Win XP upgrade

[dave]

Current Windows 2000 on Dell laptop.

I'm trying to upgrade to XP Home (not possible --needs XP
Pro for Win 2000 they say).

FIX is to load Win 98 on machine, which WILL upgrade to XP
Home. However, Win98 disk canNOT load in CD bay unless I --
according to their instructions -- "boot in msDOS mode"

How do I boot in MSDOS mode on win 2000 OS computer?

I tried F2 and f8 at restart which does NOT work. Is
there a simple way to do this?

thanks

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

Current Windows 2000 on Dell laptop.

I'm trying to upgrade to XP Home (not possible --needs XP
Pro for Win 2000 they say).

FIX is to load Win 98 on machine, which WILL upgrade to XP
Home. However, Win98 disk canNOT load in CD bay unless I --
according to their instructions -- "boot in msDOS mode"

How do I boot in MSDOS mode on win 2000 OS computer?

I tried F2 and f8 at restart which does NOT work. Is
there a simple way to do this?

Hi

You do not need to install Win98 first, you can do a clean install even
with a WinXP Upgrade version.

Upgrade CDs are bootable. You can do a clean install by booting on it.
It will during the OS installation ask you to put in qualifying upgrade
media (your old Win98 OS CD) to see that you are eligible for an
upgrade installation.

Do the following:

Go into the BIOS setting on the computer and verify that the computer
is set to boot on CD before the hard disk. If it is not, change it.

Put the WinXP CD in the CD tray and turn on the computer.

Your computer should automatically detect the CD, and a message "Press
any key to boot CD" will be displayed for 5 seconds.

Press a key and the CD will begin to load files that are needed to
begin the installation. This may take a few minutes.

You should now be able to just delete the existing partition (that
contains the Win2k installation), recreate it and format it from the
installation menu.

Then be ready to put in the Win98 CD when the WinXP installation asks
for upgrade qualifying media.