I'm looking for something that I know is probably straightforward. I have only Windows 2000 Professional on my computer and have been told that I can't upgrade to Windows XP Home Edition without firstly uninstalling the Win 2000 Pro and then doing a clean install of the Windows Home Edition. Question is, how do I do this exactly, bearing in mind that I've never had to do anything like this before? Are there any good step by step guides out there that I could follow? Thanks Steven

I think you need to uninstall Win2000 Professional first by formatting the partition of the hard drive the Win2000 Professional is installed on. Then install Windows XP. If you want to install both then you should install Windown XP first then Install Win2000. This is what I think. Don't just go with it. Wait for any expert's reply.

Steven, You can not upgrade from Win2K Pro to XP Home, that is correct. You can upgrade to XP Pro, however, unless you've purchased an 'OEM' version of the disk, then it won't let you. The problem with 'uninstalling' Win2K (you can't 'uninstall' any OS if it's the only OS on the machine) is that you will lose all the registry links to your programs. If you do what Mahesh suggests, you'll get a clean install of XP, but everything that's on your hard drive will be GONE! You'll have to back up the entire hard drive before your format. If you have a second hard drive in your computer where you can move all of your data, documents, downloads, etc, you can move them off the primary drive, do a reformat, install XP. However, you can not save any programs this way. Every single program on your computer will have to be reinstalled. That's because the links to the OS will be severed. You can install them over their original locations if they aren't on the boot drive, and you may retain some of your settings, but you will still have to reinstall them. My suggestion, the easiest way to do this, is to return XP Home and for the extra money involved, purchase XP Pro. If this is not an option, then you'll have to back everything up somewhere else, reformat the hard drive, and then do a clean install. Of course, there are positive sides to this. You get rid of programs you don't use anymore, saving space, you get a nice clean installation, free from bugs, but it takes a while because you have to reload everything else. Gary