98 SE Upgrade to XP

[Alan]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the best
Newsgroup to air them on?
Thanks
Alan

 

[Gordon]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc
on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the
best
Newsgroup to air them on?
Thanks
Alan

I would suggest very strongly that even before you go anywhere near a
software vendor that you go here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/advisor.mspx

and download and run the Upgrade Advisor. It is highly probable that your
W98 machine will not run XP satisfactorily in it's present state. For
instance, do you have, or are you able to upgrade to, 512MB RAM? Yes you CAN
run XP with as little as 128 MB but it will be treacly slow......
You may well find that the cost of upgrading your hardware will be more than
buying a new machine with XP pre-installed......

HTH

 

[Bryan]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the best
Newsgroup to air them on?

I upgraded from 98SE to XP a couple of years ago and was reluctant to do so
as I had read stuff about XP, however it was the best thing I've done. XP
starts twice as fast as 98 for me and has been very stable.

You could try a Google search for websites on what you want to do. You need
to make sure you have enough RAM, and some/all devices will need new
drivers. You might find that it isn't possible to get drivers for all your
devices. I have a Jetway USB TV device and haven't found XP drivers for it
anywhere.

Also some programs won't run on XP or won't run as well on XP and you need
to check this before upgrading. I have no problem with MS programs but
others may not work at all. HTH.

 

[Rock]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc
on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the
best
Newsgroup to air them on?
Thanks
Alan

Here are some good links.

Upgrading to Windows XP from Windows 9x/Me
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_9xupgrade.asp

Upgrading to WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION or PROFESSIONAL
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpupgrad.htm

How to prepare to upgrade Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition to
Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316639/

 

[E. Barry Bruyea]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the best
Newsgroup to air them on?
Thanks
Alan

My best advice is to do a clean install, period. I know its a pain to
have to re-load all your programs, but in the end, you'll be better
off.

 

[Plato]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the best
Newsgroup to air them on?

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpupgrad.php
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_9xupgrade.asp
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316639

 

[Dan]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the best
Newsgroup to air them on?
Thanks
Alan

I have a tri-boot with 98SE, XP Pro. and Windows Vista RC1 and I think
that Windows XP is overrated. Yes, it is a great operating system but
imo so was 98SE. If you have a good enough computer and want to run
software that is not supported in 98SE then I would consider XP.
XP does manage memory better but also provides many more services and
still is not as secure as 98SE if both are being run with after-market
security features including a NAT router, software firewall,
anti-spyware programs and an anti-virus program. 98SE came out in 1999
and Microsoft has had lots of time to get the security right in this
operating system. XP came out in 2001 and still suffers from some
serious vulnerabilities. According to secunia.com -- 98SE has 3 less
critical vulnerabilities while XP has over 20.

http://secunia.com/product/13/?task=advisories (98SE)

http://secunia.com/product/22/?task=advisories (XPPRO)

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites etc on
the process/pitfalls? Secondly, if I do have some questions what is the best
Newsgroup to air them on?
Thanks
Alan

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 verified that all of 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)

You should also take a few minutes to ensure that there are
WinXP-specific 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 early
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


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Bruce Chambers]

My best advice is to do a clean install, period. I know its a pain to
have to re-load all your programs, but in the end, you'll be better
off.

That simply doesn't follow. Why would you make such a claim? Have any
documented empirical data to support it?

Granted, many uninformed people do recommend that one always
perform a clean installation, rather than upgrade over an earlier OS.
For the most part, I feel that these people, while usually
well-intended, are living in the past, and are basing their
recommendations on their experiences with older, obsolete operating
systems or hearsay. One would save a lot of time by upgrading a PC to
WinXP, rather than performing a clean installation, if there're no
hardware or software incompatibilities. Microsoft has greatly improved
(over earlier versions of Windows) WinXP's ability to smoothly upgrade
an earlier OS.

Certainly, there are times when an in-place upgrade is
contra-indicated:

1) When the underlying hardware isn't certified as being fully
compatible with the newer OS, and/or updated device drivers are not
available from the device's manufacturer. Of course, this condition also
causes problems with clean installations.

2) When the original OS is corrupt, damaged, and/or virus/malware
infested. I've also seen simple, straight-forward upgrades from WinXP
Home to WinXP Pro fail because the computer owner had let the system
become malware-infested. Upgrading over a problematic OS isn't normally
a wise course to establishing a stable installation.

3) When the new OS isn't designed to properly, correctly, and safely
perform an upgrade.

But to cavalierly dismiss *all* upgrades as unsafe and inadvisable
is patently absurd. A properly prepared and maintained PC can almost
always be successfully upgraded by a knowledgeable and competent
technician. I've lost count of the systems I've seen that have been
upgraded from Win95 to Win98 to Win2K to WinXP (usually with incremental
hardware upgrades over the same time period), without the need for a
clean installation, and that are still operating without any problems
attributable to upgrades.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Bruce Chambers]

XP does manage memory better but also provides many more services and
still is not as secure as 98SE if both are being run with after-market
security features including a NAT router, software firewall,
anti-spyware programs and an anti-virus program. 98SE came out in 1999
and Microsoft has had lots of time to get the security right in this
operating system.

How can you possibly make such an absurd claim? Win98 had *NO*
security capabilities at all. Just because it's so old that no-one
bothers trying to exploit it anymore, that doesn't make it secure.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am considering upgrading to XP. Any useful info around on websites
etc on the process/pitfalls?

First go here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/advisor.mspx
and make sure your hardware and software are XP-compatible.

Second, although the official minimum amount of RAM is 64MB, it's nowhere
near enough for XP. Be sure you have, or are willing to upgrade to, at least
256MB of RAM.

Third, although you can sometimes get by with less, almost everyone should
have at least a 20GB hard drive (and more is better).

Fourth, if you need to do much hardware upgrading (RAM, HD, etc.) consider
that it might be cheaper to just buy a new machine that comes with XP from
somebody like Dell.

Secondly, if I do have some questions
what is the best Newsgroup to air them on?

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My best advice is to do a clean install, period. I know its a pain to
have to re-load all your programs, but in the end, you'll be better
off.

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.

 

[Alan]

Thank you for all your responses. I have bookmarked the links for further
reading.
I have been upgrading the PC over the years so it now has an ASUS A7V8-8
MOBO with an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, new power supply, patched VCACHE to let me
run 1024 RAM and a 80 and 60g hard drives.
I regularly back up the C drive to the D using the Seagate disc copier. If I
clean install XP to the C using NTFS, will it be able to read the D which
will still be set to FAT32? ( For example to recover all the user mail
folders).
Do I have to be careful which XP package to purchase. There seem to be a
number of options - do they all permit an upgrade or clean install? (The
original installation was OEM but due to lack of knowledge on my part, I
have been using a MS CD for 98SE to do changes and upgrades, so there may be
some irregularities in the Registry. Is it true that you cannot upgrade
from an OEM package)?
Alan

 

[Rock]

** responses inline **

Thank you for all your responses. I have bookmarked the links for further
reading.
I have been upgrading the PC over the years so it now has an ASUS A7V8-8
MOBO with an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, new power supply, patched VCACHE to let
me
run 1024 RAM and a 80 and 60g hard drives.
I regularly back up the C drive to the D using the Seagate disc copier. If
I
clean install XP to the C using NTFS, will it be able to read the D which
will still be set to FAT32? ( For example to recover all the user mail
folders).

Yes it should be fine. If you want to be safest, disconnect the second hard
drive and all other peripherals - except the video card, CD drive, mouse and
keyboard - during the upgrade (make sure the primary drive is cabled and
jumpered properly). Then after the upgrade reconnect the second hard
drive, and other peripherals.

Keeping a backup on a second internal drive is better than having no backup
at all, but it's not really a good backup strategy if that's all you rely
on. This does not protect the data from a catastrophic event that destroys
the computer such as fire, theft, a lightning surge, etc. A good backup
strategy involves keeping at least one backup on external media (usb hard
drive, DVD); best yet is redundancy to keep a copy off site. How far you
want to go, you'll have to decide, but at least consider modifying how you
keep backups so there is a backup on some sort of external media.

Do I have to be careful which XP package to purchase. There seem to be a
number of options - do they all permit an upgrade or clean install?

OEM versions cannot perform an upgrade, only a clean install. I would
reccomend you get the retail upgrade version. This can do either a clean
install or an upgrade. To do a clean install it will ask you to insert the
CD for the qualifying product. Put in your OEM XP CD which it should
recognize.

(The original installation was OEM but due to lack of knowledge on my
part, I
have been using a MS CD for 98SE to do changes and upgrades, so there may
be
some irregularities in the Registry. Is it true that you cannot upgrade
from an OEM package)?

No that's not true. An OEM version cannot be used to upgrade an installed
system, but it can be upgraded.

<snip>

 

[Habib]

After Register this site:

http://greenhorse.com/join_now.ghc?r=102192444

I Reply you

 

[Rock]

After Register this site:

http://greenhorse.com/join_now.ghc?r=102192444

I Reply you

Why should he do that when he is getting help here without registering? If
you can help why not post your response here?

 

[Dan]

That simply doesn't follow. Why would you make such a claim? Have
any documented empirical data to support it?

Granted, many uninformed people do recommend that one always perform
a clean installation, rather than upgrade over an earlier OS. For the
most part, I feel that these people, while usually well-intended, are
living in the past, and are basing their recommendations on their
experiences with older, obsolete operating systems or hearsay. One
would save a lot of time by upgrading a PC to WinXP, rather than
performing a clean installation, if there're no hardware or software
incompatibilities. Microsoft has greatly improved (over earlier versions
of Windows) WinXP's ability to smoothly upgrade an earlier OS.

Certainly, there are times when an in-place upgrade is
contra-indicated:

1) When the underlying hardware isn't certified as being fully
compatible with the newer OS, and/or updated device drivers are not
available from the device's manufacturer. Of course, this condition also
causes problems with clean installations.

2) When the original OS is corrupt, damaged, and/or virus/malware
infested. I've also seen simple, straight-forward upgrades from WinXP
Home to WinXP Pro fail because the computer owner had let the system
become malware-infested. Upgrading over a problematic OS isn't normally
a wise course to establishing a stable installation.

3) When the new OS isn't designed to properly, correctly, and safely
perform an upgrade.

But to cavalierly dismiss *all* upgrades as unsafe and inadvisable
is patently absurd. A properly prepared and maintained PC can almost
always be successfully upgraded by a knowledgeable and competent
technician. I've lost count of the systems I've seen that have been
upgraded from Win95 to Win98 to Win2K to WinXP (usually with incremental
hardware upgrades over the same time period), without the need for a
clean installation, and that are still operating without any problems
attributable to upgrades.

I am currently maintaining a tri-boot (3x -- yeah that is right) of
98SE, XP Pro., and Windows Vista via the NT (New Technology) boot loader
and Boot It NG. 98SE is on the first hard drive using Fat32 with XP
Pro. on the 2nd hard drive in NTFS. Windows Vista RC1 which is
currently being tested and I am testing it for security issues is on a
separate partition of the NTFS hard drive. BTW, it is awesome in my
opinion so far, has suffered one BSOD but I would not have even known
about this except for a message that popped up about it. The version
that I am testing is Windows Ultimate. Anyway, I am just posting to
show that you can have the best of both worlds with a custom-built
machine that can support three generations of operating systems. I had
to upgrade from an Ati 9200 to a Radeon 9800 XT to have support for the
Aero graphical user interface. I will be upgrading my ddr ram from 512
megabytes to 2 gigabytes for a better experience with Vista and I will
make the appropriate memory adjustments to limit Windows 98SE to 512
megabytes of memory to prevent system instability in that older and in
my opinion the best older legacy operating system that Microsoft has
made. I just wanted to let users know that they do not have to
sacrifice the older 98SE operating system if they do not want to and if
they need the older legacy support of 98SE for Windows 3.1 or DOS programs.

 

[Dan]

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.

A user should have a battery back up to protect against power surges and
power loses. I have one that will give me about 7 minutes of power in
an outage and continue power in a brief power outage like a brownout.
Imo, a computer is too valuable to leave to the mercy of mother nature
and the problems of the power grid.

 

[Dan]

How can you possibly make such an absurd claim? Win98 had *NO*
security capabilities at all. Just because it's so old that no-one
bothers trying to exploit it anymore, that doesn't make it secure.

Windows XP has many more services and this leads to many more points of
entry for crackers. For example, remember Blaster that did not affect
98SE but affected XP and 2000. Windows 98SE can be made very secure but
you need the help of third party programs and a router with NAT.

 

[Dan]

Why should he do that when he is getting help here without registering?
If you can help why not post your response here?

Exactly, Rock and I fully agree with your comment. How do we know that
the site posted is not a phising site or has spyware, malware and/or
adware. What is the deal, Habib. <???>