Installing XP Upgrade

Avenrosh

This may be a simple question... A friend on mine needed to reformat her PC and I gave her an Windows XP installation disc, but it turns out her family originally updated from Windows 98SE. Now that Windows is already installed and configured, is there a way to use the 98SE and/or XP upgrade keys to validate Windows without having to go through installing 98SE first again? Using the upgrade key alone through the validation tool doesn't seem to work for her.

Satsumomo

I remember reading this same question before, and I remember that it was said that said products aren't qualified as "the same" and so you can't activate one product with another's key.

FyreWulff

I seem to remember that you can just put the disc in the second stage after it's not copying from the disc, and it'll recognize the 98 disc and authorize things.

Avenrosh

FyreWulff wrote: »

I seem to remember that you can just put the disc in the second stage after it's not copying from the disc, and it'll recognize the 98 disc and authorize things.

The second stage during authenication, or during the installation? I'm looking for a way to authenticate without having to reinstall it again.

mrbernz

So XP is currently installed on the PC? And by validating are you referring to the online check you have 30 days to do so? If so, as long as the serial for XP is legit I think you should have no problem. I don't believe if your XP was a upgrade version it will let you install it without doing the check for a previous version of Windows.