# My friend has trouble installing Windows 2000 on his XP machine... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 23, 2005, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297 "2005-01-23T21:34:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2005, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/1 "2005-01-23T21:34:19Z")
It won’t let him; in his words, it gives him a message basically saying ‘you don’t want this, it’s old’ and halts the operation. Might anyone know the way to “downgrade” from XP to 2000? ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/2 "2005-01-24T00:22:39Z")
Has he tried doing a clean install? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/3 "2005-01-24T00:54:59Z")
Yep, you’ll pretty much have to wipe the HD clean. Is the Win2k disk a full setup disc or an upgrade? ---
**Author:** ![SlickRoenick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@SlickRoenick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlickRoenick)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/4 "2005-01-24T01:48:23Z")
You’d definately want to make a different partition for W2k. Either get a copy of Partition Magic or some other utility (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!) and shrink the current XP partition down to size. Or you boot to the CD (if it’s bootable), delete the current partition (which will make you lose all the data) and then make 2 partitions: 1 for XP and 1 for W2k and install them separetly by booting to the respective cd of the OS. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/5 "2005-01-24T02:42:45Z")
Another option (if the machine has good enough specs) is to do an install using Virtual PC. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/6 "2005-01-24T02:52:04Z")
Every known Micorsoft OS gives a “WTF?!?” response to being downgraded, and rightfully so. If you _must_ install Windows 2000 over XP, then boot off the CD to wipe the XP install and start over as a 2000 install. If you want to keep XP and have 2000 too (Lord knows why), then just partition the hard drive as necassary and then install Windows 2000. If you have XP and want to install 2000 for testing then VMWare or Virtual PC is the way to go. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/7 "2005-01-24T03:14:37Z")
> [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > If you want to keep XP and have 2000 too (Lord knows why) One good reason is that the user might have software which won’t run under XP. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-friend-has-trouble-installing-windows-2000-on-his-xp-machine/286297/8 "2005-01-24T03:20:07Z")
Such as?