Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition UPGRADE with SP2

I needed to reinstall Windows XP, of course Microsoft doesn't allow using the same OS software code when you update your computer. My solution to it was to purchase the Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade disk and use that product code. It worked out great and my Windows was then activated by micosoft. It's as sad thing that Micosoft is so greedy and causes such problems.

I bought this to upgrade a Win 2000 pc because we bought a couple of new Ipods. This is not the right product, it did not even try to do the install. It looks like I will have to buy the full version for twice as much.

Generally speaking, to get the best performance from any operating system a clean install of a full version is recommended. The best choice is to choose a full version of the product and enjoy the benefits of not being left with artifacts and leftover's of your previous operating system which can lead to instability in certain cases. I would only buy this on a limited budget.

A friend of mine donated a computer to a charity. It was a system with a fractured Windows 98 system on it. I decided to upgrade it to XP, so I bought this product.

The documentation leads you to believe that you can do a clean install of XP even if there is no OS on the system. You can't.

The second best option is to do an install of XP over an existing OS, using the existing OS to boot up, but then using this CD to remove the old OS and install a fresh XP installation. You can't.

What I had to do was do a clean install of Windows 98 (luckily I have the CDs and the knowledge to do this) and then upgrade it using the XP CD.

So if you are looking for a clean installation of XP, this is not the product for you. However, if you know how to do a clean install of Windows 98, then this system will work for you.

I used this to upgrade from Me. Follow the directions, and UNLESS YOU GET AN ERROR MESSAGE TELLING YOU THAT YOU CANNOT PROCEED, JUST LET IT RUN IT'S COURSE. FOR ME IT TOOK ABOUT 48 HOURS. After installation, you may get a two tone blue screen saying that it needs to check disks, if so, let it; this also took a long time (but was part of the 48 hours). A few days after installation, install XP Service Pack 3, to cover additional vulnerabilities. You may occasionally get that blue screen upon start up; if so, you can just hit the space bar within the 9 seconds to skip that disk check. Maybe sometime you don't actually need to use your computer you can start it up and let it do the disk check. Good luck. P.S. If during installation attempts you keep getting an error message that does not let you proceed, there are solutions posted on the net (just search the exact phrase), but I'm not sure any of those work. Hopefully, at least one time it will let the procees continue into the SLOW but eventually successful phase.