Think of it in this way. By this time next year, or shortly thereafter, you will be three OS releases behind. Those would be:
2000, XP, and then Vista. At this time, a more cost effective solution would be to buy one of the 2400 Dimensions for about $400, maybe cheaper without monitor.
Guys I have an old Dimention T700r desktop with PIII 700 and 98SE. I would like to upgrade it to XP home. What is the least expensive way to do this ? I see some OEM versions available out there when I search. Are those even legal ? And is the cost of this upgrade worth seeing how old (not necessarily in terms years but technology wise) my system is ?
1) Be prepared to increase your memory to 512 or 768.
2) Many OEM copies are really NOT legally sold. They must be accompanied by hardware per MS, and they may or may not work on your Dell. However, if you have the 98SE CD, you can buy a legit copy of XP Home UPGRADE for around $90. Do a CLEAN install.
3) As jmwills notes, you can buy a 2400 for $299 (not $400). So if you look at the cost of memory and XP, vs. the cost of a new computer...
It can be upgraded (and the upgrade version should work). However, there are hardware compatibility issues between some older hardware and XP, and some older software will not run on XP. Also some older peripherals such as printers and scanners are not XP compatible. You will need at a minimum 256 Mb of RAM (memory) and more is even better for XP.
You need to take all of this into consideration on upgrading. If you still want to do it or think you want to do it, download the Windows XP "upgrade advisor" and run it on your PC. It will list any incompatible hardware and software. One issue, the download is about 50 Mb so you need a wideband connection or a friend with a wideband connection that can dowload it and burn a CD for you.
Finally, do not do an "upgrade" over the existing Windows. Do a "clean" install - reformat the hard drive and start new or there can be many problems.
jmwills
2 Intern
•
12K Posts
0
September 16th, 2005 07:00
Think of it in this way. By this time next year, or shortly thereafter, you will be three OS releases behind. Those would be:
2000, XP, and then Vista. At this time, a more cost effective solution would be to buy one of the 2400 Dimensions for about $400, maybe cheaper without monitor.
rickmktg
2 Intern
•
11.9K Posts
0
September 16th, 2005 10:00
1) Be prepared to increase your memory to 512 or 768.
2) Many OEM copies are really NOT legally sold. They must be accompanied by hardware per MS, and they may or may not work on your Dell. However, if you have the 98SE CD, you can buy a legit copy of XP Home UPGRADE for around $90. Do a CLEAN install.
3) As jmwills notes, you can buy a 2400 for $299 (not $400). So if you look at the cost of memory and XP, vs. the cost of a new computer...
fireberd
9 Legend
•
33.4K Posts
0
September 16th, 2005 10:00
It can be upgraded (and the upgrade version should work). However, there are hardware compatibility issues between some older hardware and XP, and some older software will not run on XP. Also some older peripherals such as printers and scanners are not XP compatible. You will need at a minimum 256 Mb of RAM (memory) and more is even better for XP.
You need to take all of this into consideration on upgrading. If you still want to do it or think you want to do it, download the Windows XP "upgrade advisor" and run it on your PC. It will list any incompatible hardware and software. One issue, the download is about 50 Mb so you need a wideband connection or a friend with a wideband connection that can dowload it and burn a CD for you.
Finally, do not do an "upgrade" over the existing Windows. Do a "clean" install - reformat the hard drive and start new or there can be many problems.