Upgrading from ME to XP Pro

[Glenn]

Once an upgrade has occurred from Windows ME to XP Pro
(using a XP Pro upgrade pack) does this mean that should
the system fail and the hard disk need to be reformatted
that ME must be re-installed first then XP Pro upgrade re-
installed over that?

 

[Harry Ohrn]

All Windows XP CDs including the Upgrade versions are bootable. You can
perform a clean install with the Upgrade disk. It will pause at the
beginning of setup to ask for a qualifying product CD to be inserted for a
few moments and will then ask for the XP CD again so that installing can
continue.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Not necessarily. It is possible to perform a clean installation
using an Upgrade CD.

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.

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.


Bruce Chambers

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