WIN-XP-Pro x64 Edition

[flschaff]

CD of "Windows-XP-Pro x64 Edition came on 9/11 but gave me great trauma when I opened the package
ready to install it.

I had expected an "Up-Grade" similar to WIN-XP-Pro-service-pak-2 which should install seamlessly on top of service-pak-1 and have little or no affect on installed software and other data folders and files
other than, perhaps, firewalls and anti-virus software.

Much to my surprise was the very small and in orange print, (NOT IN LARGE AND IN BRIGHT RED WARNING PRINT !!), SAYING: "This CD requires a clean installation. Please back up your data before installing.".

I'm a retired engineer who bought a new computer last November primarily for greater speed and capacity to store and work with images from my digital cameras and I'm not particularily computer knowledgeable other than from several years experience in various uses.

I'm operating a computer made for me by HugeBee with an ASUS SK8N motherboard, an AMD 64-bit FX-53 CPU, (came with FX-51 but was changed after lightning damage destroyed the first one), a gigabyte of DDR memory and a serial-ATA 120GB Hard Drive and an NVidia 5900 video board so would like and need the 64-bit O/S but, although all data has been moved to a back-up hard drive, I still wouldn't have expected to have to un-install and then re-install of all my softwear including legacy stuff.

Please tell me that I can install directly and lose little if any standard software programs, many of which are non-MS.

NOTE: I've disabled automatic downloads so I don't get service pack-2 until this is all worked out and I know what to do including whether to install service-pak-2 first, last or not at all in combination with x64-edition.

Help would be appreciated from anyone attempting installation and use of the MS-XP-Pro 64-bit software

Fred Schaff