Windows XP System Installation Over Itself?

[JonathanF]

For Years if I wanted to reinstall Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME over itself on any Computer, I would run the Windows "Setup.Exe" Executable File and Windows would reinstall over itself.

When it always asked me do I want to use the existing C:\WINDOWS Folder, I would say yes so the new Windows System Installation would be written on top of the existing Systems and Applications.

This procedure worked until I encountered Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

If you have an existing Computer System with Windows 2000 or XP, and lets say something became corrupted, it is easier to install the Windows XP Operating System on top of the existing Windows XP Operating System therefore keeping intact all of the Systems and Applications.

During the Windows XP re-installation process, you either have to wipe out the existing C: Drive System Partition, or if you continue on using the existing C: Drive System Partion it gets up to the point of showing you the existing C:\WINDOWS Folder.

It then forces you to create another Windows System Folder and will not allow you to use the existing C:\WINDOWS System Folder.

You were always able to with Windows 95, 98, or ME use the existing C:\WINDOS System Folder when you reinstalled Windows over itself, so you did not lose all of the previosuly installed Systems and Applications.

Is there anyway of forcing Windows 2000 or Windows XP during the reinstallation process to keep the existing C:\WINDOWS System Folder, so you will not lose all of your previosusly installed Systems and Applications.

Thank You.

Jonathan

 

[MetroRider]

Jonathan,

you ask a pretty good question. personally, whenever i reinstall, i NEVER install over the same directory. I always drop to DOS first and rename the following directories:

C:\Windows directory to C:\Windows.old
C:\Progra~1 to C:\Program2
C:\Docume~1 to Doc2

I do this because if I have a corrupt file or system, I do not want that file somehow still lingering in the new install, no matter if it is being wiped or not. Once I have my fresh install, and everything is working fine, I delete the previous three directories to get my space on the hard-drive back.

Thus, I know what I have listed does not answer your question, it does present to you an alternative method you may want to try out in case you cannot overide the WINNT or WINDOWS directory on the root drive of your respective Win2k or WinXP installation.

good luck

-David

 

[farmercal]

JonathanF why would you want to reinstall Win XP in the first place?

I had a problem with my system when I installed some drivers and the computer would not boot properly. I just restored to a previous time when the computer was working properly and I was back up the running like new.

A friend of mine using XP Home got virus and restored to the day before he noticed the IE virus and it resored back to the pre-virus working condition. No, it doesnt' always work but 9 times out of 10 it does. Which brings me back to my original question "Why reinstall."

The restore feature was introduced to prevent you from having to reinstall the OS.

 

[ginfest]

Unless I've misunderstood your post, Win XP does do what you want, I've done it many times on different machines.

It then forces you to create another Windows System Folder and will not allow you to use the existing C:\WINDOWS System Folder

You were always able to with Windows 95, 98, or ME use the existing C:\WINDOWS System Folder when you reinstalled Windows over itself, so you did not lose all of the previosuly installed Systems and Applications

Start a new install, after the 1st two screens chose "Repair"
After you chose repair and it copies the install files to the harddrive it will ask you if you want to install to the C:\existing windows folder

This will reinstall all the Windows files to the same location but leave your programs and settings intact.
note: you will need to re-d/l the Windows updates and re-install driver files

Mike G

 

[AluminumStudios]

To clearly answer the original question NO - you can not install NT/2K/XP overtop itself. It is a completely different beast from the 9x line.

Windows NT/2K/XP use SIDs (system ID - a very long, number unique to each system) as well as other mechanisms for permissions, security, and system tasks that simply don't allow for the OS to written over by a new install and preserving previous configurations.

The positive side - 2K & XP are stable and well structured enough that you can fix most problems and not have to fear non-stop instability and recurring problems like you would experience with Win9x when you had something like a driver issue.

One example is system file protection -2k/XP won't allow critical system files to be replaced when an app is intalled, and if it happens, they simple automatically put the original system file back ... so you're not left with residual problems after you correct something that is wrong with a 2k/xp system.

I hope this puts your mind and desire to re-install XP at ease.

 

[lalani2]

What you want to do is called an in-place installation. See this MS support article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q315341

Whenever you do an in-place installation (using the upgrade method), it will preserve all of your existing software, registry and security settings.

 

[Gepost]

While you are in Windows XP, put in your XP CD and select repair. Follow the instructions and let it reboot, etc, etc. When done, it will fix any XP problems you might have had. XP kept locking up and restarting on me. I think it was my ATI drivers and corrupted .dll's. Anyway, I did a repair with XP, reinstalled my drivers, and wola, I now have a stable XP computer. Of course, if you have Ghost, you might want to make a ghost file in case something gets messed up.