Installing Windows xp

[CindyL]

We bought our gateway computer in 1998. It shipped with
Win95 (If we had ordered it 4 days later it would have
come with Win98), and a couple of months later, we
received the 98 upgrade cd. From the time we installed
the upgrade, we had all sorts of dumb "conflict" problems,
and had to completely reformat the computer 4 times in the
first year that we had it. I have decided that I do not
want anymore "Upgrades"

Our computer is 400Mhz, Pentium 2, we have installed a 40
gig hard drive and still have the orginal 10 gig hard
drive too. (We are booting off the new hard drive, and
have installed the patches to make 98 recognize the large
hard drive). We have 384mb ram.

We have been thinking about upgrading to windows xp, I
checked customer support and discovered that there are
potential problems installing it over the "mirrored" 40gig
hard drive, because we copied our windows 98 onto it.

We are wondering if we bought the full version of Windows
XP, could we install it over the Win98, and avoid
conflicts? We have found a place where we can buy the
full version for less than $30 more than just the upgrade.
It would be worth the extra money if it would work.

Sorry about the lengthy post, I appreciate any help!
Thank You

 

[Haus]

Hello
If you have a retail copy of 98 then you can do a full install with the XP
upgrade version.
Boot from the XP cd and it will copy some files and then you will see press
enter to install, then F8 for license agreement then it should see the 98
install and proceed (it might ask you to put in the disk, do it then you can
take it out) from there you can delete repartition (both drives if wanted)
format and proceed with the install.(easy)

--
Hope This Helps
Haus
Not a MS-MVP
Not a MVP
Not nothing, just a good ole boy.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

We bought our gateway computer in 1998. It shipped with
Win95 (If we had ordered it 4 days later it would have
come with Win98), and a couple of months later, we
received the 98 upgrade cd. From the time we installed
the upgrade, we had all sorts of dumb "conflict" problems,
and had to completely reformat the computer 4 times in the
first year that we had it. I have decided that I do not
want anymore "Upgrades"

Our computer is 400Mhz, Pentium 2, we have installed a 40
gig hard drive and still have the orginal 10 gig hard
drive too. (We are booting off the new hard drive, and
have installed the patches to make 98 recognize the large
hard drive). We have 384mb ram.

We have been thinking about upgrading to windows xp, I
checked customer support and discovered that there are
potential problems installing it over the "mirrored" 40gig
hard drive, because we copied our windows 98 onto it.

We are wondering if we bought the full version of Windows
XP, could we install it over the Win98, and avoid
conflicts? We have found a place where we can buy the
full version for less than $30 more than just the upgrade.
It would be worth the extra money if it would work.

Sorry about the lengthy post, I appreciate any help!
Thank You

Although your computer meets even my bare minimums, I often tell people it
is more worth it to find a complete cheaper system with more power and the
OS included for $400 than to spend the $100-$300 on just Windows XP itself.

However, if you are going to do it, here are my recommendations:

1) Which version of Windows XP do you want/need?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/whichxp.asp

2) Will your computer handle Windows XP?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp

3) Purchase your Retail copy (NOT OEM) of Windows XP (Professional or
Home -- Upgrade or Full).

4) Upgrade your current OS. Stay disconnected from the Internet until you
turn on your firewall and have an updated/working AntiVirus software
installed. Once connected to the Internet - go to
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and download/install all critical
updates - it may take several reboots/revisists.

5) Follow this advice from now on to stay a happier computer user:

Note that Microsoft is not sending you patches in emails nor should you EVER
open attachments you did not expect in emails. You simply posted your
un-munged email address to the thousands of newsgroups that this is spread
to around the world and it has been "harvested".

Please Notice that if you use AOL, you should at least upgrade to 9.0 or
greater before doing any of the fixes. I know you can get AOL 9.0 at almost
any convenience store, gas station, super market or other retail outlet in
the world, so this should not be a problem.


Turn on that firewall...
http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/home/using/howto/homenet/icf.asp
(It has been reported that it now works with AOL 9.0+)


Make sure you have all the updates (critical) installed from:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
(Scan for updates, Review and Install)


Get rid of the spy/ad/mal-ware..
(Yes - using MORE than one of these..
I recommend at least the first three. Also..
UPDATE the definitions for them before using.)

Spybot Search and Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.net/

Lavasoft AdAware
http://www.lavasoft.de

CWSShredder
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

Hijack This!
http://mjc1.com/mirror/hjt/

I also like "The Cleaner" and "SpywareBlaster" and "SpywareGuard".
- http://www.moosoft.com/
- http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/

The first is a PAY product, but useable for 30 days - it has found and
eliminated problems in the past the others did not. The latter two are
prevention mechanisms. I like SpywareGuard for those with enough processor
to have something running like antivirus software - and it prevents browser
hijacking quite well. SpywareBlaster is a FANTASTIC free product, I suggest
getting this after you cleanup and keeping it updated as well....

And Assortment of Others:
http://spywareinfo.com/

ALSO - Be sure to IMMUNIZE after you clean up. SpywareBlaster and Spybot
Search and destroy both have these features - use both!


After you cleanup your PC somewhat of spy/ad/mal-ware, verify your antivirus
software is updated and run a full scan of your computer. If you have no
antivirus software - get one NOW! Grisoft AntiVirus:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php


Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to about
80 to 120MB (seems to be an optimal size for the normal user)

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section,
do the following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the
"Amount of disk space to use:" to something between 80MB
and 120MB. (Betting it is MUCH larger right now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to
"Delete all offline contents" (the checkbox) and click
OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10 minutes or
more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer
- Re-open Internet Explorer.


Uninstall any software you do not use often/ever. (If you have something
installed but never use it, uninstall it.) If you go through Control
Panel -> Add/Remove Programs and see things you seldom if ever use, it is to
your advantage to remove it.


Also, if you are tired of Web Page Pop-Ups/Unders.. You could try the
Google Toolbar.
http://toolbar.google.com/


Stop loading applications at logon.. run MSCONFIG and look under the startup
tab for things you DON'T want to startup! Search the Internet with Google
to discover what things are safe to remove and what things may even be
malware infecting your computer.


Better control your email and lessen the amount of time you spend dealing
with SPAM:
SpamBayes
http://sourceforge.net/projects/spambayes/
or
Spamihilator.
http://www.spamihilator.com

 

[dglock]

you won't be very happy with the performance of xp on your
computer!
the hardware is very minimul.
i would suggest going with windows 2000 pro. it will do
most every thing xp will do with out the frills.
don

 

[Shenan Stanley]

-----Original Message-----

We bought our gateway computer in 1998. It shipped with
Win95 (If we had ordered it 4 days later it would have
come with Win98), and a couple of months later, we
received the 98 upgrade cd. From the time we installed
the upgrade, we had all sorts of dumb "conflict" problems,
and had to completely reformat the computer 4 times in the
first year that we had it. I have decided that I do not
want anymore "Upgrades"

Our computer is 400Mhz, Pentium 2, we have installed a 40
gig hard drive and still have the orginal 10 gig hard
drive too. (We are booting off the new hard drive, and
have installed the patches to make 98 recognize the large
hard drive). We have 384mb ram.

We have been thinking about upgrading to windows xp, I
checked customer support and discovered that there are
potential problems installing it over the "mirrored" 40gig
hard drive, because we copied our windows 98 onto it.

We are wondering if we bought the full version of Windows
XP, could we install it over the Win98, and avoid
conflicts? We have found a place where we can buy the
full version for less than $30 more than just the upgrade.
It would be worth the extra money if it would work.

Sorry about the lengthy post, I appreciate any help!

you won't be very happy with the performance of xp on your
computer!
the hardware is very minimul.
i would suggest going with windows 2000 pro. it will do
most every thing xp will do with out the frills.

Eep. Definitely don't go Windows 2000 over XP. If tweaked and in classic
mode, XP is more stable and uses less resources than Windows 2000.

 

[dglock]

"XP is more stable and uses less resources than Windows
2000"
where did you ever get that idea?
xp is built on the same kernal as 2k, just with a lot more
eye candy!
these aren't tweking type people if they are still using
win 95!
go with win 2k.
don

 

[Hi]

Our computer is 400Mhz, Pentium 2, we have installed a 40

gig hard drive and still have the orginal 10 gig hard
drive too. (We are booting off the new hard drive, and
have installed the patches to make 98 recognize the large
hard drive). We have 384mb ram.

With your limited hardware, I wouldn't recommend it. Trust me... XP runs &
feels a lot slower than Win98. And it's a lot more bloated.

New computers are as low as us$400 with tolerably minimal configs.

Check ebay and you could probably find a decent used system for under
us$150.

You wont get much performance etc., but it'd probably be better than what
you have and at least as reliable!

Your old hardware makes an excellent web surfing computer, though. Stay
with W98 for that. Or even Linux.

As to buying the fulls vs. upgrade... The upgrade can do full clean
installs. It just checks to make sure you have a valid copy of an older
Windows product. (Check to make sure your Win98 upgrade disk would work....
It might not.)

 

[Jim Macklin]

XP will run just fine on a 400-500 MHz machine with 384 MB
RAM. You may want to turn some visuals off, particularly if
you have a slow graphics card. But XP is much more stable,
a crashed application doe not crash the OS so the BSOD is
rare, very rare. You should run the XP Upgrade advisor
program to check for system compatibility before you spend
money on the upgrade. You can run this check at
www.pcpitstop.com or do the 40 MB download from MS. You can
find the test on the XP CD, so you might be able to borrow a
CD from a friend.

Be sure to see the MS Windows XP Homepage and check out the
MSKB articles about installing/upgrading to XP. Also see
www.blackviper.com about services that you can turn off.

I've got an old HP 433 Celeron system that will be upgraded
to XP as soon as I can put a $100 aside, I'm getting tired
of the HP crappy software and restore CDs. I did a test
with my XP Pro the last time it crashed and I had to format
C:. XP installed and ran faster than W98 and I've only got
256 MB, all the crappy HP BIOS will support.

--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.






| > Our computer is 400Mhz, Pentium 2, we have installed a
40
| > gig hard drive and still have the orginal 10 gig hard
| > drive too. (We are booting off the new hard drive, and
| > have installed the patches to make 98 recognize the
large
| > hard drive). We have 384mb ram.
|
| With your limited hardware, I wouldn't recommend it.
Trust me... XP runs &
| feels a lot slower than Win98. And it's a lot more
bloated.
|
| New computers are as low as us$400 with tolerably minimal
configs.
|
| Check ebay and you could probably find a decent used
system for under
| us$150.
|
| You wont get much performance etc., but it'd probably be
better than what
| you have and at least as reliable!
|
| Your old hardware makes an excellent web surfing computer,
though. Stay
| with W98 for that. Or even Linux.
|
| As to buying the fulls vs. upgrade... The upgrade can do
full clean
| installs. It just checks to make sure you have a valid
copy of an older
| Windows product. (Check to make sure your Win98 upgrade
disk would work....
| It might not.)
|
|
|

 

[Shenan Stanley]

"XP is more stable and uses less resources than Windows
2000"
where did you ever get that idea?
xp is built on the same kernal as 2k, just with a lot more
eye candy!
these aren't tweking type people if they are still using
win 95!
go with win 2k.
don

Again - I disagree. Yes - you are right they are built on the same kernel,
but Windows XP Memory management is improved over Windows 2000.. The System
Restore feature is only in Windows XP. Driver rollback only in XP, and for
home users, Windows XP is more visually friendly and with more "end-user
utilities" obvious for the less computer savvy than 2000.

You can go with 2000 and stay behind the times or go with XP and not only
get better (if not just equal) performance on your machine as Windows 2000
would give you, but more fallback capabilities, more future expansion
capabilities and better management utilities. I will let the OP decide. =)

 

[Alex Nichol]

Our computer is 400Mhz, Pentium 2, we have installed a 40
gig hard drive and still have the orginal 10 gig hard
drive too. (We are booting off the new hard drive, and
have installed the patches to make 98 recognize the large
hard drive). We have 384mb ram.

We have been thinking about upgrading to windows xp, I
checked customer support and discovered that there are
potential problems installing it over the "mirrored" 40gig
hard drive, because we copied our windows 98 onto it.

We are wondering if we bought the full version of Windows
XP, could we install it over the Win98, and avoid
conflicts?

First - if you have that Win98 CD around, you can use it as the evidence
for doing a clean install with a XP Upgrade CD. Boot the XP CD direct.
Enter Setup, and after the license agreement take New Install. When it
asks you to confirm where, hit ESC; select and delete the current
partition and make a new RAW one to be formatted at the next stage

Make the bigger drive the master one before starting, so that the
installation goes there. A little way down Setup you will be asked
where Windows is - at that point show it the 98 CD in the drive.

read Gary Woodruff's article on Files and settings Transfer at
http://aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm which will help a lot in bringing over
files and settings from the old system

Second - experience in upgrading 95 to 98 is a very bad guide in
upgrading to XP. That is going to replace all the system; but will
retain installed software. More importantly it may retain old drivers
if there are none that come 'natively' with XP (this may not though
apply to everything - it is a very rare parallel port scanner that has
any drivers that will work in XP). So I would do that in the first
instance: you can always go back to the clean install if it does not
work out . Read Gary's article on upgrading to XP at
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpupgrad.htm