Upgrade Installation: 

Installing the Windows Me upgrade on top of an existing Windows 9x installation is almost identical to installing the Windows 98/98 SE upgrade. But, unlike the Windows 98 setup procedure, each of the options that require user input all occur during the first phase of Setup, After that, you can walk away and come back in 30-60 minutes, depending on your system.  You can upgrade from Windows 95,98,98SE, but not from Windows 3.1.  You would have to upgrade to Windows 9x first. 

1. Boot to your existing version of Windows.

2. Insert the Win Me installation disk into the CD-ROM drive.

3. Wait for the CD-ROM drive to come-up to speed and autostart.

4. If you are prompted with a message asking if you want to upgrade, simply choose Yes.

5. If not, Click Start, Run, and enter: M:\setup.exe (where "M" is your CD drive letter)

6. Follow the Setup instructions and choose to save your existing system files so that if you do not like Windows ME, you can reinstall your old system. 

7. Note: Depending on your system, you may or may not be able to save the old system files.  It will be up to you as to whether you wish to continue the installation without saving these files.
   

8. You will see the setup options at this point, the default setting is the "Typical" installation and is recommended for novice users.  Fill in the appropriate personal data at the next prompt.

9. Make the Startup floppy when prompted. Label the floppy "Windows ME Startup Disk" and be sure that it is an empty one because all information will be automatically deleted when creating this startup disk.

10. Once the Startup Disk has been created, remove it from the drive and click "OK".  

11. Click Finish and Windows ME will begin the installation process.  Once completed, you will be prompted to restart your computer. You will then be greeted with a presentation via Windows Media Player.

You can also run setup from the DOS prompt with a Startup disk if you can't get your existing  Windows to boot-up after an aborted install, etc...

• D:\win9x\>setup.exe (where D: is your CD-ROM letter). 

Clean Install:

I experimented with a couple of other hard disk drives and found that installing the Full Retail Version of ME on a bare hard disk drive was altogether a different matter than the using it as an upgrade, and quite crude for a retail package.  Instructions for doing it are on the ME CD ROM at D:\win9x\cleanhd.txt, where D: is your CD-ROM drive.  They start-out with the following:

"IMPORTANT: All the steps you need for preparing a hard disk and installing Windows Me are included here. However, if you are an inexperienced user, it is not recommended that you install the hard disk and prepare it for use yourself. If you are not familiar with the related technical issues, it is recommended that you contact a computer hardware service organization to do this."

The instructions are lengthy.  Basically, they say you have to partition and format the drive before running setup.  If you read all of the cleanhd.txt and follow it carefully, you should succeed in accomplishing the install.  If, however, you skip over them and rely on past Windows experience, you may have problems.

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