Windows XP Installation and Uninstallation
There are 4 ways to install Windows XP onto your computer and they are the following: Clean Installation, Parallel Installation, Repair Installation, and an Upgrade Installation. Each of the installation methods will be covered below. Before installing Windows XP it is recommended that you contact your computer manufacturer and vist the following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article KB314062 to verify what steps may need to be taken to succesfully install Windows XP onto your computer.
Clean Installation
A clean installation is installing Windows XP onto a computer that has no previous operating system or installing it onto a computer that you want to delete everything from and do a fresh install of Windows XP. The clean installation method is generally the most recommened way to install Windows XP since you can avoid any software settings that may cause a conflct during the Windows XP installation. A clean installation is also a good way to check for hardware problems or possible hardware incompatiblity since this installs Windows XP fresh onto the system without any previous settings causing a conflict. Please note that this installation method of Windows XP will remove all data from your harddisk.
There are two recommended ways to do a clean installation of Windows Xp. You can boot from the cd to install or run the installation from MS-DOS. We will briefly cover both methods below.
Clean Installation By Booting From CD Instructions
| 1: | Boot up your computer |
| 2: | Insert the Windows XP CD into your CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray drive. |
| 3: | Reboot the computer if needed. |
| 4: | Press a key on the keyboard when the message Press any key to boot from CD comes onto the screen. |
| 5: | Follow the instructions on screen to create your partition and\or format and install Windows XP. |
Please note that you may need to make modifications to your computers BIOS boot settings to get it to boot to the Windows XP CD. Conact your computer manufacturer or read your motherboard manual to make these BIOS changes.
Clean Install from MS-DOS Instructions
| 1: | Boot up your computer into MS-DOS with CD-ROM Support. |
| 2: | Run FDISK and FORMAT to prepare the harddisk for installation. |
| 3: | Reboot the computer back into MS-DOS with CD-ROM Support. |
| 4: | Place the Windows XP cd into the CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray drive. |
| 5: | Change to the CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray drive with the Windows XP cd in it. |
| 6: | change to the i386 directory on the Windows XP CD. |
| 7: | Run the WINNT.EXE program. |
| 8: | Follow the on screen instructions to install Windows XP. |
Please note that running the Windows XP setup from WINNT.EXE can take a lot longer then booting directly from the Windows XP CD. This method is recommeded for computers that cannot boot from the CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray drive.
Parallel Installation
A parallel installation is the method of installing Windows XP onto a computer that has a currently corrupted installation of Windows XP. This method of installation is generally used as a technicians way of being able to access the computer and retrieving any data before doing a clean installation. To perform a parallel installation use the method listed below.
Windows XP Parallel Installation Instructions
| 1: | Boot up your computer. |
| 2: | Insert the Windows XP CD into your CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray drive. |
| 3: | Reboot the computer if needed. |
| 4: | Press any key on the keyboard when the Press any key to boot from cd appears on the screen. |
| 5: | Let the Windows XP Setup continue until you get to the disk partition screen. |
| 6: | Choose the partition that contains your current Windows XP install. |
| 7: | Select the Leave the current file system intact (no changes) option, and then press ENTER to continue. |
| 8: | Press ESC to install Windows XP into a new folder. |
| 9: | Type in the new Windows XP installation folder (i.e. C:\WinXP) and press ENTER on the keyboard. |
| 10: | Let the Windows XP setup finish as usuall. |
Windows XP Repair Install
A Repair Install is the method in which you reinstall a corrupted or damaged Windows XP installation. One thing that you will want to consider when doing a repair installation is that this will remove any service packs and updates that are not part of the Windows Installation. To perform a repair installation use the follow instructions below.
Windows XP Repair Install Instructions
| 1: | Boot up your computer. |
| 2: | Insert the Windows XP CD into your CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray drive. |
| 3: | Reboot the computer if needed. |
| 4: | Press a key on the keyboard when the message Press any key to boot from CD comes onto the screen. |
| 5: | Allow the Windows XP setup to continue up to the license agreement screen. |
| 6: | Agree to the license agreement. |
| 7: | On the next screen select the Windows XP installation you want to repair and press R on the keyboard. comes onto the screen. | 8: | Allow Windows XP setup to continue as needed. |
Windows XP Upgrade Installation
An upgrade install of Windows XP lets you upgrade an older version of Windows to Windows XP. There are a few things that you will want to take into consideration before upgrading to Windows XP. First you can only upgrade from Windows 98, ME, and 2000. You can also upgrade Windows XP Home to Pro. secondly you will want to contact your computer manufacturer and\or software manufacturers before upgrading to Windows XP to see what preparations you will need to make before and after the Windows XP installation. To do a Windows XP upgrade follow the instructions below.
Windows XP Upgrade Installation Instructions
| 1: | Boot up your computer into your current version of windows. |
| 2: | Once at the desktop insert the Windows XP CD into your CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray drive. |
| 3: | At the Windows XP setup screen choose the Install Windows XP option. |
| 4: | On the next screen choose the Upgrade option. |
| 5: | Follow the instructions on the screen and allow the Windows XP Setup to finish. |
Uninstalling Windows XP
This article will only mention 2 methods to uninstall Windows XP from your system. If you did an upgrade from an earlier version of windows you can uninstall via the uninstall program in the add remove programs tool. If you installed XP via a clean or parallel install then you will need to do another clean install with Windows XP CD or by using a different operating system installation.