W2K-Pro to XP upgrade

[HenriK]

I have an older machine with W2K-Pro, installed from an OEM CD (which I
still have) that I wish to modernize a bit with XP as I have both new
and unused XP-Home and XP-Pro OEM installation CDs.

Is there any way, using 3rd party software or a Microsoft procedure, to
install XP on this machine without having to manually reinstall all of
the applications currently on this old PC?

Many thanks, in advance, for advice, suggestions, and comments.
Pointers to already written information will be welcomed.

 

[Leonard Grey]

An OEM CD can only do a clean install.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have an older machine with W2K-Pro, installed from an OEM CD (which I
still have) that I wish to modernize a bit with XP as I have both new
and unused XP-Home and XP-Pro OEM installation CDs.

Is there any way, using 3rd party software or a Microsoft procedure, to
install XP on this machine without having to manually reinstall all of
the applications currently on this old PC?

No. OEM CDs can do clean installations only.

 

[HenriK]

Thanks to both Leonard and Ken for the advice.

Follow-up question: Instead of having to reformat the entire hard drive
on this machine, can I get away with booting the machine with a DOS disk
and then simply deleting the W2K-Pro 'WINNT' folder before starting the
XP installation or must both the 'Program Files' and 'Documents and
Settings' also be deleted before installing XP from an OEM CD?

It goes without saying that the applications will have to be reinstalled
but I have all of those CDs. What I am trying to do is save as many of
the stored files and documents as possible.

Further suggestions or pointers to previously written information are
welcomed.

 

[HenriK]

If the drive is NTFS you cannot use a dos boot disk to access it.

What you could do is simply install XP without formatting the drive...
then delete your original windows folder and remove the unwanted entry
from boot.ini

You can keep your "My Documents" folder...but may need to take ownership
of the files in the previous profile to access them

At any rate...to be safe you really need to back up your data first...
and I'd really recommend a totally clean install

Many thanks for the NTFS warning. The old machine's hard drive isn't
presently NTFS.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks to both Leonard and Ken for the advice.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

Follow-up question: Instead of having to reformat the entire hard drive
on this machine, can I get away with booting the machine with a DOS disk
and then simply deleting the W2K-Pro 'WINNT' folder before starting the
XP installation or must both the 'Program Files' and 'Documents and
Settings' also be deleted before installing XP from an OEM CD?

It goes without saying that the applications will have to be reinstalled
but I have all of those CDs. What I am trying to do is save as many of
the stored files and documents as possible.

Further suggestions or pointers to previously written information are
welcomed.

I strongly recommend that you do *not* try to do what you suggest
above. Your best course of action is to backup (or simply copy) all
your documents (and anything else you want to save) to external
media--an external hard drive, thumb drive, DVDs, CDs, etc., then
cleanly install Windows, which begins by reformatting. After
installation, copy your documents back again.

 

[HenriK]

Then your plan would work...
and with Fat32 there will be no need to take ownership...

I'd still back up your data first.


BTW: Does your machine have enough RAM ?

Though win2k may run ok with as little as 128 megs - 256 megs

XP will really need 256 - 512 megs of ram or more

Oh me, I hadn't thought about the RAM issue. Many thanks for the heads
up. The machine involved is a 933 mHz P3 and it has 512 mB (the max the
machine can handle) presently installed. I also agree with you about
backing up the data. What can go wrong sometimes does.