Cancelling XP Setup
 

I recently decided to upgrade from ME to XP. After installing it, and spending many hours furiously trying to reconfigure all my drivers and programs, I gave up and decided to go back to good old ME!!

Now, every time I turn on my computer, to boot Windows, it offers me a choice to either:

a)Run Windows XP Setup
or
b)Cancel Windows XP Setup

It is defaulted to running the setup, and gives me 4 seconds to change it. If I don`t it the displays and error message, saying it couldn`t find the relevant file. It then reboots and does the same thing over again.
If I select "Cancel", Windows ME boots normally.

Anybody have any ideas on how I can stop it doing this?

I don't know so this is a guess, it may of inserted a line into your autoexec.bat or win.ini or similar file that is run at startup, have a look through them to see if you can see a line inserted giving this setup option.

From windows click start run and type sysedit and the aforementioned files will pop up in a text editor.

Be very careful though, make sure you make copies of them first, just in case.

Im guessing (90% certain):

Edit your boot.ini file.. delete the line about "cancel Windows XP setup"..

That should do the trick.

For example, my XP boot.ini file says:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

The boot.ini file sits on your XP system partition. Ensure you've unticked "Hide Protected Operatin System Files" under your folder options. Otherwise, you won't be able to see the file.

I'm not familiar with ME's architecture, but I'm guessing it's similar to Win98.. it doesn't use the WinNT structure. Therefore, there is no need for a boot.ini file.. Check if you have one, if so, delete it (back it up to floppy in case).

A word of advice: NEVER upgrade from one Operating System to another.. always do a fresh install.

My opinion: XP sucks.. but hey, I still use it. Win2K is the best.