[Rvan801]

I've recently decided to upgrade a computer whose Windows ME operating system is dysfunctional to Windows XP, as a way of "solving" the problem. My question is, does upgrading preserve files, or am I obligated to reformat? Also, since this computer is several years old, and was made to support Windows ME, might there be any technical limitations that would prevent XP from working once installed? Finally, whereas MS-DOS is currently accessible on the Windows ME computer (by using a boot disk) even in its current state, would that be the case if I went through the XP installation, and something went wrong (which raises another question: what could go wrong?)? I thank anyone in advance who can answer one or more of these questions.

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Errors with the existing OS can carry over when doing an upgrade, you may want to consider backing up the data you need then using an OEM XP CD to do a clean install

[Retired Tech]

Errors with the existing OS can carry over when doing an upgrade, you may want to consider backing up the data you need then using an OEM XP CD to do a clean install

[Neil Jones]

I've recently decided to upgrade a computer whose Windows ME operating system is dysfunctional to Windows XP, as a way of "solving" the problem. My question is, does upgrading preserve files, or am I obligated to reformat? Also, since this computer is several years old, and was made to support Windows ME, might there be any technical limitations that would prevent XP from working once installed? Finally, whereas MS-DOS is currently accessible on the Windows ME computer (by using a boot disk) even in its current state, would that be the case if I went through the XP installation, and something went wrong (which raises another question: what could go wrong?)? I thank anyone in advance who can answer one or more of these questions.

1) How old is "several years"? The older the computer the less likely it is that it'll like XP. It often works out cheaper to buy a new system than bring an old one up to a spec decent enough to run XP.

2) General rule of thumb is to reformat. An upgrade will preserve the files and settings but if your current Windows has issues, they'll continue to be issues with XP.

3) MS-DOS - there is no native DOS support in XP. There's the command prompt but that's not pure DOS. You can still boot off a floppy disk drive BUT it won't be able to read the hard drive, thus making the idea of booting off a floppy a fairly pointless exercise.

4) What can go wrong - anything and everything. XP has the ability to repair itself which you can get to by booting off the XP CD and there is a recovery console as well. It depends what goes wrong as to what you can do about it - how long is a piece of string?