Re: XP Home Clean Install

"Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:ucmzzzp6IHA.1420@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Before doing anything else...
- Download Windows XP SP3 ISO and make a real CD out of it.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 - ISO-9660 CD Image File
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2fcde6ce-b5fb-44
88-8c50-fe22559d164e&DisplayLang=en

- Download the hardware drivers for the computer in question. Be sure
to get the motherboard chipset, network, video, sound at least - if you
use a dial-up modem - download that as well. Save them to some external
medium (CD, DVD, thumb drive, external hard disk drive, etc.)

I suggest running "Belarc Advisor" on your computer to get the
information you need on what to download. Also - print the Belarc
Advisor results. It will make things easier in the future - as it
contains a lot of useful information about your current setup.

Then...

- Disconnect your computer from any method of connecting to the
Internet. (Network cable, Modem cable, whatever.)
- Put in the new hard disk drive - disconnecting the old one completely
for now.
- Install Windows XP Home Edition.
- Install the hardware drivers you downloaded earlier.
- Reboot as needed.
- Install SP3.
- Reboot as needed *and* one additional reboot before continuing...
- Connect back to the Internet.
- Visit http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and install whatever it
needs you to tro convert to "Microsoft Updates".
- Once that is installed - do a "Custom" scan for updates and feel free
to install all Critical and all "Optional Software Updates". Avoid the
"Optional Hardware Updates" as they are sometimes untrustworthy, IMHO.

If you are worried about how many you will need - SP3 handled much of
the updating needs. You will probably end up needing more "Optional"
than "Critical" *overall* because you will get things like Media Player
11, SilverLight, .Net FrameWork 1.1, 2.0. 3.0 (3.5 isn't there, yet.
hah) andso on. Maybe 15-20 total 'critical updates *not* related to
those optional updates you'll get... Maybe.

You could download SP3 for IT professionals and use it to integrate into
your installation media for Windows XP and install SP3 from the start.
You could also get the updates for Windows XP released since SP3 and
integrate those as well - but you'll still have to get the "Optional
Software Updates" that you want and all the updates associated with them
in the end. ;-)

Just in case (although with a clean install - I doubt you'll need this.)

A place to get FREE support for SP3 installation issues *from
Microsoft*...
http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&prid=11273&gprid=5
22131


Oh - then you can change your old hard drive to a secondary drive and
manually copy what you need off it.


Shenan,

Thanks for the info on SP3. Doesn't look difficult to do, certainly would
save on a lot of downloading / installing time, and I actually prefer
dealing with ISO files. I take it I don't have to bother with SP2?

Fortunately re-installing all my other software and drivers, and getting
all the little things back to the way I like isn't a problem, that'll be
the easy part. :-) I'd never use the optional hardware updates, I always
get the latest drivers for all my hardware devices straight from the
manufacturer's website. It's just getting windows back up to speed and
happy that's the PITA.

The old hard drive will stay intact as is for a while longer. If anything
goes wrong I can always plug that right back in. Once I'm sure the new
install is all set and happy I'll keep the old drive as a slave, and I have
plans to have a little more fun by wiping it and using it to run a dual-
boot with Debian Linux on it. (Naturally, all the important stuff is
already totally backed-up to cd)

Mike
.

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