|  | Upgrading to Windows XP Professional Preparing Your System
Preparing your system for an upgrade is as important as planning an installation. Systems that are not properly prepared may have problems during or after the upgrade. Use the following tasks to prepare your system for upgrade. Determine hardware and software compatibility. Microsoft provides a compatibility tool at: Microsoft.com/hcl. You can also run the Windows Readiness Analyzer (Winnt32 \checkupgradeonly). Install hardware and software updates as necessary. Review your current system information and compatibility reports, and then obtain hardware and software updates from your hardware or software manufacturer. It is particularly important to ensure that you have the latest BIOS (basic input/output system) that is available from your computer manufacturer. If the computer has BIOS anti-virus enabled, you must disable this option. Back up files. Use the Backup Wizard to back up your files to a disk, a tape drive, or another computer on your network. Scan for viruses. Use anti-virus software to scan for and eradicate any viruses on your hard disk. Uncompress compressed drives. Uncompress any drive compressed by using DriveSpace, DoubleSpace, or any compression method other than NTFS compression before upgrading to Windows XP Professional. Do not upgrade to Windows XP Professional on a compressed drive unless the drive was compressed with the NTFS file system compression feature. Uninstall incompatible software. Certain types of software may be incompatible with Windows XP Professional, and should be removed prior to upgrading. While not every instance of the following types of software will be incompatible, these software types may be incompatible: Third-party networking protocols and third-party client software that do not have an update in the i386\Winntupg folder on the Windows XP Professional CD-ROM. Anti-virus applications and disk quota software, because of the changes in the version of NTFS used in Windows NT 4.0 and later versions. Custom power management software or tools, because the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) and Advanced Power Management (APM) features in Windows XP Professional replace these tools.