Uninstalling Windows 98

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Lucia - 28 Oct 2007 14:05 GMT

I got this computer used and dont know the owners, First of all. It has Win
98 installed on it, and I bought the Wind XP to upgrade it . When I went to
do this it said it wont go over the Win98 program to uninstall. I cannot find
uninstalling Win98 Anywhere on my computer. I've checked all obvious places..
Can you Help?

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John John - 28 Oct 2007 14:50 GMT

You should be asking about this on an XP group, it isn't really a
Windows 98 problem.

What kind of Windows XP cd did you buy? It sounds like it is an OEM cd,
OEM versions cannot be used to upgrade previous Windows installations.

You don't really "uninstall" operating systems as such, to get rid of an
operating system you backup the user files that you want to keep then
you format the drive and install the operating system of your choice.

Go in the BIOS and set the boot order so that the computer boots to the
CD-ROM drive first, then insert the XP cd in the drive and boot the
computer with it. After you press F8 to accept the EULA you will get to
the Disk/Partition selection screen, at that screen select the option to
format the partition on which you want to install XP and do a clean
install. If the cd is an "Upgrade" cd it will still give you the option
to format and install cleanly, you should select that option instead of
the option to upgrade Windows 98 while keeping the existing files, you
don't know what kind of bugs, virus, spyware or unsavory files might be
on the disk so don't take chances keeping the old files, format the disk
and get rid of all that is on it. For better performance format the
partition to the NTFS file system.

John

> I got this computer used and dont know the owners, First of all. It has Win
> 98 installed on it, and I bought the Wind XP to upgrade it . When I went to
> do this it said it wont go over the Win98 program to uninstall. I cannot find
> uninstalling Win98 Anywhere on my computer. I've checked all obvious places..
> Can you Help?

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Brian A. - 28 Oct 2007 15:08 GMT

>I got this computer used and dont know the owners, First of all. It has Win
> 98 installed on it, and I bought the Wind XP to upgrade it . When I went to
> do this it said it wont go over the Win98 program to uninstall. I cannot find
> uninstalling Win98 Anywhere on my computer. I've checked all obvious places..
> Can you Help?

You don't need to know the owners, you need to know the product and it's worth.
You mention it as a used machine with 98 installed and depending on how used (aged)
it is can and/or will make the difference of if XP will even run on it.

If you aren't sure that the machine is compatible with XP:
Upgrading from Previous Versions of Windows
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/matrix.asp

or check here by typing in the hardware you want to check:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/upgrading/compat.asp

Windows XP Professional Upgrade Center
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/default.mspx

Quick Upgrade to Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/getstarted/installquick.mspx

If you know it can handle XP, great, get a 98 DOS boot disk and reformat the drive.
Make sure you have the 98 install disk just in case issues do arise with some sort of
incompatibility.
You can get a boot disk here: http://www.bootdisk.com/

Please read Read1st in the right pane for instructions on how to create the boot
disk from the downloaded file.

Signature

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

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Lil' Dave - 29 Oct 2007 05:40 GMT

>>I got this computer used and dont know the owners, First of all. It has
>>Win
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> If you know it can handle XP, great, get a 98 DOS boot disk and reformat
> the drive.

The XP install CD (retail and generic OEM) has assets for partitioning, the
formatting is automatic. Wipe the drive and start new by removing the old
partition. Better to go NTFS right away, rather than converting after
seeing why later.

If an upgrade is done, no choice later but to convert if NTFS is desired.

Signature

Dave
Profound is we're here due to a chance arrangement
of chemicals in the ocean billions of years ago.
More profound is we made it to the top of the food
chain per our reasoning abilities.
Most profound is the denial of why we may
be on the way out.

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