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March 19th, 2004 23:00
Win98SE not handling new software
I've been wondering what your thoughts are on upgrading the OS alone. The computer struggling is a Dell Dimiension XPS T800r ... it's almost 4-years old, running Win98 SE, 765.0MB Ram.
The computer is crashing frequently when I try to run new software geared more for WinXP. I'm told the OS scratchpad alloted for Win98 is just not sufficient to handle more powerful software and the memory fills rapidly creating all kinds of errors and eventually a crash.
I have been under the impression that upgrading a computer from one OS to another is not a good idea ... I forget the reasoning behind this, but something to the effect that there would be other hardware issues. What do you think?
linda
Denny Denham
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March 20th, 2004 03:00
Your system specs are more than sufficient to handle Windows XP. I don't know where you heard that it was a bad idea to upgrade a system to a new OS, but there are dozens of participants in this forum who have done so and been greatly pleased with the results.
For some general guidelines to help you decide whether or not to upgrade, see the information here.
linkot
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March 20th, 2004 10:00
Thanks for the information and the link. Much appreciated.
Where do I go now :) My first thought is to go to CompUSA and buy Windows XP Professional they sell it for $299.99
Then I looked Online and tekdeal.com has it for $129.00 -- do you know what I should expect to pay?
Going to your link now and read up ... thanks.
Denny Denham
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March 20th, 2004 14:00
I am not familiar with tekdeal.com and was unable to find a rating for them. XP Professional Upgrade is available here for $199.99. They are a highly rated business. They also offer XP Home Upgrade for $105.95. Unless you need the special feature of Professional Edition there is no reason to spend the extra money. You can compare features of the two versions here.
linkot
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March 21st, 2004 00:00
Thanks again Denny, you are so informative and I appreciate how willing you are to share your knowledge.
Would I buy an Upgrade WinXP Pro if going from Win98 to WinXP Pro? As you can tell everything hasn't sunk in yet ... djdenham.com recommends a clean installation ... would the Upgrade work then or will I need the full copy of WinXP Pro? Below is the confusing paragraph:
If a reinstallation of XP from an upgrade CD is being done the earlier operating system is not on the hard disk so the installation process will prompt for the insertion of the installation CD for the earlier operating system. For this reason, users who upgrade to XP should make sure that the reinstallation CD of the earlier operating system is saved. Without it, the user will have to purchase a new full copy of Windows XP.
Denny Denham
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18.8K Posts
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March 21st, 2004 00:00
An Upgrade CD will work fine for a clean install of XP. If Windows 98SE is currently installed on the system, the XP installation routine will detect it and do the installation. In the event 98SE were not on the system you would have to insert the 98SE CD early in the installation process to verify that you are upgrading from a qualifying operating system. In your case, the latter would apply only if sometime in the future you needed to reinstall XP and 98SE were no longer on the computer.
linkot
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March 21st, 2004 02:00
But doesn't "clean install" mean writing the harddrive to zeros, and the dreaded partitioning, etc.?
Denny Denham
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March 21st, 2004 17:00
In a way, it does. The hard disk is not written with zeroes but the pointers to data on the hard disk are removed so it appears blank to the new operating system which will overwrite the information which is no longer needed. The "dreaded partitioning" takes about 45 seconds and it occurs during the installation of XP. It does not require running FDISK as Windows 9X systems did. A clean install, including the operating system, system drivers, and preinstalled applications takes less that two hours. The major investment in time is in backing up perishable data (e-mail folders, address books in e-mail programs, My Documents folders, your Desktop, Favorites, Web browser bookmarks, and any other data that has been created by specific applications) prior to the installation.
linkot
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March 21st, 2004 20:00
Thanks again Denny ... just so there won't be any surprises ... how many partititions would you make?
Denny Denham
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18.8K Posts
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March 21st, 2004 21:00
It's a matter of personal preference. I like to keep the operating system and applications separate from data, so there will be a minimal amount of things necessary to back up should I ever have to reinstall XP. On my 40GB hard drive I have a 10GB C:\ partition with XP and programs (and it still has 4GB free, so I was a bit conservative in sizing it) and a 30GB D:\ partition for everything else.