Reinstalling Win XP Pro

[Jon Lawrance]

A friend has what I believe is a pirate version of Win XP Pro. He owns a legitimate license but has been worried about installing it on his Server as he does not know the consequences of reinstalling another version over the top.

Is it safe to use a legitimate copy and reinstall using a bootup disk? Or will it kick out all the currently installed software and settings?

Or can he run the setup from Windows itself?

I want to advise him correctly without blowing up his system.

Thanks,

Jon


__________________

[Sterling_Aug]

If you boot to the CD and let Windows detect that a previous version is installed, then select to repair that install, ALL installed programs and data will remain intact. This is what I do alot here at home and it always works out fine.

[Jon Lawrance]

I used a bootup disk set. Got to the options that say Install Windows or repair. Then it said about the Recovery console.

So, I press "R" on my keyboard. I then type in my administrators password. Then it just dumps me onto the C:\Windows command prompt. Now what?

Help!

Thanks,

Jon

[r8500]

Not the repair consol. Make like your going to do a clean install. After you hit f8 on the license screen, it will detect the old version, and then ask if you want to repair. Then you select to repair the previous installation.