'98 to XP, Not Valid Win32

Dan G · 23 Mar 2006 at 22:00

Hi! Question on behalf of a less savvy mate-ess of mine. She's trying to upgrade her PC from 98 to XP Pro, and she called me for half hour earlier and its got me stumped.

Upon inserting the CD it doesn't autoplay, and she tells me her CD Drive letter is "Q", although the only additional ones are A: and C: AFAIK. However in Explorer when she clicks the Q: icon it gives her "Q: is not a valid Win32 Application". This has me puzzled - the drive isn't and Application. She says she's not confusing herself with running the CD's setup.exe, but nevertheless it shouldn't do that. Unfortunatly I don't know the specs.

I'm at a loss, apart from suggesting a 98 re-install and then try to upgrade to XP again. Any better ideas?
TIA Daniel :confused:

xpcpu · 23 Mar 2006 at 22:06

have you tried booting from the cd drive with XP disk in and installing XP that way?

formats the hard drive and gives a nice fresh install

Dan G · 23 Mar 2006 at 22:07

Ok thanks that may do it. I've done it a dozen times, again the obvious takes it!

Trigger · 23 Mar 2006 at 22:14

Dan G said:
Ok thanks that may do it. I've done it a dozen times, again the obvious takes it!

If it's an upgrade CD, you won't be able to boot off it

Brian Stuart · 23 Mar 2006 at 22:17

Trigger said:
If it's an upgrade CD, you won't be able to boot off it

You can do a clean install from an upgrade CD. You have to put in a qualifying CD ie Win 98, ME or 2000 when it ask for it to check that you are entitled to an upgrade license.