Replacing Win ME on Dell laptop

[Mattrixx]

I`m thinking about *replacing* WinMe on a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop and
installing XP Home from scratch. I have read WinME has numerous inherant
problems.

This laptop is old (2001), but over the years I`ve upgraded mem. from 128 to
256 MB.
I also replaced stock 10GB 4200RPM HDD for 40GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD.
The Processor speed is 800MHz (down to 700MHz on battery).
This laptop is used mainly for E-Mail and Web Surfing, M.S. Word, Money, No
games, Photo Shop, Spreadsheets etc.

At present this laptop seems to run OK, but sometimes it will hang or freeze
at *various functions*, but especially when trying to close out links from
within links, (example) such as Turbo tax (site) from within Vanguard
(site).
I dilligently check and clean for spyware (3 prog.) and virii (AVG), and
also use Norton Utilities to keep it properly tuned up.


Do you guys think this laptop would even benefit from an O.S. upgrade to XP
Home?
Would XP "Home" have most of the necessary drivers included for this Dell
laptop, or will I have to install Dell laptop proprietary drivers as in Win
ME?

Thanks

Matt

 

[Steve Parry [MVP]]

I`m thinking about *replacing* WinMe on a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop and
installing XP Home from scratch. I have read WinME has numerous inherant
problems.

This laptop is old (2001), but over the years I`ve upgraded mem. from 128
to 256 MB.
I also replaced stock 10GB 4200RPM HDD for 40GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD.
The Processor speed is 800MHz (down to 700MHz on battery).
This laptop is used mainly for E-Mail and Web Surfing, M.S. Word, Money,
No games, Photo Shop, Spreadsheets etc.

At present this laptop seems to run OK, but sometimes it will hang or
freeze at *various functions*, but especially when trying to close out
links from within links, (example) such as Turbo tax (site) from within
Vanguard (site).
I dilligently check and clean for spyware (3 prog.) and virii (AVG), and
also use Norton Utilities to keep it properly tuned up.


Do you guys think this laptop would even benefit from an O.S. upgrade to
XP Home?
Would XP "Home" have most of the necessary drivers included for this Dell
laptop, or will I have to install Dell laptop proprietary drivers as in
Win ME?

Thanks

Matt

XP Home will run fine, and be more stable, on your laptop.

Many of the drivers will probably be already in XP but you may have to go to
the Dell site to get some.

Click here to goto the Dell Inspiron 8000 XP drivers section

http://tinyurl.com/jksl8

It's advisable to do this before upgrading and saving the files to CD or to
a Flashdrive or some other offline method.

 

[R. McCarty]

Should (Qualified) be OK. I'd go to Dell's website and see what if any
Windows XP drivers it provides. You probably should download the
Belarc Advisor. Run it and save the html report. It will have all the info
on system devices and peripherals. That time-frame notebook should
be able to use "Stock" drivers, even if you can't get them from Dell.
Things like Chipset drivers and Video (assume Intel). To get the best
performance (post install) use Windows Classic Theme and set the
System properties for Performance, not appearance. Also turn off the
Fast User Switching provision.

 

[Unk]

I`m thinking about *replacing* WinMe on a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop and
installing XP Home from scratch. I have read WinME has numerous inherant
problems.

This laptop is old (2001), but over the years I`ve upgraded mem. from 128 to
256 MB.
I also replaced stock 10GB 4200RPM HDD for 40GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD.
The Processor speed is 800MHz (down to 700MHz on battery).
This laptop is used mainly for E-Mail and Web Surfing, M.S. Word, Money, No
games, Photo Shop, Spreadsheets etc.

At present this laptop seems to run OK, but sometimes it will hang or freeze
at *various functions*, but especially when trying to close out links from
within links, (example) such as Turbo tax (site) from within Vanguard
(site).
I dilligently check and clean for spyware (3 prog.) and virii (AVG), and
also use Norton Utilities to keep it properly tuned up.


Do you guys think this laptop would even benefit from an O.S. upgrade to XP
Home?

Yes. 800MHz is fine (so is 700MHz) I run XP on an old Dell Latitude that's even slower than
that.

Would XP "Home" have most of the necessary drivers included for this Dell
laptop, or will I have to install Dell laptop proprietary drivers as in Win
ME?

Yes, most are included. Any missing drivers are easily downloaded from Dell. They have THE
best user support. http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?~ck=mn
Just enter the Service Tag number on the bottom of the laptop. If it's worn off, it's also
listed in the BIOS.

 

[Vagabond Software]

I`m thinking about *replacing* WinMe on a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop and
installing XP Home from scratch. I have read WinME has numerous inherant
problems.

This laptop is old (2001), but over the years I`ve upgraded mem. from 128
to 256 MB.
I also replaced stock 10GB 4200RPM HDD for 40GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD.
The Processor speed is 800MHz (down to 700MHz on battery).
This laptop is used mainly for E-Mail and Web Surfing, M.S. Word, Money,
No games, Photo Shop, Spreadsheets etc.

At present this laptop seems to run OK, but sometimes it will hang or
freeze at *various functions*, but especially when trying to close out
links from within links, (example) such as Turbo tax (site) from within
Vanguard (site).
I dilligently check and clean for spyware (3 prog.) and virii (AVG), and
also use Norton Utilities to keep it properly tuned up.


Do you guys think this laptop would even benefit from an O.S. upgrade to
XP Home?
Would XP "Home" have most of the necessary drivers included for this Dell
laptop, or will I have to install Dell laptop proprietary drivers as in
Win ME?

Thanks

Matt

Windows ME has no "inherent flaw" other than it is a Win9X operating system,
but clearly the best of the bunch.

I think you are going to be disappointed in your system performance under
Windows XP compared to Windows ME. This will be especially true when you
fire up Photoshop. I have an old Dell with a P3-500 and 256MB RAM. It is
quite usable for office applications and my development environment, but it
flat out blows for anything that requires memory.

As far as "benefits"? Anytime you can go from a Win9X to an NT operating
system, it's a good move. However, be prepeared to move your photoshopping
to a more capable machine.

carl

 

[Donny Broome]

You will be very disappointed in the performance of the machine with only
256 MB of RAM.

 

[R. McCarty]

Perhaps not - For things like browsing, email and Office work, 256
is enough. You wouldn't want to multi-task it too heavy but 2 or 3
open apps won't choke up. My wife has an older Dell laptop with
only a 400 Mhz CPU and 256 Megabytes and it does everything
she needs it to. Plus in the OP's case he's got a 7200 RPM drive
in it so that will "Compensate" for some of the other lower-end
hardware it has.

 

[Math1]

I'm typing this on an I8000 with 256M memory and it works just fine. If you
can spring for additional memory to get to 512 it will make PhotoShop run
faster, but I can live with the 256 and Photo Shop Elements. I'm really
happy with the move to XP. I can't remember if I had to update any drivers,
but the Dell site makes it easy.

Anne

 

[Mattrixx]

Thank you one and all who responded to my inquiry.
I will take all this (good) advice into consideration.
I`m questioning the fact of my only having 256 MB RAM being sufficient for
XP.
As I have said, I upgraded once already, having had to discard the two 64MB
sticks Dell provided with two 128MB sticks.
I dont mind increasing RAM yet again if indeed I`ll see a return in
performance (over WinME) based on what tasks are actually used on this
machine, and ofcourse...
NO MORE FREEZING!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thank you one and all who responded to my inquiry.
I will take all this (good) advice into consideration.
I`m questioning the fact of my only having 256 MB RAM being
sufficient for XP.
As I have said, I upgraded once already, having had to discard the
two 64MB sticks Dell provided with two 128MB sticks.
I dont mind increasing RAM yet again if indeed I`ll see a return in
performance (over WinME) based on what tasks are actually used on this
machine, and ofcourse...
NO MORE FREEZING!

In that case, just try it. If you are currently using the page file
significantly, more memory will decrease or eliminate that usage, and
improve your performance. If you are not using the page file significantly,
more memory will do nothing for you. Go to
http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and download
WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage. That should give you
a good idea of whether more memory can help, and if so, how much more.