SUMMARY: So after months of waiting for the sky to fall, you've finally decided to bite the bullet and install Windows XP? There are still quite a few folks who haven't jumped aboard the XP bandwagon because they're afraid of a complicated and lengthy install, but fear not. Come join Casey "The Wizard" Crowe as he walks you through the painless installation process of the newest OS to wear the Microsoft label. Simple, fast and painless may not be words that you would associate with a Windows installation, but rest assured that it will be in this case. Come see how easy it really is!
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.
