIN XP Home (SP2).
But when I put the Windows CD in the drive, I get this: This is exactly how
the message appeared:
"Windows Update
X (red x) Windows Setup
Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer is
newer than the version on the CD.
Warning: If you decide to delete the newer version of Windows that is
currently installed on your computer, the files and settings cannot be
recovered."
Please advise.
Bob Burns
 
P

Patrick Keenan

Choppbobby said:
Because of reocurring problems I have decided to reinstall WIN XP Home
(SP2).
But when I put the Windows CD in the drive, I get this: This is exactly
how
the message appeared:
"Windows Update
X (red x) Windows Setup
Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer
is
newer than the version on the CD.
Warning: If you decide to delete the newer version of Windows that is
currently installed on your computer, the files and settings cannot be
recovered."
Please advise.
Bob Burns

This usually means that your XP CD is pre-SP2 and your system has SP2, and
you're trying a repair install.

To get around this, you can update the CD by slipstreaming it, except in
some OEM cases where there are other updates applied (some Dell CDs are this
way).

Slipstreaming is actually a very good thing to do and not particularly
difficult as long as you pay attention to the things that make a CD bootable
when you burn it. Some CD-burning apps don't have the key options (loading
a boot image and number of sectors to load, for example) and so cannot be
used successfully. Nero can do this, and it's easy to find even as a demo
version. Most Roxio versions can as well.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

Otherwise, you would consider backing up the drive (and verifying the
backups!) and then starting with a clean install, i.e formatting the drive.
At the end you'll still have to immediately download the SP2 files anyway,
so you might as well update the CD now.

I might comment, though, that as repair installs don't always fix registry
problems, it may not help you. A clean install starts with a fresh copy,
and if you know what triggered the problems you can quickly get back to
where you were but bypassing the trouble areas.

HTH
-pk
 
A

AJR

Another option - if you installed SP2 - remove it via Control Panel - of
course it requires SP2 reinstallation after OS reinstall.
 
R

Rock

Because of reocurring problems I have decided to reinstall WIN XP Home
(SP2).
But when I put the Windows CD in the drive, I get this: This is exactly
how
the message appeared:
"Windows Update
X (red x) Windows Setup
Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer
is
newer than the version on the CD.
Warning: If you decide to delete the newer version of Windows that is
currently installed on your computer, the files and settings cannot be
recovered."


This means the SP level of the installation is higher than the SP level of
the CD you're using for the reinstall. The best way to handle this is to
create a new XP installation CD with SP2 included. This is called
slipstreaming. Here are some links on how to do it. Autostreamer makes it
fairly easy.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm
http://unattended.msfn.org/beginner/slipstream.htm

Autostreamer
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1092632287/1
http://www.simplyguides.net/guides/using_autostreamer/using_autostreamer.html
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=223562
 

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