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Win XP upgrade or clean install?

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by cswearingen

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I remember the horror of trying to upgrade a Win95 installation to Win98. Then the same thing happened from 98 to 2000.
I would like to know if the same problems (instability, unrecognized devices, bad drivers, corrupted installations, etc.) plague an upgrade to XP (in my case from Win98ME to XP, don't ask).
Another question, can I do a 'clean' install to a formatted HD from a WinXP upgrade CD like I could Win9x?

Thanks,

Christopher

2 replies

by davidgallia

I would go for the clean install every time. Why put up with all the old bits & pieces floating around in the old ME install?
Sure can do the clean install so if you are comfortable with the format process, set the bios to boot from the XP cd and follow the instructions from there, you can format and the install process just follows on from there. Pretty easy, really.

by cswearingen

I didn't even see this reply (wonder why my alert didn't work?). Anyway I actually tried to do the upgrade and clicked the wrong type of install. I ended up formatting the drive and doing a clean install on accident. Luckily all my data was on a second hard drive so I didn't lose much.
The only reason(s) I wanted to do an upgrade was to keep my software installs, address book(s), etc. But they aren't much to reinstall and import data (that I was smart enough to export before doing the 'upgrade').

My only regret was buying XP Home instead of XP Pro for my home computer. But live and learn...

Christopher

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