Versions of Windows that can be upgraded to Windows XP Professional are Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, and Windows 2000 Professional. Any older desktop version of Windows cannot be upgraded without first being upgraded to one of these versions.
Server versions of Windows cannot be upgraded to Windows XP Professional.
Other operating systems cannot be upgraded to Windows XP Professional. You can perform only a clean installation.
The command d:\i386\winnt32 /checkupgradeonly creates the Upgrade Report in the %systemroot%\upgrade.txt file where d:\ is the local CD-ROM drive or the drive letter mapped to the network installation point for Windows XP Professional.
Applications to remove before upgrading are antivirus applications, disk compression software, and known incompatible legacy software.
Windows NT 4.0 operating systems must have their stripe sets and volume sets removed prior to upgrade. You need to back up all data first.
You cannot uninstall Windows XP Professional and revert to the previous Windows 98 or Windows Me operating system after you have converted the file system to NTFS.
After you have upgraded an existing version of Windows to Windows XP Professional, you cannot revert to that previous version of Windows unless it was either Windows 98 or Windows Me. All other upgrades are permanent.
You can use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard for migrating settings from one computer to a Windows XP Professional computer.
You can use the User State Migration Tool (USMT) for migrating the files and settings for a large number of computers.
An administrator-level user must run the Loadstate tool of USMT to migrate settings to Windows XP Professional.
Slipstreaming a service pack means that you are integrating the service pack files into a network installation point of a Windows operating system.
You should slipstream a service pack into the operating system files after you have tested the service pack and validated that it will not cause errors in your environment, and when you have determined that it will solve a problem that one or more of your computers is experiencing. You should then extract the service pack files, using the command \\server\share\i386\update\update integrate:e:, where e: is the drive letter containing the Windows XP Professional installation files.
You can use Group Policy to deploy Windows XP SP2 by creating a new software installation package that is based on the Windows Installer Update.msi file provided as part of the service pack. You can customize the installation by creating a transform file.
You can use Group Policy to deploy Windows XP SP2 by creating a new software installation package that is based on the Windows Installer Update.msi file provided as part of the service pack. You can customize the installation by creating a transform file.