Windows XP

trisha

I am thinking about upgrading from W98se to XP
Where is the best place to buy it how much would it cost, and will it go over W98 or should I uninstall it first ?

Is it easy to install or should I get a techie to do it ?

TIA

dalepearson

Should be easy to update, if your in no hurry, wait for July 2006 for Windows Vista.

penrhyn

Trisha,

You need to post some details about your system(e.g processor speed, RAM, HDD capacity) for the techies to better advise you about its suitability for XP.

Dennis99

Have a read of this, a bit heavy going but tells all you need to know about upgrading.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316639

Toxteth_OGrady

dalepearson wrote:

Should be easy to update, if your in no hurry, wait for July 2006 for Windows Vista.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Not a chance - more like Xmas 06, and that's only if the upcoming beta2 releases go well.

:cool:

TOG

newfoundglory

dalepearson wrote:

Should be easy to update, if your in no hurry, wait for July 2006 for Windows Vista.

Hmm... that may not work.

If your PC originally shipped with Win98se... it may not be powerful enough for Vista. The processor might be a bit under-powered, depending on when you purcahsed the pc... but for vista you would be looking for 512mb - 1gb of RAM and a good graphics card to take advantage of the new graphics features.

For windows XP, the processor should be fine... 256mb of ram will be enough... it will run with 128 but be quite slugish with a slower processor. For best performace, 512mb of ram for XP is better, and you should be fine with the current graphics card you have... imho you should have at least 192mb ram for XP.

I could be wrong, but its probably not very practical trying to upgrade the processor, or even the memory in some cases (because older memory is more expensive than the new types). You can buy just PC's (with no screens) for about 300 or £400... pretty good ones from dell. When you factor in the cost of the windows "upgrade", possible memory upgrades etc... it might just be more cost efficient to but a new PC with all that in and XP already included...

Rex_Mundi

trisha wrote:

I am thinking about upgrading from W98se to XP
Where is the best place to buy it how much would it cost, and will it go over W98 or should I uninstall it first ?

Is it easy to install or should I get a techie to do it ?

TIA

Why are you considering upgrading?

If it's an older computer, it will probably run faster with W98 than XP. When you upgrade, you are not only going to face the problems of getting used to the new system. You will have to make sure that all your drivers and software that you use will work with XP. This can not only work out tricky. It can be a right bleeder getting the system working fine for you.

If you are considering upgrading only to keep up with the times. I would say to you that it's worth keeping your W98 on this computer, and upgrading to a new OS when you upgrade your computer to a new one. My old (favourite) computer still runs 98, and it goes quicker than the majority of new computers I've used running XP. This is more to do with me keeping on top of the junk that you pick up along the way than anything else.

trisha

I had this computer built for me in 2002, the company who built it wanted to put XP into it, but I preferred W98SE because I was used to it, (boring, I know) so that is what they installed.

Recently I have had a lot of crashes, blue screens, refusing to shut down, not loading prog's on start up etc etc.

I was told that all that it was a common fault with W98, so I thought I would upgrade to XP. That is the main reason, the other one is I would like Google Earth.

However I have now removed a prog' that could have been running in the background and causing the shutdown prob' since than it has been ok, so I may have solved my prob's.

However I am way behind with W98 so I thought it was time to upgrade.

sra

trisha wrote:

I had this computer built for me in 2002, the company who built it wanted to put XP into it, but I preferred W98SE because I was used to it, (boring, I know) so that is what they installed.

Recently I have had a lot of crashes, blue screens, refusing to shut down, not loading prog's on start up etc etc.

I was told that all that it was a common fault with W98, so I thought I would upgrade to XP. That is the main reason, the other one is I would like Google Earth.

However I have now removed a prog' that could have been running in the background and causing the shutdown prob' since than it has been ok, so I may have solved my prob's.

However I am way behind with W98 so I thought it was time to upgrade.

I'm using Windows 2000 and I think it's great.

When I first transfered from an XP to a 2000 comp I thought I would not be able to tolerate it and looked into buying either XP or experimenting with Linux

But I've found 2000 to be very fast and stable and it is extremely rare to find anything that requires XP (I can only think of one example)

newfoundglory

I agree with sra. I used windows 2000 for years (released in 1999). Although it got off to a bumpy start, its arguably the best OS microsoft has ever produced to date. The most stable out of the lot (a lot of people never used it, because it was rarely put on consumer retail systems like XP has been). But you won't find it easy getting hold of a cheap copy... I can't find an OEM version and the 2000 upgrade retail price from 95/98 is over £160!

You can grab OEM versions of XP pro and home from overclockers for about £50 and £80. When you have XP, you can always go into the display settings in control panel and change the apprearance to windows classic, so it will look very similar to win98... but a bit nicer...

rizla01

Hi,

Same problem for me.

I have windows ME on my system and have been suffering many problems. It's O.K. to start with after a re-format but gets worse and worse, slower and slower and the registry keeps needing to get cleaned and repaired. sys restore packs up. Broadband seems like dial up and emails take an age to read, so much so that I have wished many a time that I was back with AOL. :eek:

I have AVG running permanently along with spyware guard and Zone Alarm.

I am running an 850 AMD athlon with 380 meg Ram with a 19" CTX CRT monitor, Nvidia G force display card and 40 gig hard drive which I partitioned into 8-9 gig segments. It is not used for games.

1) Am I suitable for XP?

2) Should I do a complete reformat of ALL of the partitions or am I best getting another, larger HD?

3) I am considering getting a DVD writer. Is this good enough?

4) Any suggestions on how to acheive the best for as little as poss?

5) On the DVD side of things, I am hoping one day, to D/L some films. How easy is it to make DVDs that will play on any DVD player and what is the approximate cost of doing so, per film.