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Windows XP Clean Install
Home & pro versions

Upgrading vs. Clean Installation

Windows XP Professional provides upgrade paths from Windows 2000 Professional, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98, and Windows Me. If you are using Windows 95, Windows 3.x, or another operating system you need to choose a clean install.

During an upgrade, existing user settings are retained, as well as installed applications. If you perform a clean installation, the operating system files are installed in a new folder, and you must reinstall all of your applications and reset user preferences, such as desktop and application settings.

You need to choose a clean installation of Windows XP Professional in the following cases:

No operating system is installed on the computer.
The installed operating system does not support an upgrade to Windows XP Professional.
The computer has more than one partition and needs to support a multiple-boot configuration that uses Windows XP Professional and the current operating system.
A clean installation is preferred.

The most basic advantage of a clean installation is that all of your systems can begin with the same configuration. All applications, files, and settings are reset. You can use a single disk image or answer file to make sure that all of the desktops in your organization are standardized. In this way, you can avoid many of the support problems that are caused by irregular configurations.

Pre-installation checklist

A. Take the xp readiness test - This test will check your systems hardware to define whether or not the upgrade to xp should continue and identify any issues.

B. Make sure you can boot with your CD drive - Unlike Windows 9x/Me, the Windows XP CD-ROM is bootable, so you will not need a boot floppy to initiate Setup. However, some PCs don't offer the capability to boot from CD, though this should be rare on the newer systems that can run XP. More likely is that your system can boot from CD but isn't set up to do so. To set up your system to boot from the CD, you'll need to enter the BIOS software and change the boot order. Typically, you will want your system set up to boot from CD, then floppy, then the first hard drive. Check the manual that came with your PC or motherboard for information about entering the BIOS and making this change, if needed.

If you want to test whether your system can boot with the CD, just insert a bootable CD (like your Windows XP CD-ROM) and reboot. If Setup begins or you see a message about hitting any key to boot from the CD, you're all set.

If you can't boot with your CD drive, all is not lost. Microsoft has provided downloadable floppies (in sets of four, sadly) for both XP Home and Professional that you can use to start installation. I'll only be covering a CD boot here, but the process is similar when using floppies. For more information, check out the Microsoft Web site, which has separate pages for the XP Home and XP Professional boot floppies.

C. If using an Upgrade CD, be sure to have qualifying media - If you're performing a clean installation of XP Home or Professional using an Upgrade CD, be sure to have your qualifying media handy. This can be a retail Windows 98, 98 SE, Millennium Edition (Me), NT 4.0 or 2000 CD-ROM or, in some cases, a Windows CD that was supplied with a new PC. Note that "restore" CDs will not work, however, and most Windows CDs that ship from PC makers are now restore CDs.

Installing Windows XP is probably the easiest install of all the Windows operating systems. Microsoft have done a good job of making it user friendly. The following XP installation will suffice for both Xp Home and professional systems. There are a few subtle differences and they will be pointed out when the particular step calls for it.

LETS GET INSTALLING

1. Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM and reboot the computer If you see a message about hitting any key to boot the CD, do so now. Otherwise, you will see a message about Setup inspecting your system.
2. MS-DOS portion of Setup begins In the first stage of Setup, you will see a series of blue and gray MS-DOS-based screens. In the first step, you will be asked to press F6 if you need to install any third-party or RAID drivers. Then, you can press F2 to initiate the Automated System Recovery (ASR) tool, a new XP feature that lets you recover non-booting systems from XP Setup. Ignore this. Finally, Setup will load the files it needs to start a bare bones version of XP. This may take a few minutes.
3. Welcome to Setup Finally, Setup begins. In this step, you can set up XP, launch the Recovery Console (another, more complicated system recovery tool), or quit. Press ENTER to continue Setup, and it will examine your hard drives and removable disks.
4. Read the license agreement Next, you'll have to agree to Microsoft's complex licensing agreement. Among the highlights: You don't actually own Windows XP and you can only install it on one PC. No one reads this, I know, but it's probably a good idea to at least check it out. Hit F8 to continue.
Upgrade versions only: 4b. Insert qualifying media If you are attempting to clean install with a Windows XP Home or Pro Upgrade CD, you will see this screen, which requires you to insert your previous Windows CD in order to verify that you qualify for the Upgrade version. Curiously, it says that you can use CDs from Windows NT 3.51 and Windows 95 in addition to those from 98, 98 SE, Millennium, or 2000, though these products cannot be upgraded to XP. Once you've proven that you qualify, hit ENTER to continue.
5. Choose an installation partition This crucial step lets you choose where to install XP. On a clean install, you will typically install to the C: drive, but you might have other ideas, especially if you plan to dual-boot with 9x. Setup will show you all of your available disks (in this case, just one) and let you create and delete partitions as needed. So, for example, if you have one disk, but would like to create two partitions, one for XP and one for your data, you can do that here.
6. Select the file system If you created a new partition, or wish to change the file system of an existing partition, you can do so in the next step. Generally speaking, I recommend going with the NTFS file system, which is more secure than FAT. Regardless of which file system you choose, be sure to select one of the "quick" format options (the top two choices), if you do need to format, since these will work much more quickly than a full format. In this example, I've selected an existing FAT32 partition and elected to format it in NTFS format.
7. Optionally format the partition If you did choose to change or format the file system, this will occur next. First, you'll be asked to verify the format. If you're installing XP on a system with more than one partition, especially one that still holds your data on one of the partitions, be sure you're formatting the correct partition. Hit F to continue, and a yellow progress bar will indicate the status of the format. When this is complete, Setup will again examine your disks, and create a list of files to copy.
8. Setup folder copy phase and reboot Setup will now copy system files to the system/boot partition(s) you just created. This will allow the PC to boot from the C: drive and continue Setup in GUI mode. When the file copy is complete, Setup will initialize and save your XP configuration. It will then reboot your PC. When the system reboots, you will probably see the "Press any key to boot from CD" message again. If this happens, do not press a key: Setup will now boot from your C: drive. In the event that you cannot prevent the CD-based Setup from reloading, eject the CD and reboot. Setup will ask for the CD when needed.
9. GUI Setup begins Once the system reboots, you will be presented with the GUI Setup phase, which is much more attractive than the DOS-mode phase. As you progress through GUI Setup, you can read promotional information about XP on the right side of the screen if you're bored. Next, your hardware devices are detected. This could take several minutes.
10. Regional and language Options In the first interactive portion of GUI Setup, you can choose to customize the regional and language settings that will be used by XP, as well as the text input language you'd like. Users in the United States will not normally need to change anything here. Click Next to continue.
11. Personalize your software Now, enter your name and, optionally, your company. The name you enter is not the same as your user name, incidentally, so you should enter your real name here (i.e. Paul Thurrott or whatever). Click Next to continue.
12. Enter your product key Now you must enter the 25-character product key that is located on the orange sticker found on the back of the CD holder that came with Windows XP. You cannot install XP without a valid product key. Later on, you will be asked to activate and optionally register your copy of Windows XP. A product key can be used to install XP on only one PC. Click Next to continue.
13. Enter a computer name and administrator password In the next phase of Setup, you can create a name for your computer (which is used to identify it on a network) and, optionally in Pro Edition only, a password for the system Administrator, the person who controls the PC (this will generally be you, of course). Setup generates a random name for your PC, but it's always nasty looking, so I recommend renaming it to something more logical (Pauls_PC or whatever). After Setup is complete, you can provide a better description of the PC too (like Paul's desktop computer or whatever). In XP Pro, the Administrator password is optional--that is, you can leave it blank--but I strongly recommend that you provide a good password here for security reasons. XP Home doesn't allow you enter an Administrator password, as this account is more hidden on Home installs for some reason. So you can only enter a machine name in Home Edition. Click Next to continue.		Windows XP Professional only: Windows XP Home Edition only:
14. Supply your date and time settings Next, you can supply the date and time, which are auto-set based on information in your BIOS, and the time zone, which is irritatingly set to PST, which is where Microsoft is. Change these as appropriate. Click Next to continue.
15. Network setup If you have a networking card or modem, Setup now installs the networking components, which include the client for Microsoft networks, File and Print Sharing, the Quality of Service (QoS) Packet Scheduler, and the TCP/IP networking protocol by default.
16. Choose networking settings In this phase, you can choose to keep the default settings (recommended) or enter custom settings. I recommend later disabling QoS, but for now, it's generally best to leave it as-is, unless you have specific needs dictated by your ISP or network. Note that XP doesn't include the legacy NetBEUI protocol out of the box. If you want to use this protocol, you will need to install it later from the XP CD-ROM. Click Next to continue.
Windows XP Professional only: 16b. Enter workgroup or domain information In Windows XP Professional only, you will be able to select a workgroup or domain name next. Home Edition doesn't work with Windows domains, however, and Setup will automatically supply the workgroup name MSHOME, which you can change later. The default workgroup name in XP Pro is, imaginatively, WORKGROUP. I recommend changing this; I use the workgroup THURROTT at home, for example. Click Next to continue.
17. Setup completion From this point on, Setup will continue to completion without any further need for interaction, so this is a good time to grab a drink or a snack. Setup will now copy files, complete installation, install your Start Menu items, register system components, save settings, remove any temporary files needed by Setup, and then reboot. Again, you will probably see the "Press any key to boot from CD" message on reboot. If this happens, do not press a key, and your new XP install will boot up. You can remove the XP Setup CD now.
18. First boot You'll be greeted by the XP splash screen on first boot (this actually appears briefly when you rebooted into GUI Setup as well). The splash screens for XP Pro and Home are subtly different.		Windows XP Professional Edition only: Windows XP Home Edition only:
10. Change display settings Users with CRT monitors and some LCDs (such as laptops and flat panel displays) will see a Display Settings dialog appear, which asks whether you'd like XP to automatically set the resolution. This will generally change the resolution from 800 x 600 to 1024 x 768 on a CRT monitor, or to the native resolution of an LCD display. Click OK and let XP change the resolution. Then, accept the settings if the screen display changes and can be read. If you can't see the display, it will time out after 30 seconds and return to the sub-optimal 800 x 600 resolution. Click OK to accept the screen resolution change.
20. Welcome to Microsoft Windows Now, you are presented with XP's "Out of Box Exerience," or OOBE, which presents a silly wizard to guide you through the final set up of your PC. Click Next to continue.
21. Network setup In the opening OOBE phase, you are asked to set up your network/Internet connection, which is required for activation and registration. If you selected the default networking configuration during Setup and know it will work (because you're connected directly to a cable modem, perhaps, or are on a local area network), then select Yes (the default). Otherwise, you can select No and then Skip. We'll assume that your network is up and running and select Yes. Click Next to continue.
22. Optionally activate and register Windows If you selected Yes in the previous step, you are asked if you'd like to activate Windows XP. This will tie your copy of XP to the current PC semi-permanently, so be sure this is what you want. Activation requires a connection to the Internet, but you can perform this step later if you want (and don't worry, XP will annoyingly remind you of this fact every time you boot the machine until you do so). I recommend selecting No here, since you can activate later easily enough. If you do select Yes, you are asked whether you'd like to register the product. Unlike activation, registration is optional.
23. Set up users Now, you can set up the user names of the people who will be using the PC. You will want at least one user (for you), since you shouldn't be logging on as Administrator. Curiously, each user you do create here has administrative privileges, however, and no password (!). You should set up your users correctly with passwords as soon as possible (see Post-installation tasks, below, for details). This phase lets you create up to five users. You can create more later, or manage users, using the User Accounts tool in Control Panel. Click Finish when done creating users. At this point, OOBE ends and you're reading to go. Click Finish again.
24. Logon to Windows XP for the first time With OOBE out of the way, you're presented with the XP Welcome Screen for the first time. This will list all of the users you created, along with lame, randomized images you can change later (again, see below). When you click on a user name, that account will logon and you'll be presented with the XP desktop. After you create passwords, however, you'll be asked to enter a password before you can logon.

Post-installation tasks
Once Windows XP is installed, it's time to perform a few post-installation tasks:

I. Immediately Install an antivirus and firewall program. This is mission critical to protect against the masses of vulnerability malware circulating the web. Some free antivirus programs are listed for your choice here. and some free firewall programs are listed here.

II. Run Windows Update to bring sure your system is up-to-date. Click here There are already many updates available for Windows XP on Windows Update. Service pack 2 should be among them so download and install that first.

III. Test your hardware devices. Its time to make sure all of your hardware works. Open up Device Manager (Open the Start menu, right-click My Computer, choose Properties, then go to the Hardware Tab and click Device Manager) and make sure all of your hardware was detected and has working drivers. If any do not--as evidenced by a yellow icon next to the hardware device's name, right-click and choose Update Driver. This will launch the Hardware Update Wizard. The first time around, ensure the XP CD-ROM is still in the drive, and try the option titled Install the software automatically (Recommended). If this doesn't work, visit the hardware maker's site and see if there is an updated XP-compatible driver. If you have driver disks for your motherboard, sound card or video card then insert those disks and install the software.