Fresh installation of windows WITHOUT formatting? YES!

This should help when you need to reload windoze or just wanna try out a new "flavor"

i know that we like to format, sometimes even drop the partition, make a new one, reboot, format - THEN install windows. well, if say you either: 1- only have one hdd or 2- have so much "stuff" on your hard drive that you donna wanna spend a couple of hours transferring it to another hdd then this is for you.

most of the "private" releases of windoze in multiple flavors will not support upgrading existing installations. the ones that will, will not do so "unattended" and will subsequently ask for serial numbers, etc. the only way to get an unattended installation with all the whistles and bells [to the best of my knowledge] is to either format your hdd or follow these instructions.

all you need is a boot cd. hiren's or pretty much anything that'll get you to dos is fine, but i prefer using ERD commander by winternals. the 2005 version boots directly to a gui [graphical user interface] that resembles windoze.

now, when erd starts up, it will ask you if you want to use the existing installation or none. it will show all installed operating systems.

choose none. it will give you a warning that the registry won't be loaded and some functionality will be lost. that is fine. that is what you want. this way you will be allowed to delete all windows files and folders.

it will also say that it is working on the network, but since this is not necessary for what we're doing, tell it to skip the network.

now comes the desktop... from there you click on start, then explorer. this will open up a "windows explorer" type window.

delete all of the following:

--all the "root" files [loose files on the boot drive {c: drive}]
--windows
--program files
--documents and settings
--recycler, recycled or recycle bin [you get the idea...]
--volume information

once all of these have been deleted you can reboot and install your new "fresh" o/s with no references to the "old" installation because it's completely gone...

if you're using a boot disk that brings you to dos, just do the following:

1. make sure you're on the correct drive [c:?] at the dos prompt type in c: and hit enter.

2. type in dir [this will verify that you are on the correct drive 'cause it will show you all the folders on the selected drive.

3. now [from c:] type del *.* [this will delete all the root files]

4. once that is finished, type in deltree windows [this will delete windows and all sub-folders]

5. type deltree progra~1 [will delete program files -remember you're in dos which only supports 8-character names]

6. type deltree docume~1 [deleting documents and settings]

7. do the same for the recycler and the volume info [or whatever variation of these names you see...]

now type in dir and make sure all of the above are gone.

now reboot to you new "fresh" installation cd/dvd.

once you have completed the new installation and you finish your first session of playing with the new toy, give it a good defrag. i reccomend perfect disk 7, but just use a good defragger.

hopefully this will give you an alternative to losing gb's of data, pics, mp3's, etc....