Windows XP home

trisha

I am one of the few people who still have W98SE
Where is the best place to buy Windows XP for a reasonable price ? I have seen used ones on EBay but I though you had to have a new one because of the unique code to you.

What is the difference between an upgrade edition and a full one and can I use either ?

Lastly would it be easy to install it myself or am i safer paying someone to do it ?

TIA
Trisha

intel

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=161203

village_life

Trisha

How new is your PC? is it due for replacement soon or is it already a decent spec????

As it stands, your currently a bit of a dinosaur in PC stakes ;-), however spending £90 or whatever XP Home costs isnt money well spent

The reason being that the latest and greatest offering from Microsoft (Windows Vista) is due out towards the end of the year....

I'd be inclined to (Money Save) your pennies, and move to Vista when its released (Be one of the trend setters!!!) - Assuming you are quite PC literate (and have used XP before) it shouldnt be too much of a trauma for you to use Vista....

MrsTinks

Assuming that Vista is released on time and has for the first time ever no huge bugs in it because Microsoft rushed it's launch... I'd wait a few months after they release it before thinking of installing it myself...

Depdning on HW spec then i would contemplate if it is worth upgrading the whole machine to be honest. More and more things are no longer compatible with Win98se and the programs are getting more and more resource hungry so need a faster chip, more memory, better mother board etc...

village_life

tine wrote:

Assuming that Vista is released on time and has for the first time ever no huge bugs in it because Microsoft rushed it's launch... I'd wait a few months after they release it before thinking of installing it myself...

you old cynic ;-) - havent you read the new sales brochure for Vista? - it comes with no vulnerabilities, no gaping holes and no reason for the user who installs it to worry

I think your being a bit too cautious in my opinion, ive bought brand new systems to co-incide with the Win95 and WinXP launches, and I never had any problems whatsoever

Vista will be fine, promise :rolleyes:

Mervcashsaver

I'd wait for any teething problems to be sorted first, then go for Vista.

wonderfullife_2

trisha wrote:

.What is the difference between an upgrade edition and a full one and can I use either ?Lastly would it be easy to install it myself or am i safer paying someone to do it ?TIATrisha

Hi
Difference between upgrade and full, is that if you've already had windows on, which you have, you can upgrade to xp and the upgrade version is cheaper than the full version.
Easy install, just go into BIOS, change to boot from cd, put xp in cd drive and away you go.
Another thing, how old is your pc? and have you read the requirement for xp? how much memory have you got, xp likes 256mb or better.

Hope this helps

impecunious

If your pc is currently running win98se, then it's almost certainly in pc terms an "old codger"! And dressing up a geriatric in fancy clothes still makes him/her a geriatric, doesn't it?! As been mentioned previously, the choice decision for you to make would be imho is to buy another pc with it already pre-installed and in all likelyhood wouldn't cost that much more that a official licence for Win XP.

trisha

Thank's for all your replies.

My PC is three years old in August, don't know if that is an old codger ;-)

I have done all the checks and it's ok for XP.

The company who built it for me said it would cost an extra £150 to have XP installed in it, at the time I was trying to keep the costs down, so they installed my W98 SE which I had from my previous PC instead.

I don't have a problem with W98 apart from the usual shut down and start up ones, I am just a bit concerned that Microsoft are not going to be issuing any more security updates for it.

Jersy

i dunno what an upgrade would cost, but if i wer u i would try 2 sell your current pc to a student for say £100

and keep an eye out for the dell 300 quid deals