The A+ Certification & PC Repair Handbook (Charles River Media Networking/Security)

To use Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home, your system needs to meet or exceed the following requirements:

• 233MHz Pentium-compatible processor

• Approximately 1.5GB of free drive space (however, it depends on the features and software you choose to install)

• 64MB of RAM (bare minimum; some features may be unavailable or limited)

• Super VGA monitor (800x600)

• Keyboard

• Mouse

• CD-ROM

As with all Windows NT-based operating systems, it is always wise to ensure that your hardware is in compliance with the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL). You may search for your specific hardware by visiting the latest HCL, available at http://microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/search.mspx.

Consider upgrading your BIOS. Windows XP, like Windows 2000, attempts to use ACPI compliance to its fullest. Windows XP more strictly follows ACPI standards, so it is a good idea to look to your motherboard manufacturer’s Web site for an upgrade. An old BIOS with buggy ACPI support is likely to cause Windows XP to behave erratically (e.g., you choose Standby and your system reboots instead).

CD-ROM Installation

If your BIOS supports CD-ROM booting, then you may insert the CD-ROM and reboot your system. After a delay while setup inspects your hardware, the typical blue text-mode installation screen is shown. If you have any RAID devices or third-party SCSI adapters, you must press F6 when you see a message at the bottom of the screen requesting this in black-on-gray text. After this, you may press F2 to begin Automated System Recovery (ASR), which will allow you to recover an existing, nonbooting Windows XP system. ASR is not included in Windows XP Home. Otherwise, you are presented with options for installing or repairing an existing Windows XP system using Recovery Console. After you choose to install and accept the licensing agreement, setup will display the current partition(s) of your hard disk drive(s). You are able to create or delete partitions as necessary. Select either an existing partition or unpartitioned space, and the options for formatting to either an NTFS or FAT file system will appear. If you selected an existing partition, you may have extra options; you can choose not to format it or convert a FAT file system to NTFS. After this step has been completed and Windows copies files to the partition you selected, your system will restart into GUI mode to continue setup.

SIX Setup Disks

Unfortunately, Microsoft has taken away the last crutch from rapidly dying legacy systems. You are no longer able to create any setup floppy disks from the CD-ROM. However, due to the demand for the disks, Microsoft has released two utility downloads on the Internet. They are both a self-extracting compressed file that will generate six floppy disks, rather than four, for either Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional. The Windows XP Professional disk creation utility will not allow Windows XP Home to boot, and vice-versa. Microsoft has now made it clear that floppy disk support will be entirely absent from the future Windows product lines.

The Windows XP Home disk creation utility can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=E8FE6868-6E4F-471C-B455-BD5AFEE126D8.

The Windows XP Professional disk utility can be obtained at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=55820edb-5039-4955-bcb7-4fed408ea73f.