New Computer, ME incompatable, XP is only upgrade

In Microsofts great wisdom, they made the XP professional upgrade require
windows already be installed. I have a new computer so it started without
windows. Not knowing a way around the problem, I installed (or at least
tried to) Windows ME. It halts due to a lack of compatable drivers. Restart
it and it comes up without the CD (actually DVD) drive. Yes the drive works,
its the one Windows ME was installed from. Now I have an extremely limited
Windows ME with no way to access the XP professional disk. Anyone know of a
work around?

You don't need to have a previous Windows version installed to install
Windows XP with an upgrade cd. All you need is to supply proof that you
have a previous version when asked. When you start the install with the
XP upgrade cd it will scan the drive for an installation to upgrade, if
it finds no previous Windows version to upgrade it will tell you so and
ask that you insert the cd of a qualifying Windows version in the drive.
When the setup program is satisfied that you own a qualifying Windows
version it will proceed to install Windows XP cleanly.

John

Chronus wrote:

In Microsofts great wisdom, they made the XP professional upgrade require
windows already be installed. I have a new computer so it started without
windows. Not knowing a way around the problem, I installed (or at least
tried to) Windows ME. It halts due to a lack of compatable drivers. Restart
it and it comes up without the CD (actually DVD) drive. Yes the drive works,
its the one Windows ME was installed from. Now I have an extremely limited
Windows ME with no way to access the XP professional disk. Anyone know of a
work around?

Actually you do need a previous version installed. XP professional upgrade
CDs are not bootable. Also, the setup.exe on the XP professional upgrade CD
only runs under windows.

"John John" wrote:

You don't need to have a previous Windows version installed to install
Windows XP with an upgrade cd. All you need is to supply proof that you
have a previous version when asked. When you start the install with the
XP upgrade cd it will scan the drive for an installation to upgrade, if
it finds no previous Windows version to upgrade it will tell you so and
ask that you insert the cd of a qualifying Windows version in the drive.
When the setup program is satisfied that you own a qualifying Windows
version it will proceed to install Windows XP cleanly.

John

Chronus wrote:

In Microsofts great wisdom, they made the XP professional upgrade require
windows already be installed. I have a new computer so it started without
windows. Not knowing a way around the problem, I installed (or at least
tried to) Windows ME. It halts due to a lack of compatable drivers. Restart
it and it comes up without the CD (actually DVD) drive. Yes the drive works,
its the one Windows ME was installed from. Now I have an extremely limited
Windows ME with no way to access the XP professional disk. Anyone know of a
work around?

Where on Earth did you get that idea? Go in the BIOS and set the
computer to boot to the CD first then stick the XP upgrade cd in the
drive and boot the computer with it.

How to install or upgrade to Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316941

John

Chronus wrote:

Actually you do need a previous version installed. XP professional upgrade
CDs are not bootable. Also, the setup.exe on the XP professional upgrade CD
only runs under windows.

"John John" wrote:


You don't need to have a previous Windows version installed to install
Windows XP with an upgrade cd. All you need is to supply proof that you
have a previous version when asked. When you start the install with the
XP upgrade cd it will scan the drive for an installation to upgrade, if
it finds no previous Windows version to upgrade it will tell you so and
ask that you insert the cd of a qualifying Windows version in the drive.
When the setup program is satisfied that you own a qualifying Windows
version it will proceed to install Windows XP cleanly.

John

Chronus wrote:


In Microsofts great wisdom, they made the XP professional upgrade require
windows already be installed. I have a new computer so it started without
windows. Not knowing a way around the problem, I installed (or at least
tried to) Windows ME. It halts due to a lack of compatable drivers. Restart
it and it comes up without the CD (actually DVD) drive. Yes the drive works,
its the one Windows ME was installed from. Now I have an extremely limited
Windows ME with no way to access the XP professional disk. Anyone know of a
work around?

That sounds most likely to me. Most of our computers here came with the
hard drive as the primary boot device. Most people don't know how to get to
their BIOS and it is sometimes difficult. Consult the manual, but sometimes
you have to press DELete on startup, usually F2, and sometimes you only have
a fraction of a second in which to press it. If you have a bootable CD in
the drive with the hard drive set as first boot device it will tell you no
bootable drive found.

"John John" wrote in message
...
Where on Earth did you get that idea? Go in the BIOS and set the computer
to boot to the CD first then stick the XP upgrade cd in the drive and boot
the computer with it.

How to install or upgrade to Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316941

John

Chronus wrote:

Actually you do need a previous version installed. XP professional
upgrade CDs are not bootable. Also, the setup.exe on the XP professional
upgrade CD only runs under windows. "John John" wrote:


You don't need to have a previous Windows version installed to install
Windows XP with an upgrade cd. All you need is to supply proof that you
have a previous version when asked. When you start the install with the
XP upgrade cd it will scan the drive for an installation to upgrade, if
it finds no previous Windows version to upgrade it will tell you so and
ask that you insert the cd of a qualifying Windows version in the drive.
When the setup program is satisfied that you own a qualifying Windows
version it will proceed to install Windows XP cleanly.

John

Chronus wrote:


In Microsofts great wisdom, they made the XP professional upgrade
require windows already be installed. I have a new computer so it
started without windows. Not knowing a way around the problem, I
installed (or at least tried to) Windows ME. It halts due to a lack of
compatable drivers. Restart it and it comes up without the CD (actually
DVD) drive. Yes the drive works, its the one Windows ME was installed
from. Now I have an extremely limited Windows ME with no way to access
the XP professional disk. Anyone know of a work around?

Norman,
If I replace the boot harddrive on my computer, I expect to be able to
install either the operating system that was on the old drive, or install an
upgraded o/s.

I see replacing an old computer with a newer (& better?) as being the same
thing. There is nothing in the license agreement that I have noticed that
requires me to purchase a full license with every harddrive - only that I do
not use both the old o/s and the upgrade.

Bruce Nelson


"N. Miller" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 14:35:01 -0800, Chronus wrote:

In Microsofts great wisdom, they made the XP professional upgrade require
windows already be installed. I have a new computer so it started
without
windows. Not knowing a way around the problem, I installed (or at least
tried to) Windows ME. It halts due to a lack of compatable drivers.
Restart
it and it comes up without the CD (actually DVD) drive. Yes the drive
works,
its the one Windows ME was installed from. Now I have an extremely
limited
Windows ME with no way to access the XP professional disk. Anyone know
of a
work around?

If you did not already have Windows ME installed on the new computer, you
should not have bought the upgrade version of Windows XP. If you have an
older computer with Windows ME on it, and it is an OEM install, your
upgrade
version of Windows XP would only go on that computer; unless the upgrade
CD
is bootable. However, I don't know if you could get away with using the
key
on the older, OEM computer, since Microsoft intends that you use one copy
of
their OS per computer; i.e., you couldn't keep running the computer with
the
OEM Windows ME *and*, simultaneously, run the new computer with the
upgrade
version of Windows XP tied to the older Windows ME. That would count as
two
computers, and, for the new computer, you would need a full version of
Windows XP.

It is all about profit; Microsoft intends for you to buy a new version of
their OS for a new computer. Only only get to upgrade if there is already
a
qualifying version of Windows installed on it.

--
Norman
~Shine, bright morning light,
~now in the air the spring is coming.
~Sweet, blowing wind,
~singing down the hills and valleys.

On Jan 8, 9:35 pm, "N. Miller" wrote:
On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 23:27:10 -0500, Bruce Nelson wrote:
"N. Miller" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 14:35:01 -0800, Chronus wrote:
In Microsofts great wisdom, they made the XP professional upgrade require
windows already be installed. I have a new computer so it started without
windows. Not knowing a way around the problem, I installed (or at least
tried to) Windows ME. It halts due to a lack of compatable drivers.
Restart it and it comes up without the CD (actually DVD) drive. Yes the
drive works, its the one Windows ME was installed from. Now I have an
extremely limited Windows ME with no way to access the XP professional
disk. Anyone know of a work around?
If you did not already have Windows ME installed on the new computer, you
should not have bought the upgrade version of Windows XP. If you have an
older computer with Windows ME on it, and it is an OEM install, your
upgrade version of Windows XP would only go on that computer; unless the
upgrade CD is bootable. However, I don't know if you could get away with
using the key on the older, OEM computer, since Microsoft intends that you
use one copy of their OS per computer; i.e., you couldn't keep running the
computer with the OEM Windows ME *and*, simultaneously, run the new computer
with the upgrade version of Windows XP tied to the older Windows ME. That
would count as two computers, and, for the new computer, you would need a
full version of Windows XP.

It is all about profit; Microsoft intends for you to buy a new version of
their OS for a new computer. Only only get to upgrade if there is already
a qualifying version of Windows installed on it.
If I replace the boot harddrive on my computer, I expect to be able to
install either the operating system that was on the old drive, or install an
upgraded o/s.

AFAIK, that is not a problem. I have done that myself. But the upgrade is
tied to the OEM OS, and the OEM OS is tied to the computer it was installed
on.

I see replacing an old computer with a newer (& better?) as being the same
thing.

Replacing the old computer with a newer computer is most definitely not the
same thing as replacing the old HDD on that old computer with a new HDD.

There is nothing in the license agreement that I have noticed that requires
me to purchase a full license with every harddrive - only that I do
not use both the old o/s and the upgrade.

There is nothing against replacing the old HDD with a new HDD. You can
transfer the OS from the old HDD to the new HDD *in the same old computer*.
You can't transfer the OS from the old computer to the new computer, and you
need a qualifying OS to use the upgrade product.

--
Norman
~Shine, bright morning light,
~now in the air the spring is coming.
~Sweet, blowing wind,
~singing down the hills and valleys.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hmmm. Norman, Seems Microsoft's sweet music is sure making a lot of
sour notes these days.
As I recall, "my system" started as a homebuilt win98SE on a Gigabyte
mob. Then it even dual booted with a fat32 windows NT5 Beta. Then I
upgraded to winME. Worked very well for several years (NOT the win2K
beta - it was useless after it "timed out") Then I upgraded the
motherboard with a later version in the same family - faster CPU,
memory, etc. Almost all the peripeherals remained the same. I put the
solitary winME service pack (I don't think it was actually called a
service pack, just a big update).

And it still runs very good. Even with two NICS on it - one built into
the MOB, one Netgear hanging around since windows5/2000 was running.
Also have some ghost printers, etc. etc. My boots could be faster but
it gets up in about a minute so I'm not complaining. We have a Gold
Standard maintenance philosophy, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
balanced with the voice of experience, "Consistency is the hobgoblin
of small minds".

For several years I was a big fan of Dock-Tray hard-drive
arrangements. I have several drives "on the shelf" that dock with
this system. One of the bigger surprises was the otherday, I put up an
ancient win98se system drive and it ran like a champ (well, I doubt
the printer did because it had an Epson back then and now we use a
Canon Pixma).


To sum up - Seems as though MS has gone to the dogs - Legal Beagles to
be exact. So long as Bill listened to his computer whiz kids it was a
beautiful ride.