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How do I install Windows XP over Win 2000 Pro?

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10 replies

by thenims

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I have a laptop that has Win 2000 Pro and it was given to me as a present. It has admin restrictions on there. However I want to install Windows XP. Any help?

10 replies

by thusoma

First thing try and ask the person who gave you the laptop to give you the password for administrator, then log in as adminisrator put an XP CD on and an upgrade. If that fails, boot using the XP CD and do a new installation. If you boot using the CD you won't be asked for administrative rights hope that helps

by jgam

If you got the laptop as a gift from another user you should seriously consider reformating just to protect yourself from whatever might still be lurking in the machine. Then you can do a clean install of XP, setting your own passwords, desktop, etc. Protect yourself!!

by hal 9000

Instead of just reformatting I'd be wiping the HDD and reinstalling from that point. A format while OK will not entirely remove any of the old data off the drive as it only writes to every 3rd sector.

There are several Utilities provided by the HDD makers which will write 0's to every sector making it almost impossible to recover any of the old data and if the person who gave it to you has been up to anything nasty it will be removed to all but proper forensic recovery methods or someone with massive amounts of time to waste to recover the data.

Also for your protection if the person who gave you the notebook used Internet Banking you need to remove every bit of data off the HDD as if anything goes wrong with their Bank Accounts you will be a prime suspect.

Col ]:)

by pipe guy

How fast is the laptop you are upgrading? If the machine isn't a blazing P4 with at least 256 megs of ram, you may not like what you get after you install sp2 of xppro. XP seems to be fast but on all of the P3 800's and slower that I've installed sp2... they are slow boats. My assumption of course is that you want to upgrade for the security features found in XP sp2 and my argument is basically if the laptop isn't really fast.... then you will notice that xp is really slow. And while there are a few features found in XP pro that you don't have in 2000... many of the differences are really minor and don't improve the functionality one little bit. However, that hasn't stopped me from installing xp pro on a P2 400 mhz laptop with 256 megs of ram... and it only takes a mere 6 minutes to boot or about 25% of the battery life. Some people don't have this kind of time to wait. But some of us don't leave our computers in one configuration very long. If you in need of reformating the drive.... boot from the OS CD and repartition and reformat... (slow option) Remove the existing partitian during the OS install and recreate it. All of this foolish talk about files lurking in your computer is making me nervous... maybe its time I installed Linux. Or better yet... maybe you should install a linux desktop and let us know how it went!

by jacket4745

Win2000 Pro is a far superior OS. XP even with SP2 can't escape from being the prime target of virus, trojan etc makers and phishers because MSoft has shuved down everybody's throat. You need a 2600 MHz machine to do any real work as it is running so many & un-necessary and unknown processes that is very slow. Try to delete / damage the existing istallation from a diskette and re-install Win2000 with no password i.e. for a single user and find that you can install new software easily and safely and have no weird hang-ups as with XP

Jack

by tumbleweed_biff

The fact that he does not have admin rights on the current OS should be reason enough.

To the OP:
Gather the license keys from the registry of any software to be reloaded and then clean and reformat the drive, installing the OS of your choice (in the case of M$ software, the license usually goes with the machine). If the machine will allow upgrade of memory, this is the one primary way to increase the performace of a laptop and is generally recommended.

by rkuhn040172

Boy, they're out in full force.

While I recognize the complexities involved in a Linux, Windows, Mac comparison, and I myself ran Win NT on a home server until just recently, come on people, Win 2000 is 5 years old.

Get over it. Simply amazing the stubborness and opinionatedness of our IT industry. They probably still are complaining about Win 95 being phased out.

Not one person here has enough information from this advice seeker to offer good advice. More details please...

by apotheon

Win2k is the most stable and secure OS that Microsoft has produced. The ill-conceived attempt to merge the Chicago and Win32 architectures to produce the NT 5.1 system that is Windows XP produced a tremendous pig of an OS that adds nothing of significant value to what was already accomplished by Windows 2000 Professional, and actually degrades stability, security, and efficiency of the OS. The only really technical advantages to XP are support for newer hardware and, err, something else. I'm sure there's something else.

Maybe not.

Being five years old doesn't make something bad. What you seem to be missing with that statement is the greater stability and reduced resource footprint that often comes with older software in the feature-creep world of Microsoft, to say nothing of the fact that XP is only about a year newer than Win2k. In fact, Windows Millenium Edition is also newer than Windows 2000, but I would hope you aren't so foolish as to suggest that WinME is any better (or, for that matter, that it's any better than NT 4.0).

I, for one, am glad that Windows 95 is basically dead and buried. Considering that thus far Win2k has been the peak of 32-bit Windows evolution, though, and Longhorn is looking pretty sketchy at best at this point (the whole mess reminds me of what happened to the Cairo architecture in Microsoft development), I don't really foresee any great likelihood of being glad to see Win2k get phased out. Considering that it's still entirely functional in any number of circumstances, I'm even unpleased with the EOL for NT 4.0, which was also one of Microsoft's better efforts.

re: the need for more information . . .

Before any useful advice can be given on downgrading from Win2k to WinXP, one must ask: Why do you want to make the switch to XP? There are valid reasons for migrating from 2k to XP, but it would help to know what the reasons of the original poster are.

by rkuhn040172

Ok, so I was a NT fan too, but you'd have to be crazy, useless features or not, to not admit that Win 2003 is substantially more secure than NT.

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