Windows ME to Windows 2000

Re: Windows ME to Windows 2000
I would recommend doing a fresh installation of 2000 instead of upgrading ME. Upgrades always leave holes. And no, don't delete first. Your installation software will take care of your old version of ME.

When you install 2000 you can do it a couple of different ways. One option will allow you to completely reformat your hard drive and install from scratch, that option won't work for you. The other will allow you to install a 2nd operating system in a new directory. This will allow you to have both operating systems on your PC and when you boot up it will ask you if you want to run Windows 2000 or Windows ME.

If you do it as dual operating systems, you will still be able to work with your files while you move everything over to 2000. You will need to install all of your programs again under 2000 but your files will work under both operating systems. After you're sure that everything works under 2000 you can just delete your ME directory. Conversion complete. Good luck!

By the way, you're living dangerously if you do this without backing up first!

Re: Windows ME to Windows 2000
Thank you for taking time out to help me.



My, that's quite confusing... I'm at a loss as to how to backup my files and start replacing ME with 2000 now. And I'm usually quite intelligent at this sort of thing.

Its not all that big a deal, but in order to configure a machine for dual or multi-OS boot capability, each operating system hasta be on a seperate partition on your main, or root, drive. The number of partitions on a drive generally are set up at the time of the original format-and-install with the original operating system. Normally, a consumer computer with the factory-installed operating system will have only one partition. Now, that's not necessarilly a dead end; some commercial utilities claim to be able to create new partitions without disturbing what's already on the drive, but it don't work all the time, and sometimes seems to work, only to turn around and bite you badly at some particularly inconvenient time and manner.


I would suggest you copy all of your important personal data to removeable media (CD, DVD, ZipDisk, whatever), gather fresh downloads of all of your necessary drivers - machine and peripherals - for Win2K (or XP if you're going that way), make sure you have installation media and product keys for any software you've purchased, then do a full format-and-install with whatever OS you want to migrate to. You might also want to get yourself a free web-based email account, such as HotMail, YahooMail, GMail, or the like, forward any emails you really wanna keep and transfer your addressbook data to the webmail client, too; you coiuld also export your folders and settings to another folder and burn that to removeable media, which is not all that hard to do in most cases. Lotsa work, yeah, but it works - every time. When you do the format, you can set up and size partitions as you find appropriate to your needs and intentions. Once you've got the new OS on, and partitions set on the disk, you can load another OS, such as your old one, onto a different partition. As mentioned, any program you wish to use cross-platform will have to be installed in both operating systems, but files and folders should be pretty much accessible and manipulable between the 2 (or more) operating systems.


You also could try an "In Place Upgrade", installing the later OS over the earlier one (and its gotta be done that way - the newer OS hasta go over an older one, the other way around won't work), and more or less transfer all your files and settings while replacing the older OS with the newer one, but that can have some entrtainment potential, too.

Gotta say the hard way here - format-and-full, clean-install - "Starting from scratch" - is the best, most trouble free, likeliest-of-satisfaction method.

See Microsoft: Multibooting with Windows XP (pretty much same-o same-o for Win2K)