How do I reinstall an Upgraded Version of XP

[veritasffg]

I have two aging XP machines, both Dells.  Both were originally built with ME installed, and both received XP upgrade disks from Dell.  I have both the ME and the XP upgrade disks.  I am interested in wiping the system drives on both these machines in order to reinstall XP.  My question is - if I reformat the disks, will it be necessary to first reinstall ME, and then reinstall the XP upgrade disk?   Or is there some way to avoid having to reinstall ME?

[patio]

No.
At some point in the installation process XP will look for/ask about a qualifying earlier version... at this point simply insert the WinME CD and the install will proceed...

[veritasffg]

This is exactly the answer I had hoped to get on this question.  Do you have personal experience which confirms that reinstallation of the earlier O/S version is unnecessary, so long as the user has the reinstallation disks for both versions?

Thanks very much.

[patio]

Couldn't begin to count how many times i've done it...

 

[veritasffg]

Patio:  So you have resolved two of the three issues (and may have resolved the third) I posted yesterday.  I very much appreciate your help.

[thefonz]

No.
At some point in the installation process XP will look for/ask about a qualifying earlier version... at this point simply insert the WinME CD and the install will proceed...

If the person wants to reinstall xp and the two dells where converted over to XP earlier from 2000 why put the 2000 disk in when asked if there is a past qualifying earlier version?  Why not put the XP in instead?  Would this reinstall 2000 instead of what he wants which is XP?

thefonz

[veritasffg]

For thefonz:  I'm sure Patio will likely respond to this himself - but I took his message to mean:  to reinstall an upgrade to XP, first boot the XP upgrade disk.  Then, at some point during the reinstall process, the user is prompted to insert the original ME disk, simply to confirm that the upgrade to XP disk is legitimate.  After confirming validity of the upgrade from ME, I assume the user will be prompted by the system to remove the ME disk and reinsert the XP disk.

[patio]

For thefonz:  I'm sure Patio will likely respond to this himself - but I took his message to mean:  to reinstall an upgrade to XP, first boot the XP upgrade disk.  Then, at some point during the reinstall process, the user is prompted to insert the original ME disk, simply to confirm that the upgrade to XP disk is legitimate.  After confirming validity of the upgrade from ME, I assume the user will be prompted by the system to remove the ME disk and reinsert the XP disk.

Correct.