How to Reload Your Computer with an Upgrade OS

There is a very easy way to reload your computer with an upgrade operating system. What this means is you don't have a full version of Windows but an upgrade version. In this article I will show you how to use the upgrade version to reload your hard drive.

Original operating system

Your original operating system could have been Windows 98, ME, or XP home. What most people don't know you could load this one first and than do your upgrade. This is the long way of doing it but you do not have to load the original first. There is an easy way of loading the upgrade version which gets you up and running in half the time. I don't think this works for Vista because Vista is not really and upgrade but a full install.

If you plan on loading Vista Microsoft recommends just doing it from the beginning. This means you will have to partition and format your drive. Also keep in mind if your using the upgrade of Vista it will only upgrade XP. Older version of Windows is not supported.

Upgrade

For this article we will assume you are upgrading to XP or XP professional. What you want to do is reboot your computer with the upgrade. The CD will ask you normal set up questions. It will stop and ask you to insert a full version of windows. What this does is just confirms that you own a full version in order for the upgrade to work. It will not install the old version but it is just used to verify that you own a full version. Whether your full version is Windows 98, ME, or XP home is will verify your CD. Once this is done, which only takes a few seconds, it will ask you if you are ready to install the upgrade. You can format and repartition at this point or just use the current partition. It will format the drive when it gets ready to copy the files.

This way of doing it saves you a ton of time. It also saves you some space on your hard disk. The only downside to this is you cannot revert back to the old Windows version cause its not there. You can use this method right off the CD and clean your hard disk at the same time.

For those of you with ancient computers this works with Windows 95 to 98. Like I said earlier its not recommended for Vista. You can use this method from going from XP home to XP professional. This makes reloading your computer a breeze if you used an upgrade version.

Next time you have to reload your system and you own an upgrade try doing it this way. You will thank me cause it will save you a big hassle and lots of time.