Can I Upgrade 2000 to XP on a Dual Boot System?

Let me see if I can describe this problem accurately.

A friend has a Compaq Desktop that was running Windows ME. It got nailed by virus'. It would no bring up the desktop. They installed 2000 Pro as a dual boot. They cleaned everything up and installed a virus protector. They wanted to stay on ME until they could migrate to XP Home Edition. They stayed in dual boot.

We attempted to upgrade to XP Home Edition but it would not allow us because there are two OS's on the machine. We do not care about the 2000 pro. How can we either uninstall 2000 pro or override the error XP Home upgrade is generating. We want to use the upgrade function to save all the configs and applications they have set up.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated,

Curtis Overall

PS : Did all/any of this make sense?

This question was answered on December 16, 2002. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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There are reasons for everything, and I'm trying to guess the reasons to do this If I knew the object of the game, I could certainly tell you how to play However, in this case, there is no good reason to keep ME The exception might indeed be to play computer games, which will show more compatibility under ME than they might under XP.

The problem is probably due to incompatible file systems, although the operating systems are also quite different.

Windows ME uses the old FAT32 system, which is probably currently set up on that PC even under Windows 2000 If you can open and read all your data files under both operating systems, Windows 2000 with a FAT 32 file system has been installed.

XP and Windows 2000 both make good use of the NTFS file system, but can also be installed using FAT32 Also, most NTFS security and administration features are not enabled under FAT32, and these days, those features are becoming more desirable all the time.

You can convert a FAT 32 partition to NTFS, but cannot go in the other direction without reformatting and reinstalling, and no, ME cannot run using NTFS

By the way, XP won't work with FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB.

What has been set up now is a "Dual Boot" system There are so many variations, I cannot cover them here Suggest doing a Google search, using "dual boot XP ME" as your search criteria.

Otherwise, you have pretty-much already accomplished any goal I can think of In fact, I'd much rather have 2000 Pro on a PC instead of XP Home Microsoft's copy protection scheme for XP is a potential source of worry Also, XP Home is hobbled, versus features that come with XP or 2000 Pro

Another thing If that hard drive has not been reformatted after being invaded by a virus, the effects encountered may result in nothing but a world of hurt Many viruses these days can be patched up, but the damage may be so far-reaching, it's best to reformat as soon as possible.

Hope this answered your question.

RG

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Posted by Robert of Mesa Community College on December 16, 2002

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