Installing Windows XP is an installation process via BIOS. Beginner's Guide: Installing Windows XP in Detail
Despite its hopeless obsolescence, the Windows XP operating system still remains very popular among users, thanks to the ease of working with it and its fairly high stability. In some ratings, it is even ahead of the “seven”. Next up for consideration is the question of how to install Windows XP from a disk and perform the initial system setup. It is believed that the installation of this particular modification should not cause any particular difficulties, but in reality it is necessary to pay attention to some important nuances, without understanding of which the installation of the system may be unsuccessful.
Create a Windows XP installation disk
At the first stage, we will assume that the user does not have the original installation disk. Windows XP can be downloaded as an image from the official Microsoft website or from another (necessarily trusted) source.
In this case, you should immediately pay attention to the contents of the downloaded distribution. It is recommended to download only the one that initially contains the second and third service packs, so as not to have to install them manually later.
It is not difficult to record an image onto optical media. To do this, you can use many programs for working with images (for example, UltraISO or Nero Burning ROM). If you need to create a multiboot Windows XP disk, it is best to use a tiny utility called WindowsSetupFromUSB, but to write the distribution kit to a flash drive.
BIOS Presets
So, we assume that the installation distribution is recorded. Now you need to make it so that you can boot from it. To do this, you must use the primary I/O system BIOS settings. Typically on desktop computers, login is accomplished by pressing the Del key, but different laptop models may use other keys (F1, F12) or combinations thereof.
To be recognized as bootable, you need to find a partition with a name like Boot, Boot Priority, Boot Sequence and install the optical drive (CD/DVD-ROM) first in the list of boot devices by pressing the PgUp/PgDown key.
Start installation
After completing all the preparatory steps, you can proceed to solving the problem of how to install Windows XP from a disk directly. After turning on the computer and starting from the removable device, a black screen will appear with a prompt prompting you to press any key to boot from the disk. Keep in mind that you will only have five seconds to make a decision. Otherwise, it will boot from the next device (usually a hard drive), provided that it has a bootloader, an installed OS, or even a damaged OS.
Next, a screen will appear to preload the basic installation components and a line at the bottom prompting you to install additional SCSI and RAID drivers. In most cases, this is not necessary, however, if the computer has several hard drives combined into the same RAID array, the installation must be applied. But it will assume that the user has one hard drive.
Partition selection and formatting
At the next stage, a welcome screen will appear with options to choose from:
- immediate installation of the system;
- restoring a damaged system via the console;
- refusal to install.
Select the first item by pressing the enter key. Next, we agree to the license agreement and press F8 to continue the installation (hints will appear at each installation stage).
After this, previously installed copies will be scanned, after which you will need to make a choice in favor of installing a new system (Esc).
Now the most important thing begins with the question of how to install Windows XP from a disk. The first step is to decide on the system partition and its size. If installed on a new hard drive that did not have logical partitions, the unallocated area (full volume) will be shown.
It is undesirable to allocate all the space to the system partition (this can later play a cruel joke). It’s better to partition the disk right away by pressing the C key and specifying the required volume in MB (for the system you can allocate 40-60 GB, but not less than 20 GB). Please immediately note that for the normal functioning of Windows XP, about 10-15% of its size must always remain free in the system partition both after installing the OS and after installing user programs. After returning to the partition creation screen, you can begin formatting (but more on that later).
If the hard drive has already been broken and has an old system, the user will be shown all available partitions. If necessary, all partitions can be deleted (press D when selecting a partition). If the user is satisfied with the disk structure, simply select the desired partition in which the system was installed previously and proceed to formatting.
In the case of new hard drives, you can immediately select quick formatting to NTFS. If the operation is applied to an existing partition, several options will be offered to choose from. It is best to perform a full format in NTFS. But to save data, you can leave the file system unchanged. Most likely, you will next receive a warning that the Windows system directory already exists, with a suggestion to overwrite the current copy or select a new folder. Here - optionally (all the same, the Windows XP folders of the old version, if one was previously present, will be saved).
Now all that remains is to wait until the files are copied, after which the reboot will occur and the system installation will begin in normal graphical mode.
Setting initial parameters
In the next steps in the question of how to install Windows XP from a disk, the user's actions are quite simple. When rebooting, be sure to remove the optical media from the drive, otherwise you will get the pre-start screen again.
After the installer starts, the language and region are selected (usually you don’t need to change anything if you have a Russian copy of the system), then, if required, enter the user name and organization name (optional), after which the product key is entered (without it, the installation will not continue ). Working keys, by and large, can be easily found on the Internet.
At the next stage, you need to enter the name of the computer and specify the administrator password (this can be done later). Next, the date and time are configured (usually nothing needs to be changed), and finally a screen may appear asking you to select network card settings. Feel free to select “Regular settings” and indicate that the computer is not participating in the network (it is better to select the group and domain after installation is complete).
Completing the installation
Only now will the device drivers begin. Upon completion, several additional windows may appear. For example, the system will ask for consent to set the optimal screen resolution. We must agree with this.
Then a welcome blue screen starts, in which most of the actions can be skipped (for example, deferring protection, checking the Internet connection and registering with Microsoft). Finally, all that remains is to enter the names of the accounts that will be registered in the system. You can enter only your data, after which a notification will appear informing you that the installation is complete.
Clicking the “Finish” button will cause the “Desktop” to appear with a familiar picture. At this point, the installation can be considered complete (if service packs were present in the distribution, they will be installed automatically, otherwise you need to install them yourself).
Typical errors when installing the system
Not often, of course, but you can also encounter Windows XP errors, moreover, precisely during the system installation process. The most common occurrence is BSoD (blue screen). The installation is impossible due to an incorrectly set mode for the hard drive.
If a message appears about a BIOS firmware mismatch, you must disable ACPI mode during installation.
It is possible that the disc itself is damaged or scratched. Just burn the distribution onto another medium and try installing the system again.
Initial setup of Windows XP
Initially, the system usually does not need any special settings. But to reduce the load on computer resources, it is advisable to disable some background services that are activated by default and start with the system.
In the Run console (Win + R), enter the msconfig system configuration access command, go to the startup tab and disable everything that is there, leaving only the ctfmon process, which is responsible for displaying the language in the tray and changing keyboard layouts.
Required additional software
Then be sure to install security software, since there is practically no protection in the “expert” itself. Antiviruses for Window XP are quite diverse and do not cause installation problems. However, based on the fact that this version of the system is usually used on relatively low-power machines, you should not install heavy packages like Kaspersky Lab software products. It is better to limit yourself to some lightweight versions (Avira, Panda Cloud, etc.).
However, if you look at antiviruses for Window XP from the point of view of providing maximum protection, you can use the NOD32 or Smart Security packages from ESET. True, they will have to be activated monthly using special keys that are freely distributed on the Internet.
Finally, all that remains is to install an archiver, a set of codecs, a flash player for the browser, an office suite and some other applications that the user may need while working.
Quite often there is a need to reinstall Windows. This is due to the fact that during its operation various types of errors accumulate, both in the shell program itself and in applications from third-party developers. Usually in computer slang in such cases they say that Windows is “tired.” The average user's computer needs to reinstall the shell program, usually once or twice a year. The reinstallation process is quite simple, but it requires knowledge of some points, so a person must be confident in his actions and understand how to properly reinstall Windows XP.
Preparatory stage
First of all, you will need a disk with the program distribution kit. Having received it in one way or another, many users think that they can now proceed directly to the installation process. But that's not true. You should also worry about the presence of the main drivers in advance. As a rule, discs with them are given in the store when purchasing a system unit. If they are not there, then it is extremely important to find at least all the minimum necessary ones. These include drivers for the motherboard, video card and sound. So, having collected them, can we already consider how to properly install Windows XP? No, it is extremely important to do one more thing. The fact is that the installation process will destroy all data on the local “C” drive, so all important information from it must be copied to the “D” drive or removable media.
How to reinstall Windows XP? Instructions for the preliminary stage
Before you start installing the new Windows, you should make some changes to the BIOS. To do this, restart the computer by pressing the “Del” key. This will launch BIOS settings, where you need to change boot priorities. To do this, go to the “Advanced BIOS Features” tab. There you should find the item “First boot device”, where you need to change the media type to “CD-ROM”. To access the options for changing settings, you must use the “Enter” key. After completing this procedure, you need to save the changes and restart the computer. To do this, press the “F10” key and answer “Y” to the system question.
How to reinstall Windows XP? Instructions for the main stage
After rebooting the system with the Windows disc pre-installed, the computer will ask you to confirm that it should use CD-ROM as the priority media. To do this, just press any key. After this, the shell program will unload the components necessary for its work and ask where to install it. Here you should completely delete the local drive “C”, for which you will need to confirm your desire twice by alternately pressing the “Enter” and then “L” keys. After this, instead of drive “C”, “Unallocated area” will appear. Having selected it, press the “C” key, which will create a new local disk in this place. Now you can select it and begin installation. Before this happens, Windows will format the specified partition.
How to reinstall Windows XP? Instructions for the final stage
Once the disk is formatted, the installation process will begin automatically and no action will be required from the user. But at the final stage you need to enter some information: specify the Windows key, administrator name, select the time zone, and so on. All this no longer requires any special knowledge.
Installation complete
After Windows completes installation, you should install all the necessary drivers and check if there are any device conflicts in the system. After this, you can already enjoy working with a “clean” OS. Thus, knowing how to reinstall Windows XP, the instructions, it is worth noting, should always be at hand, since it is impossible to remember everything.
In the process, you will format the local drive that contains the current version of Windows. Simply put, before installing a new system there, you will have to erase all old data from it. The contents of the remaining disks should remain unchanged. But it’s better to play it safe and first copy absolutely all data from your computer that you are afraid of losing to the cloud or to physical media.
If paid programs are installed on your computer, be sure to read their documentation for the rules for working with licenses when reinstalling Windows, otherwise you may lose them.
2. Create a boot disk or flash drive
If you want to install/reinstall a licensed version of Windows, make sure you have the appropriate activation key. Even if you are already using an activated system and just want to install the same version again, the old activation key may come in handy again.
- If you already have a bootable USB flash drive or disk with the version of Windows that you are going to install, you can proceed to step 3. Otherwise, you need to download a Windows image from the Internet and burn it to any of the listed media according to the instructions below.
- Decide on the version of Windows you will be installing and check that your computer meets its system requirements. This information can be found on the official Microsoft website or on the disk with your purchased Windows. Don't forget to also check that your computer supports the new version's bit depth: 32 or 64 bits. To be on the safe side, you can install a version with the same bit depth as your current version of Windows.
- To create a bootable USB flash drive with any Windows image found on the Internet, you can use the program (with UEFI support) and proceed to step 3.
And below I will tell you how to create a bootable disk or flash drive with an official system image using Windows 10 as an example.
3. Boot the system from a disk or flash drive
Now that you have physical media with the desired Windows image, you need to go to the special BIOS software environment and select a disk or flash drive here as the boot source.
Perhaps instead of the classic BIOS you will see a more modern graphical interface. In addition, even in different older BIOS versions, the settings may differ. But in any case, the procedure will be approximately the same: go to the boot menu, select the desired media as the source and save the changes.
After this, the computer should boot from the selected disk or flash drive.
4. Run the installation wizard
If you did everything correctly, the Windows Setup Wizard will appear on the screen. Further actions are no more complex than installing an ordinary office program. All you have to do is follow the system prompts and wait for the files to be unpacked. Unless you have to select a local disk to install the operating system and format it.
Also, be prepared to enter your activation key during the process. But if you are reinstalling Windows 10 that has already been activated on your computer, then you can skip the step with the key.
Once the installation is complete, your computer should boot into normal operating mode.
5. Install drivers
Modern versions of Windows load drivers themselves. But if, after reinstalling the system, you notice that the video card, speakers, or anything else is not working correctly, you can use the driver autoload utility. For example, the free Driver Booster is suitable.
Having completed all of the above, you can get to work. The computer should be ready.
You can install Windows XP on your computer not only “from scratch” (i.e., full installation), but also on top of the old operating system. This type of installation is called Windows update.
Unlike a full installation, an update allows you to keep your documents, programs and settings in working order. When an update is performed, Windows is installed in the same folder as the current OS (thus updating it). Whatever installation option you choose, you must have a boot disk with the correct version of Windows.
There is an opinion that all problems in the operation of the OS can be solved by updating it. In fact, this is not always the case. When reinstalling “over”, there is a possibility that errors in the system registry accumulated by the old OS during its “life” may transfer to the new operating system.
In addition, it is impossible to say with one hundred percent certainty that after the update absolutely all programs will work as before. It is possible that problems will arise with some program.
Updating (reinstalling) Windows is the last resort for troubleshooting. After it - only a full installation (with formatting the hard drive). Therefore, if malfunctions occur in the operation of your system, do not rush to solve them with such a radical method. There are other options for restoring the health of your Windows.
Before updating the system, I would strongly advise you to create a backup copy of your important data on another local drive or external media (for example, if you have the 1C accounting program installed, be sure to copy the directories with the database). The best option would be to make an image of the entire system partition using the program Acronis True Image.
So, I warned you about the possible consequences of reinstallation; Now let's proceed directly to updating Windows. This installation can be launched directly from the operating system.
1. Turn on your computer and wait for the OS to load.
2. Disable your installed antivirus.
3. Insert the Windows XP installation disc into your computer's DVD drive. If after this the welcome window does not appear on the screen, then open the disk and run the file setup.exe.
4. In the window that appears, you must select “ Installing Windows XP”.
5. In the next window, select the installation type “ Update (recommended)” and click the “Next” button. 
If we chose the installation type “ New installation”, then a full installation would be launched, and then our programs and settings would not be saved. They may remain in the Program Files folder (if we refuse to format the disk during the installation process), but will not work on the new system.
6. Then we accept the license agreement and click “Next”. 
7. In the next window, enter the license key. 
8. In the “Dynamic update” window, you can put a marker next to “ Download updated installation files” if our computer is connected to the Internet. Otherwise, select “ Skip this step and continue installing Windows" Click “Next”. 
9. In the next window we will see on the left an indicator for copying installation files. If no unexpected problems arise, the computer will reboot itself. And we can only calmly watch the further update process. By the way, it is much faster than installing from scratch. 
10. Finally, our PC will reboot one last time and the updated Windows XP will start. If the Internet and local network settings go wrong, configure them again.
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Above I described the installation process as it should ideally be. But sometimes during installation some problems may arise. For example, when following step 9 of our instructions, the “ Error when copying files”:
It is impossible to unequivocally answer why it appeared. Below are possible causes of this problem and some solutions:
1. Anti-virus software was not disabled before installation.
2. The Windows XP installation disc is scratched.
3. Your CD or DVD drive is faulty.
4. There is a virus on the computer. Before starting installation, conduct a full system scan with an antivirus (for example, DrWebCurelt).
5. Malfunction of RAM or hard drive.
6. There is incompatibility of any program or device. To check this, insert the installation disk with Windows XP into the drive - select “System compatibility check” - “Automatic system check”.
7. Try copying the entire contents of the installation CD to a folder on your local hard drive and run the installation from there (via the setup.exe file).
8. At the beginning of the installation process, in the “Dynamic Update” window, select “Download updated installation files” (if, of course, you have Internet access on your computer).
As you can see, there can be quite a lot of options and getting to the bottom of it is not so easy. For this (and not only) reason, I believe that The optimal reinstallation of Windows is a complete installation from scratch with formatting of the system partition. Naturally, you must first copy all the files that are important to you, as well as settings and drivers.
Detailed description of reinstalling Windows Xp on a computer or laptop
Perhaps you were looking for:
How to install/reinstall Windows Xp without a disk (from a flash drive)
Step #1. Burning a disc
If you have a disk with Windows XP, then you can safely skip this step and go to [step No. 2] since here we will talk about what to do if you do not have a disk with Windows, but have a key (for example, you bought a laptop with on which the OS was installed, there is a piece of paper pasted on the back or side of it, on which is the key that we need, or another situation, but as a result you should have a key to Windows). We copy the key number onto a piece of paper so that it is at hand, and move on. Select one of the versions of Windows Xp. Both versions are time-tested
Or 
Now search the Internet Windows Xp Sp2 Professional license disc. Since distribution is illegal, we have no right to provide a link to Windows. But I will give you a link to the ORIGINAL VERSION of Windows xp sp3 proffessional - By the way, if you want a pirated version, I will give you a link, but considering, again, that I do not have the right to post files on my resource, I will give you a link to a torrent with Windows Xp sp3 Simplix Edition
Original version of Windows Xp Sp3
Download Windows Xp Simplix Edition
After you have downloaded the Windows Xp image, download the program to burn our image to disk
To do this, download a program to burn our image to disk
Download Portable ImgBurn
After the Windows image and our ImgBurn program have loaded:
Step #2. The disk is ready. Set the BIOS to First boot device CD-Rom
So, after Step #1 we have a disk with Windows Xp. At this stage our
the task is to get into the BIOS and set it to initially boot the disk with
installed Windows XP. To do this: Reboot or turn on
computer and press the delete key (there are other options, for example
F1,F2,F8,Ins. 
The initial splash screen should usually show you which key to press to enter the BIOS 
As a result, we should get to the BIOS blue screen, in our case it looks like this 
We set the first boot from the Disk to do this, go (with the usual arrows) to Advanced Bios Features -> First Boot Device, select CD-Rom, press enter, then esc, go to save&exit setup, press enter, then Y and enter again. 
Note: if you have a different BIOS, the essence does not change. The main thing is to find the First Boot Device and select CD-Rom. After step 2, the computer reboots itself and if you did everything correctly, then when you reboot, the message Boot from Cd/Dvd will appear on a black background: 
And after a while Press any key to boot from Cd.. 
(press any key on the keyboard to boot from the disk), press the key. If a blue screen appears with the Windows installation at the top, then at this stage you have done everything correctly. If the keyboard cannot be pressed, you need to go into the BIOS and set SUPPORT USB: YES 
Step #3 Formatting the partition. Installing XP or answering the question: " How to install Windows Xp for a teapot«
Now we wait (2-5 minutes) until a blue window appears with the inscription “Welcome to the installation program” 
Press Enter, then read the agreement and then press the key F8
A) If you already have a partition where we will install Windows Xp formatted and created (if not, read point b) -> select the partition 
If you see the message “The installation program is copying files,” everything is done correctly! Let's move on to point c 
B) If the disk is not formatted 
Select it and click on D
Attention: with this action we delete all data that is on the disk C:
Click L
Next, click “Unallocated area” WITH to create a new partition 
Enter the size of our partition in megabytes 
Select it from the list 
Format in NTFS system (fast)
If the message “The installation program is copying files” appears, everything has been done correctly and you can now continue starting from point in
C) When the installation load reaches 100%, the computer will reboot itself. (When the reboot is in progress, we DO NOT PRESS ANYTHING, we just wait) 
At the 33rd minute, fill in the language parameters 
Enter Name and Organization 
Product Key 
After you have entered the key, the installation will continue and Windows will be installed for at least 10-15 minutes and we will not take part in this. When Windows is installed, the computer will reboot again and all we have to do is fill in the account name, which Internet you use, etc. 
Congratulations, Windows XP has been successfully installed!
