Upgrading from ME to XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter dmaajm
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dmaajm

I recently upgraded my computer from Windows ME to XP. During th
installation process at one point in the installation, I told th
computer to save XP in a different location because I didn't want t
take the chance of loosing all of my documents and files. It did tha
and went through all fine. Windows XP now comes up and thats all goo
except that none of my previouse programs are there. It's weird thoug
because my scanner works and my printer. So, I did a search and foun
my documents but that is the only way that I can find them is by
search. It's like ME is stil there behind XP and I can't figure out ho
to get to it. How do I get all of my programs and documents into XP t
be able to get to my old stuff?
thank
 
dmaajm said:
I recently upgraded my computer from Windows ME to XP. During the
installation process at one point in the installation, I told the
computer to save XP in a different location because I didn't want to
take the chance of loosing all of my documents and files. It did that
and went through all fine. Windows XP now comes up and thats all good
except that none of my previouse programs are there. It's weird though
because my scanner works and my printer. So, I did a search and found
my documents but that is the only way that I can find them is by a
search. It's like ME is stil there behind XP and I can't figure out how
to get to it. How do I get all of my programs and documents into XP to
be able to get to my old stuff?
thanks
Click to expand...


What you did, by choosing the different location for WinXP, was to
create a "parallel" installation; sort of a temporary dual-boot
scenario. Unless you happened to have a spare, empty partition on which
you installed WinXP, you've created a very unstable situation. Under
normal circumstances, placing two operating systems in the same
partition is a recipe for disaster. A careful, knowledgeable specialist
can do this safely for a short period of time, but the ordinary PC user
had better be backing up his data hourly, as a catastrophic failure is a
matter of "when," rather than "if."


At this point, your wisest course of action would be to back up all of
your data to an external drive, and then perform a clean installation of
WinXP, formatting the hard drive first. Then, of course, you'll need to
reinstall any desired applications and restore your backed up data from
the external media.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin
 
Thank you, how do I uninstal xp though, I have tried going to add/remov
programs and it's not there, then I tried the safe mode with comman
prompt and tried to uninstall it there and it won't do it, it tells m
that it isn't registered so I can't uninstall it. I just want to ge
back to ME to get my docs and then I can reload XP. What and how shoul
I do it?
 
dmaajm said:
Thank you, how do I uninstal xp though, I have tried going to
add/remove programs and it's not there, then I tried the safe mode
with command prompt and tried to uninstall it there and it won't do
it, it tells me that it isn't registered so I can't uninstall it. I
just want to get back to ME to get my docs and then I can reload XP.
What and how should I do it?
Click to expand...


As a general rule, you can't uninstall an operating system. You have to
reformat the drive and install another operating system cleanly.

There's an exception to that, however. If you did an upgrade from Windows 98
or Me, and took the option to save the previous operating system and also
did not convert your drive to NTFS, then you can find an entry in Add/Remove
Programs. Clicking on that will uninstall Windows XP and revert to the
previous operating system.

If there's no entry in Add/Remove Programs, then one or more of those
conditions wasn't met, and your only choice is to reformat and install
whatever operating system you want cleanly.
 
Thank you
How do I format my computer which I am assuming is sweeping it all
clean and deleting everything. Can you give me a step by step process
to do it please?
Thanks, then I can reload XP. I have already backed up all of my
documents that I need onto a disc, so we are good to go there.
thank you,
MM
 
dmaajm said:
Thank you
Click to expand...


You're welcome. Glad to help.

How do I format my computer which I am assuming is sweeping it all
clean and deleting everything.

Yes.


Can you give me a step by step process
to do it please?
Click to expand...


Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary to
accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean installation (delete the
existing partition by pressing "D" when prompted, then create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm
 
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