Upgrade Version Options?

[Guest]

I have Win2k installled along with a whole lot of malware. If I buy the XP
Pro upgrade version, can I wipe out my entire Win2k installation and install
a fresh XP or do I have to do an in-place upgrade? I am a poor college
student and can get an outstanding deal on the upgrade version.

 

[Alias~-]

I have Win2k installled along with a whole lot of malware. If I buy the XP
Pro upgrade version, can I wipe out my entire Win2k installation and install
a fresh XP or do I have to do an in-place upgrade? I am a poor college
student and can get an outstanding deal on the upgrade version.

Yeah, wipe the hard drive clean and when you go to install XP, it will
ask for qualifying media and stick in the W2K CD to qualify and then XP
will go about the business of installing.

Alias

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have Win2k installled along with a whole lot of malware. If I buy
the XP Pro upgrade version, can I wipe out my entire Win2k
installation and install a fresh XP or do I have to do an in-place
upgrade? I am a poor college student and can get an outstanding deal
on the upgrade version.

Yes, you can do a clean installation. The requirement to use an upgrade
version is to *own* a previous qualifying version, not to have it installed.
When setup doesn't find a previous qualifying version installed, it will
prompt you to insert its CD as proof of ownership. Just insert the previous
version's CD, and follow the prompts. Everything proceeds quite normally and
quite legitimately.

 

[SAM-R]

Just to let you know XP Pro SP2 is 2 years old now. Expect to download 50 or
more MB worth of updates off of Windows Update to bring XP Pro SP2 up to
date.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have Win2k installled along with a whole lot of malware. If I buy the XP
Pro upgrade version, can I wipe out my entire Win2k installation and install
a fresh XP or do I have to do an in-place upgrade?

It's quite possible to perform a clean installation using the WinXP
Upgrade CD, provided you have the true installation CD for the earlier OS.

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.

I am a poor college
student and can get an outstanding deal on the upgrade version.

That being the case, have you checked with your college to see if you
can purchase an Academic license through them? The savings would be
substantial, even on a full version.


--

Bruce Chambers

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