The Installation

Clicking on Install Windows XP takes you to this screen:

Here you will be asked whether to perform an upgrade or a full installation. I chose to upgrade since I am moving from Windows 2000 Professional. I imagine a full installation would entail rebooting and formatting your hard drive for a nice and clean install, albeit a longer one, but hey, you get out of your system what you put into it right?

During this part of setup, the installation program will probe your hardware to see what devices you have installed and see if it can find its own drivers for them. If not, you will be prompted with a beautiful yellow and black exclamation point next to your hardware after you complete setup; letting you know you need to get the latest XP drivers for that device. I needed sound card drivers for my Live! X-Gamer. It says in the box there that it is normal for your monitor to flicker on and off, and this will happen 98% of the time as it is checking to see the best way to set up your video card and monitor. After it is done with it's probing, you are taken to the next step; updating setup files.