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buying xp for home


vestan
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Hello all, I have a number of questions I could use somebodys help with. Im considering buying xp for my pc and was wondering if any one knows if there are any known problems with registering xp if it is bought 2nd hand and has already been registered on someone elses computer?

I also have a problem with installing xp as i have partitioned my HD and have 98 on c: and i borrowed a copy of xp and when installing it, it installed to drive d: and would not let me overwrite 98 on drivec:. Should this happen?

I remember helping someone install xp on their pc a few years ago and after formatting the drive we had to install 98 onto the drive first before we could install xp, is this a something that still needs to be done if you are wanting to install xp on a formatted drive? The reason I ask this is because once I get my copy of xp I will be formatting both c: and d: drives and installing xp onto c: and using d: for everything else i install on my pc.

Thanks for any info. or help. B)

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If you are buying a second hand XP disc it has to be the RETAIL version, as the OEM version can only be installed on one computer and finishes with that computer, the retail version can be installed on numerous computers but only one at a time. (Make sure it has SP2 on it as it is a big download.)

When you start the XP install it will come to a page where you have the option of which drive to install to, select your C drive and format it to NTFS.

Make sure you have all the motherboard and peripheral drivers before you put XP on, and make sure the versions of the drivers you have will work with XP.

Once installed you can right click My Computer, select Manage, select Disk Management, right click your other drive, select Delete partition, then format it to NTFS.

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Hello Again.

I saw a couple of xp versions on e-bay. The ones I am looking at are XP pro and XP home edition upgrade. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if there are vast differences between pro and home versions.

Also if with the upgrade version you can do a clean install without having any previous versions of windows on your hard drive, as the seller of this product claims.

Finally, how do you completely remove all traces of xp from your hard drive, as I want to remove the copy of xp I am using at the mo which is on drive D, and install the new copy (which ever I buy) onto C.

Thanks once again to anyone that can help. B)

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Hello Again.

I saw a couple of xp versions on e-bay. The ones I am looking at are XP pro and XP home edition upgrade. I was wondering if anyone could tell me if there are vast differences between pro and home versions.

Also if with the upgrade version you can do a clean install without having any previous versions of windows on your hard drive, as the seller of this product claims.

Finally, how do you completely remove all traces of xp from your hard drive, as I want to remove the copy of xp I am using at the mo which is on drive D, and install the new copy (which ever I buy) onto C.

Thanks once again to anyone that can help. B)

A full format. :D

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With an upgrade version you can install on a clean drive but you MUST have a previous version of Windows (ME, 98, 98SE) which you insert for a short time during the install to prove that this is a genuine upgrade and you are not trying to pull a fast one.

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Thanks. I've just been looking through some sites at xp pricing, the cheapest I've found so far for xp home retail vers. is from digital-sunrise.co.uk at £75.00. Does anyone have any other sites to recommend where I may be able to get software cheaper?

I tried formatting drive D which is where xp was installed, but when i re-boot it still gives me the option of starting 98 which is on C, or XP which is supposedly on D, even though there is nothing on D atall as I've formatted that drive. So do I have to format C aswell to get rid of the XP registry?

I was hoping to get away with getting XP upgrade and just writing over 98 on C, I really do't want to format C and have to re-install 98 before I can install XP upgrade over it, as there is stuff on C that I want to keep and having to back it all up to disc will inevitably mean I'll miss something important. :blink:

Thanks very much :rolleyes:

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Hello Again.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if there are vast differences between pro and home versions.

My Hart-Davis manual says that XP is geared for use in an office or corporate environment with several users. For example, it's designed to connect to Windows 2000 servers running Active Directory domains and has features for it to be managed remotely. It also has tighter security settings. There are also a few features which have to be separately installed (eg. back-up) but are on the Home installation disk. I'm told you could run a modest-scale Web server on Pro, but not on Home. Pro has extensive networking and management features which are not on Home.

I have both, Pro on my desktop and Home on the Laptop. I hardly notice any difference for my needs which are basically a small home and portable office for a part-time book editor plus Internet access. :flowers:

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Does your price include VAT and carriage? If not, check out http://www.ebuyer.com/product/65799

If your "D" drive is suitable why not remove the current "C" drive, replace it with the "D" and use that as your new "C" drive and load your new Windows on to that. You can then use the old "C" drive as the new "D" drive and extract the files as necessary. I would not recommend transferring programs over though - they are best installed afresh.

Hope you can follow that!

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So not really much difference between pro and home, thats handy, as there are plenty of copies of pro up for auction on e-bay, I may get a copy for under a tenner yet :D

To tell the truth I thought with vista being the newst OS alot of people would've bought that and be wanting to get rid of their old vers. of xp. I think I'll leave it for a couple of days to see if anything else pops up on e-bay.

The copy of XP home on e-buyer looks like the one I'll plump for if I don't see anything before the end of the week. Thanks.

As for the drive(s), it's just a single drive that I partitioned, so I guess I'll have to format both then that'll get rid of the xp registry on D, correct? :D

Thanks for your time. B)

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I tried formatting drive D which is where xp was installed, but when i re-boot it still gives me the option of starting 98 which is on C, or XP which is supposedly on D, even though there is nothing on D atall as I've formatted that drive. So do I have to format C aswell to get rid of the XP registry?

If you have formatted the D: drive, then everything of XP is gone, including the registry.

However, you may still have the boot manager on your C: drive, so you should remove the reference to XP on the D: drive from the boot.ini file. Be sure to make a copy of the boot.ini file before you modify it. See this article for more information on the boot.ini file (although it's for XP, the information is the same for 9x)

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Hello again.

Just one final quick question.

If I buy the upgrade version of XP and it's OEM and I register it and my Harddrive breaks or I get a new M/B or even stop using this PC and get another, how do I get around re-installing and re-registering it?

This is a worry as I've been told that I can't re-register.

Thanks once again. B)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi guys.

I got xp installed on my pc on C and everything is ok except I still have another vers. of xp on D that I would like to remove. Can you simply delete it via the command prompt? I don't want to risk deleting any files I may need and am unsure if the non-usable xp on D is sharing files with C and if I remove xp on D it it will corrupt xp that is on C.

I've checked on the support site but can't seem to find any info. on deleting XP from a partitioned drive that has a registered vers. of XP as it's OS.

A nod in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks.

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When booting do you get a choice of 2 versions of XP to boot, that on C and that on D ?

If so you'll need to modify your boot.ini as Pat has mentioned above, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022 for how to do so.

If not then you should be able to go ahead and simply delete the files on D. Windows generally installs everything in C unless told otherwise.

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Oops, you can't seem to be able to edit posts on here :paperbag1:

Suffice to say that I ended up growing some cohones and just stuck the the whole windows folder in the bin and it deleted no probs, here I was worrying over nothing.

Thanks for everyones help, much appreciated.

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Oops, you can't seem to be able to edit posts on here :paperbag1:

Suffice to say that I ended up growing some cohones and just stuck the the whole windows folder in the bin and it deleted no probs, here I was worrying over nothing.

Thanks for everyones help, much appreciated.

If you become a subscriber you can edit posts, as well as having other features. See top of this page. :D

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