Chapter Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to upgrade previous versions of Windows to Windows XP Professional. You learned about the requirements for upgrading previous versions and the tasks that you should perform before you upgrade a computer.

You also learned how to migrate user settings and data from an old computer to a new computer running Windows XP Professional. You can use USMT to script the migration of settings on a large number of computers at once. The Files and Settings Transfer Wizard walks you through the steps of migrating files and settings on a single computer, and can be used by a regular user.

Next you learned several methods that you can use to deploy SP2 to computers running either Windows XP Professional or a previous version of Windows. You can upgrade older computers to Windows XP with SP2 in a single step by preparing a slipstreamed installation that contains the SP2 files integrated with the installation files. You can also perform a clean install of Windows XP with SP2 from the slipstreamed installation files. You can use Group Policy or SUS to deploy SP2 to multiple computers, and you can also perform manual installation of SP2 on individual computers.