Upgrade to Windows XP not supported ?

Question

We have several computers that have Windows 2000 installed and would like to upgrade to Windows XP,   We have the license keys for the upgrade, but the Windows XP Professional SP2 disks supplied (by DELL) state the following message:   'Windows XP Setup does not support upgrading from Microsoft 2000 Professional to Microsoft XP Professional'   Which means we cannot do a straight upgrade, but a fresh install.   The other install disks I have for Windows XP Professional don't accept the DELL keys supplied.   Any solution to the upgrade without a fresh install  ?   Dave

Denny Denham · Answer

Dave Dixon,

That information does not agree with Microsoft's which shows the available upgrade paths here. There is no upgrade path from W2K Professional to XP Home Edition. (Of course, a clean install is recommended, but it apparently is not required.)

Dave Dixon · Answer

The upgrade path is from Windows 2000 Pro to Windows XP Pro, the problem I think is that DELL distribute OEM versions of the operating system and therefore you cannot upgrade.

The license keys seems to be assigned to DELL only installation disks.

David

Denny Denham · Answer

Dave Dixon,

To the best of my knowledge, a Dell OEM version of XP is identical to a retail version. A large number of participants in this forum have upgraded from a variety of earlier versions of Windows using the Dell CDs without difficulty.

rickmktg · Answer

Dave Dixon wrote:
The upgrade path is from Windows 2000 Pro to Windows XP Pro, the problem I think is that DELL distribute OEM versions of the operating system and therefore you cannot upgrade.

The license keys seems to be assigned to DELL only installation disks.

David

You are correct that a Dell OEM CD is NOT UPGRADE media and therefore won't offer you to upgrade from Windows 2000 Pro. Dell OEM media is for installing on a new computer.

If you're saying that you bought, from Dell, Dell XP Pro OEM CDs for the purpose of upgrading those computers, then someone at Dell violated the rules. If you're saying that you have Dell XP Pro OEM CDs left over from other computers that you want to use to upgrade these computers, then that would violate the EULA. If these are CDs that originally came with the computers, but you chose to install your own copy of 2000, then you would need to do a CLEAN install.

jmwills · Answer

Are these Dell machines that have 2K on them?

Dave Dixon · Answer

They were new machines that were ordered from DELL with Windows XP Pro installed, but because of issues with older software we had to install Windows 2000 Pro ourselves.  DELL were unable to provide the pc's with 2000 installed.   A answer from DELL stated that we could downgrade as long as we had the licenses.  As we had  the licenses for Windows 2000 we installed Windows 2000, with the intention of upgrading to Windows XP when the legacy software was either fixed or upgraded.   Now we are stuck with having to reformat the pc's instead of a simple upgrade.   David

jmwills · Answer

Personally, given the two options, I would do a clean install on one and image it.  Then load the image on the remaining machines.

N1kolas · Answer

My XPS M1210 came with Windows XP Media Center 2005.  I viewed the system it showed Windows XP Professional.  Question is this x64? or some other variety?

Tokinsum04 · Answer

Ya definately not  locked to a Dell disc only, I reformatted a Dell computer with a Compaq restore disc the other day. Hah. I don't know how great the Dell computer likes that but it is working just fine.

Windows General

Upgrade to Windows XP not supported ?

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