Chapter 17
Installing a New Operating
System or Migrating Upwards
In This Chapter
Starting anew with Windows XP
Making like a goose and migrating
Recovering nicely
M
ost of this book is about hardware. Why, it’s right there in the title:
Upgrading & Fixing Laptops For Dummies.Laptops are boxes of hard-
ware, similar to desktops except they are much smaller and fit in a nifty
carrying case with zippers and Velcro straps. But as you may have explored
already throughout this book, all of that hardware is not of any use without a
capable and properly configured operating system and a set of applications
that give the hardware things to do.I need to talk about software in this book about hardware because the operating
system and the applications configurethe hardware to adjust its personality,
make settingsthat affect its operation and features, and can even disableor
enablea piece of hardware.For the purposes of this book, I am going to assume that you are the sort of
person who likes to use the latest, greatest, most recently updated versions
of operating systems and software. I do this for two reasons: first of all,
because you’re a with-it, happening kind of guy or gal, and secondly because
(with a few exceptions) the most current software and operating systems are
backward compatible.That means that in addition to offering the new stuff
that makes people upgrade, these pieces of programming also retain compati-
bility with older hardware and applications.And so, the official operating system of this edition of Upgrading & Fixing
Laptops For Dummiesis Microsoft Windows XP in its similar Home and
Professional versions. And just for the record, the core of my software is
made up of the various pieces of Microsoft Office (including Word, Excel,
Outlook, and PowerPoint), the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser. My
armamentarium of utilities includes Symantec products Norton SystemWorks