XP Pro install

[Crispin Duckworth]

Hi

When installing xp (pro) what are the pro's & con's of installing "over" win
98 se vs format hd & performing a clean install?

In the same vein should I stick to fat32 or go with NTFS - some files will
still need to be shared with other win 98 se machines.

Regards

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

I usually advocate upgrades, except in the rare instance that a system drive
is totally corrupted. Saves time and energy reconfiguring everything. Clean
installs are nice, but are hardly necessary.

Which file system you use is up to you, it won't matter as far as other
machines go. They will rely on that system to translate the data. NTFS is
needed for full use of WinXP's security options.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Some people will recommend that you perform a clean installation,
rather than upgrade over Win98/Me. For the most part, I feel that
these people, while well-meaning, are living in the past, and are
basing their recommendation on their experiences with older operating
systems. You'd probably save a lot of time by upgrading your PC to
WinXP, rather than performing a clean installation, if you've no
hardware or software incompatibilities. Microsoft has greatly
improved (over earlier versions of Windows) WinXP's ability to
smoothly upgrade an earlier OS.

WinXP is designed to install and upgrade the existing operating
system while simultaneously preserving your applications and data, and
translating as many personalized settings as possible. The process is
designed to be, and normally is, quite painless. That said, things
can go wrong, in a small number of cases. If your data is at all
important to you, back it up before proceeding.

Have you made sure that your PC's hardware components are capable
of supporting WinXP? This information will be found at the PC's
manufacturer's web site, and on Microsoft's Windows Catalog:
(http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx) Additionally, run
Microsoft WinXP Upgrade Advisor to see if you have any incompatible
hardware components or applications.

You should, before proceeding, take a few minutes to ensure that
there are WinXP device drivers available for all of the machine's
components. There may not be, if the PC was specifically designed for
Win98/Me. Also bear in mind that PCs designed for, sold and run fine
with Win9x/Me very often do not meet WinXP's much more stringent
hardware quality requirements. This is particularly true of many
models in Compaq's consumer-class Presario product line or HP's
consumer-class Pavilion product line. WinXP, like WinNT and Win2K
before it, is quite sensitive to borderline defective or substandard
hardware (particularly motherboards, RAM and hard drives) that will
still support Win9x.

HOW TO Prepare to Upgrade Win98 or WinMe
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q316639

Upgrading to Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpupgrad.htm

Personally, I wouldn't even consider using FAT32 when NTFS is an
option. FAT32 has no security capabilities, no compression
capabilities, no fault tolerance, and a lot of wasted hard drive space
on volumes larger than 8 Gb in size. But your computing needs may
vary, and there is no hard and fast answer.

To answer your questions without getting too technical is
difficult, but has been handled quite well by Alex Nichol in the
article here:

FAT & NTFS File Systems in Windows XP
http://www.aumha.org/a/ntfs.htm

Somewhat more technical information is here:

Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=kb;en-us;Q314463

Choosing Between File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp

NTFS file system
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/ntfs/

The file systems on the various computers communicating over a
network are completely irrelevant, as none of the individual
computers' operating systems ever directly access the other computers'
hard drives. Instead, a computer sends a "request," if you will, for
the desired data, and the operating system of the host ("receiving")
computer accesses its own hard drive (whose file system it obviously
can read) and then sends that data back to the requesting computer as
neutral packets of information that are completely independent of the
file systems on the respective computers. After all, don't you use a
Windows-based PC (whether it's FAT32 or NTFS) to access data stored on
the Internet's mostly Unix servers, which use a completely different
file system?


Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

When installing xp (pro) what are the pro's & con's of installing
"over" win 98 se vs format hd & performing a clean install?

Although many people will tell you that formatting and installing
cleanly is the best way to go, I disagree. Unlike with previous
versions of Windows, an upgrade to XP replaces almost everything,
and usually works very well.

My recommendation is to at least try the upgrade, since it's much
easier than a clean installation. You can always change your mind
and reinstall cleanly if problems develop.

However, don't assume that doing an upgrade relieves you of the
need to backup your data, etc. before beginning. Before starting
to upgrade, it's always prudent to recognize that things like a
sudden power loss can occur in the middle of it and cause the
loss of everything. For that reason you should make sure you have
backups and anything else you need to reinstall if the worst
happens.

In the same vein should I stick to fat32 or go with NTFS - some files
will still need to be shared with other win 98 se machines.

Either will work. There is no issue with Windows 98 machines
accessing an NTFS partition; although Windows 98 can't access
NTFS locally, over a network, it works fine, since only the data
is sent over the network, not the file system.

 

[ian]

I went through this a few months ago - most people recommended I did a clean
install. I ended up doing an upgrade and it worked fine. You just have to
make sure that your Hardware is OK with XP and I downloaded a bunch of
drivers before the installation which helped in places although XP came with
them anyways.
I had to convert my HDD to NTFS after XP was installed as it kept FAT - you
might have to do the same.

Ian