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Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition
book

Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

by David Pogue, Craig Zacker, L.J. Zacker
November 2004
Beginner
704 pages
22h 51m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Backing Out of Windows XP

Hard though it may be to imagine, even after going to all of the trouble to switch to Windows XP, you may pine for the old days. Some people find Windows XP too intrusive and too much of a nag. Other people find too many incompatibilities with their old gear. Fortunately, Microsoft has made it very easy for you to back out, reinstating your older operating system.

Whenever you perform an upgrade installation from Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, or Windows Me, you actually retain both the old and the new versions of Windows. If, as the months go by, you decide that you’d like to reclaim the disk space being used by the dormant operating system, you can delete it. You can delete the older version (top), committing to Windows XP forever, or you can delete Windows XP (bottom), restoring your older version.

Figure A-6. Whenever you perform an upgrade installation from Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, or Windows Me, you actually retain both the old and the new versions of Windows. If, as the months go by, you decide that you’d like to reclaim the disk space being used by the dormant operating system, you can delete it. You can delete the older version (top), committing to Windows XP forever, or you can delete Windows XP (bottom), restoring your older version.

Note

This option is available only if you upgraded your PC from Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, or Windows Me. If you erased the hard drive and performed a clean install, or if you upgraded from Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000, this option isn’t available. Furthermore, you lose this option if you repartitioned your drive, or converted it to NTFS, since you upgraded.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596008988Catalog PageErrata