Upgrade 2: Windows XP Clean Installation

Upgrade #2: Windows XP "Clean" Installation

As you saw in Table 17.1, some users have no choice but to do a "clean" installation of Windows XP. Other users might choose to install clean, to avoid any baggage (in terms of settings, and so on) associated with their previous operating system.

note

To uninstall Windows XP and revert back to your previous operating system, open the Control Panel and launch the Add or Remove Programs utility. Click the Change or Remove Programs button, scroll down the list of programs and select Windows XP, and then click Change/Remove. Follow the onscreen instructions to proceed with the uninstall. Note, however, that any software applications that you added or modified because of the Windows XP installation might not work properly when you revert to the previous operating system.

Understanding the Clean Install

What makes a clean installation so different? Simple it wipes everything off your hard disk, reformats the disk, and then installs XP to what is now a completely clean disk. This is a rather drastic installation, as you can imagine. When you choose the clean install, you'll need to back up all your data beforehand, and reinstall all your old programs afterwards.

When is a clean installation a good idea? If your old system wasn't running right or was messed up in one way or another, a clean install makes sure that your old problems won't follow you to a new operating system. A clean installation is also called for if you were running Windows 3.1, Windows 95, or Windows NT 3.51. These versions of Windows can't be easily upgraded, so you have to start from scratch if you want to run Windows XP.

There's one other reason you might want to consider a clean installation. When you upgrade, you retain many of the files from the old operation. When you do a clean install, you don't have these old files sticking around to clutter up your hard disk. Compare the average 2.9GB size of Windows XP installed via upgrade to the 1.7GB size after a clean installation. That's a lot of wasted disk space you can recover by doing a clean install.

Making a Clean Installation

If you decide to perform a clean installation, follow these steps:

1. Close Windows and turn off your PC.

2. Insert the Windows XP CD into your CD-ROM drive and restart your PC.

3. When you see the onscreen message Press Any Key to Boot from CD, press any key on your keyboard.

4. After a minute, you'll see a list of onscreen options. Select Set Up Windows XP Now and press Enter.

   caution

   

   Be extra-sure you want to delete your partition this step is the one that irretrievably deletes every program and piece of data on your hard drive!

5. When the License Agreement appears, read it (if you want), and then press F8 to proceed.

6. You'll now be asked how you want to partition your hard disk. Choose the Delete the Selected Partition option.

7. You're now presented with three more options. Select Setup Windows XP on the Selected Item to proceed.

8. Next, you're prompted to format the Windows XP partition. You have four options; choose Format the Partition Using NTFS. (NTFS is the new file system included with Windows XP; it's preferable to the older FAT file system.)

The installation program now begins to format your hard disk and then install the Windows XP operating system. At some point you'll need to make some configuration choices and input a variety of information including that long Product Key located on the back of the Windows XP CD. Just follow the onscreen instructions and be sure you have a few thick magazines to read while the installation program does its thing.

caution

If you can't boot your system from the Windows XP CD, you need to reconfigure your CMOS BIOS so that your CD drive is the boot path. You do this by rebooting your PC, pressing the correct key to enter the BIOS Setup utility (see Chapter 2, "Preparing Your System for an Upgrade," for more information on getting to the BIOS), finding the boot sequence setting, and adding your CD drive to the boot sequence before the hard disk. With this reconfigured, you should now be able to boot from the Windows XP CD.