I need a clarification on something. I have a friend who wants to upgrade from Win98 SE to Win XP. He bought the upgrade version and not the full version and now he wants to format his HDD clean and install XP on it. If he does that, i was under the understanding that it will not work. I thought an upgrade MS CD requires that an OS is already present on the system. (i.e. it checks for certain OS files to exist on the HDD). If he formats the HDD clean, will he still be able to install Win XP???? TIA.

Not a problem, during the installation WinXP will ask for proof of previous Windows, insert the W98 (or other qualifying Windows OS's) disk when asked, and it will proceed to install XP.

Nope, Actually the upgrade version is the FULL version. He can format and do a clean install with the XP upgrade disk, but at some point in the installation it will ask him to confirm that he owns a previous version of windows, so he will have to pop in his window 98 disk to verify and then he will be able to continue the Xp installation.


Garbru

Has the upgrade version always worked like this or is this something particular to the Win XP upgrade version? I think if i remember correctly the last time i used an Win98 upgrade CD, it required for an OS be present on the HDD, rather than just asking for a CD.

Always has been this way.

Good luck,

Paul

Only the special $20 W98SE Update disk, not the Upgrade, had to be installed from within Windows 98. All Upgrades have always been capable of a clean install.

Thank you all for the clarification.