• Check System Requirements

• Check Hardware and Software Compatibility

• Determine Disk Partitioning Options

• Choose the Appropriate File System: FAT, FAT32, NTFS

• Decide on a Workgroup or Domain Installation

• Complete a Pre-Installation Checklist

• Manual installations usually come in 3 flavors:

• Boot from CD - No existing partition is required.

• Boot from the 6 Setup Boot Disks, then insert the CD - No existing partition is required (see the Create Setup Boot Disks for Windows XP page).

• Boot from an MS-DOS startup floppy, go to the command prompt, create a 4GB FAT32 partition with FDISK, reboot, format the C partition you've created, then go to the CD drive, go into the I386 folder, and run the WINNT.EXE command.

• Run an already installed OS, such as Windows NT 4.0 Server. From within NT 4.0 go to the I386 folder in the W2K installation CD and run the WINNT32.EXE command.

• If you want to upgrade a desktop OS such as Windows 98 into Windows 2000 Professional you can follow the same procedure as above (You cannot upgrade Windows 98 into W2K Server).

1. Start the computer from the CD.

2. You can press F6 if you need to install additional SCSI adapters or other mass-storage devices. If you do you will be asked to supply a floppy disk with the drivers and you CANNOT browse it (or a CD for that matter). Make sure you have one handy.

3. If you want, you can press F2 to run the ASR sequence. For that you need a good backup created by the Windows XP backup program, and the ASR floppy disk. If you plan to install a new copy of XP - don't do anything.

4. Setup will load all the needed files and drivers.

5. Select To Setup Windows XP Professional Now. If you want, and if you have a previous installation of XP, you can try to fix it by pressing R. If not, just press ENTER.

6. Read and accept the licensing agreement and press F8 if you accept it.

7. Select or create the partition on which you will install Windows XP Professional. Depending upon your existing disk configuration choose one of the following:

• If the hard disk is unpartitioned, you can create and size the partition on which you will install Windows XP Professional.

• If the hard disk is already partitioned, but has enough unpartitioned disk space, you can create an additional partition in the unpartitioned space.

• If the hard disk already has a partition that is large enough, you can install Windows XP Professional on that partition. If the partition has an existing operating system, you will overwrite that operating system if you accept the default installation path. However, files other than the operating system files, such as program files and data files, will not be overwritten.

• If the hard disk has an existing partition, you can delete it to create more unpartitioned space for the new partition. Deleting an existing partition erases all data on that partition.

If you select a new partition during Setup, create and size only the partition on which you will install Windows XP Professional. After installation, use Disk Management to partition the remaining space on the hard disk.

8. Select a file system for the installation partition. After you create the partition on which you will install Windows XP Professional, you can use Setup to select the file system with which to format the partition. Windows XP Professional supports the NTFS file system in addition to the file allocation table (FAT) and FAT32 file systems. Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, and Windows NT are the only Microsoft operating systems that you can use to gain access to data on a local hard disk that is formatted with NTFS. If you plan to gain access to files that are on a local Windows XP Professional partition with the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating systems, you should format the partition with a FAT or FAT32 file system. We will use NTFS.

9. Setup will then begin copying necessary files from the installation point (CD, local I386 or network share).

10. Note: If you began the installation process from an MS-DOS floppy, make sure you have and run SMARTDRV from the floppy, otherwise the copying process will probably last more than an hour, perhaps even more. With SMARTDRV (or if setup was run by booting from CD) the copying will probably last a few minutes, no more than 5 max.

11. The computer will restart in graphical mode, and the installation will continue.