Upgrading Clients to Windows XP
Upgrading to Windows XP is
easy, but the results vary depending on the starting operating system.
Systems running Windows 2000 almost universally upgrade perfectly.
Windows NT 4.0 systems usually upgrade flawlessly, although they might
end up with some legacy device drivers.
Computers running
Windows 98 or Windows Me are the most difficult to upgrade to Windows
XP. Because of these difficulties, perform clean installations instead
of upgrades whenever possible. If you need to migrate user settings and
data, use the User State Migration Toolkit (USMT), available from the
Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/desktopdeployment/userstate/userstateusmt.mspx.
Before deciding whether to upgrade or to perform new installations,
test the upgrade or migration on some clients that are representative of
the client population.
Note
You can automate the upgrading of Windows 2000 clients using the Software Installation feature of Group Policy.
To upgrade a client computer to Windows XP, use the following procedure:
1. | While
running Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows Me, or Windows 98, close
all open programs and disable all virus-protection programs.
| 2. | Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM, and in the Welcome To Microsoft Windows XP window, click the Install Windows XP link.
| 3. | Select
the Upgrade option, click Next, and then follow the instructions
onscreen to upgrade Windows. This upgrades the computer to Windows XP
while keeping the settings and programs intact.
- If Setup finds hardware or software that isn’t compatible with Windows XP, it lists it on the Report System Compatibility page.
- If prompted, select Yes to upgrade your drive to NTFS,
unless you want to dual-boot with Windows 98 or Windows Me, or
anticipate that you might uninstall Windows XP.
|
|
A direct upgrade from
Windows 98 or Windows Me to Windows XP is possible, but it is usually
better to perform a clean installation. The difficulty lies in a
fundamental difference in architectures: Windows XP is based on Windows
NT and Windows 2000, while Windows 98 and Windows Me (and Windows 95)
are heirs to the MS-DOS and Windows 3.x
compost heap (although obviously all the later operating systems
include huge amounts of new code). To further complicate matters,
Windows 98 and Windows Me might not use the same drivers as Windows XP
(unless you use WDM drivers), and applications are often coded
differently for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me than they are for
Windows XP. These are major obstacles to overcome.
The fact is that some
Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me applications won’t run in Windows
XP without modification. Thus, when performing an upgrade from Windows
98 or Windows Me, it is important either to uninstall applications that
don’t run without modification on both Windows 98 and Windows XP or to
obtain an upgrade pack (also called a migration DLL) during the upgrade process or from the application vendor beforehand.
With that said, you can
upgrade a Windows 98–based or Windows Me–based system to Windows XP and
you can make it work. However, a prudent person performs a few upgrades
on representative systems before deciding on the upgrade strategy.
|
Upgrading Servers to the Windows Server 2003 Family
After
you plan the domain upgrade and prepare the computer, you’re ready to begin the upgrade. Use this
section to install Windows Server 2003 R2 on a server running Windows
Server 2003, or to upgrade a server running Windows NT 4.0, Windows
2000, or Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server
2003 R2.
Note
Instead of upgrading
an existing Windows 2000 domain controller to be the first Windows
Server 2003 domain controller in the domain, add a Windows Server 2003
member server and then install Active Directory on it after it’s been up
and running for a week or so. This allows your network to continue
operating without being affected by the upgrade process.
Installing Windows Server 2003 R2
To install Windows Server 2003 R2 on a server running Windows Server 2003, use the following steps:
1. | If
you haven’t yet installed Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, install
the service pack from Windows Update or another source and then restart
the server.
| 2. | Close all open programs, disable all virus protection programs, and then insert Windows Server 2003 R2 Disc 2.
| 3. | In
the Welcome To Windows Server 2003 R2 window, click the Continue
Windows Server 2003 R2 Setup link, and then follow the instructions
onscreen in the Windows Server 2003 R2 Setup Wizard.
|
Upgrading a Server to Windows Server 2003
To upgrade a server to Windows Server 2003, use the following steps:
1. | If you’re upgrading a PDC, synchronize with the domain’s BDCs one last time.
When upgrading a Windows NT 4.0 multiple domain network, make
sure that you follow your upgrade plan to upgrade the Windows NT 4.0
domains in the proper order.
| 2. | Close all open programs, and disable all virus-protection programs. Then insert the Windows Server 2003 CD-ROM.
| 3. | In the Welcome To Windows Server 2003 window, click the Install Windows Server 2003 link.
| 4. | Select the Upgrade option (shown in Figure 1),
click Next, and then follow the instructions onscreen to upgrade
Windows. This upgrades the computer to Windows Server 2003 while keeping
the settings and programs intact.
- If Setup finds hardware or software that isn’t compatible
with Windows Server 2003, it lists it on the Report System
Compatibility page.
- If prompted, select Yes to upgrade your drive to NTFS.
| 5. | Windows
Setup copies files to the hard drive and then restarts the computer for
the text-based part of Setup. (You might need to remove the CD-ROM
temporarily to boot into Setup properly.)
| 6. | If
you are upgrading a PDC or BDC, the Active Directory Installation
Wizard starts after Setup completes. If you’re installing Windows Server
2003 R2, finish the Windows Server 2003 R2 Setup process before using
the Active Directory Installation Wizard.
|
Note
Windows doesn’t import
existing trusts between Windows NT 4.0 domains into Active Directory
when upgrading a Windows NT 4.0 PDC, though the trusts continue to
function as long as a BDC is available. Because of this, you must
recreate all trusts with Windows NT 4.0 domains in Active Directory
before upgrading or taking the last BDC in the upgraded domain offline.
|
