Windows XP Troubleshooting

Installation1) By far the most common report we receive from users who have encountered difficulties while upgrading to Windows XP is: "I had do the upgrade for me and now all of my email messages and addresses have disappeared and none of my old programs work. How can I get them back?"
The short answer is "from your backup." If you don't have a current backup of your hard drive, make one now. We recommend PowerQuest's Drive Image or Symantec Norton Ghost, both of which can clone your hard drive(s) to another drive or to one or more CD-R discs. Backing up to CD-R (this, of course, requires a CD writer) is a particularly cost-effective way of safeguarding your data.
If a computer running Windows 98 or Windows Me is upgraded to Windows XP, it should preserve all the existing messages, email addresses, programs and desktop configuration settings. However, if a "clean installation" or "dual boot" configuration is set up, it will not. In any event, it's always a good idea to have a current backup.