Should I upgrade to WinXP?

[Guest]

Hi,
I have a:
Dell Inspiron 3800 G600GT
Intel Pentium III, 600MHz process (L2 cache size 256)
192Mb RAM
9.36Gb hard drive
BIOS A09 (08-01-00)
Windows 2000Pro

According to the MS website this meets the system requirements for WinXP.
Is it worth installing XP on this system or should I stay with Win2K?

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Try to upgrade the harddrive if possible as 9 gb is too less. If u are going
for a Windows Xp home edition then please dont upgrade as 2000 pro is
superior to Xp home..

Regards,
Madmax.

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

Your hard drive is far too small.
You *definitely* need more RAM.

Disregard the advice about Home. Home/Pro are essentially the same, with
the exception that Pro will allow joining a domain and has a few security
features added.

Given your present hardware, you would be advised to stay with 2000. Larger
HDD, more RAM and you'll be ready for XP.

Bobby

 

[Borg hater]

Irregardless of your hardware, why would you do so?

If you seek to transition, do so on a more capable PC.

 

[Leythos]

Hi,
I have a:
Dell Inspiron 3800 G600GT
Intel Pentium III, 600MHz process (L2 cache size 256)
192Mb RAM
9.36Gb hard drive
BIOS A09 (08-01-00)
Windows 2000Pro

According to the MS website this meets the system requirements for WinXP.
Is it worth installing XP on this system or should I stay with Win2K?

A P3/600 is slow, but it will work fine, we have some systems with P2's
running XP as test machines, so it does work.

192MB RAM - that's not enough, even if you turn-off the pretty stuff.
Most machines (residential) that we've worked with run just under 200MB
after they load Windows, AV software, misc items, etc... and have been
running a couple hours. Get at least 256MB, and 384+ is a better option.

9GB drive, if you have 4GB free, then I would say OK, as that indicates
your don't use much for drive space. If your drive is near full, then I
would suggest that you get a 40GB drive.

Windows 2000 Prof - if you are using this for Web Page development, or
if you are part of a Domain, you want to get XP Professional.

You also want to check Dell's support site to see if they have an
Updated BIOS and their notes for XP on your machine - they may have
specific drivers you need for stability.

 

[Richard Urban]

I believe what Madmax is alluding to is that Windows 2000 is not an upgrade
path for Windows XP Home. You need to upgrade to Windows XP Professional

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Steve N.]

Hi,
I have a:
Dell Inspiron 3800 G600GT
Intel Pentium III, 600MHz process (L2 cache size 256)
192Mb RAM
9.36Gb hard drive
BIOS A09 (08-01-00)
Windows 2000Pro

According to the MS website this meets the system requirements for WinXP.
Is it worth installing XP on this system or should I stay with Win2K?

Thanks.

Stay with Win2K. You won't be happy with XP running on that hardware.

Steve

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi,
I have a:
Dell Inspiron 3800 G600GT
Intel Pentium III, 600MHz process (L2 cache size 256)
192Mb RAM
9.36Gb hard drive
BIOS A09 (08-01-00)
Windows 2000Pro

According to the MS website this meets the system requirements for
WinXP. Is it worth installing XP on this system or should I stay with
Win2K?

Your system is marginal for XP. The CPU, amount of RAM, and hard drive size
are all about as low as can be and still manage to run XP with anything
aproaching acceptable speed. Don't look at Microsoft's official minimums,
because that says nothing about running it with acceptable speed.

What *should* you do? It's up to you and depends on what apps you run, how
much you have/expect to have on the hard drive, etc.

Also realize that XP is essentially a relatively minor upgrade to Windows
2000. ALthough XP contains some significant improvements, don't expect there
to be giant differences between the two operating systems. You *might* want
to stay with 2000 until you're ready to buy a new computer or upgrade this
one.

 

[Plato]

According to the MS website this meets the system requirements for WinXP.
Is it worth installing XP on this system or should I stay with Win2K?

Do you NEED XP to run a certain application or a new toy? If not, then
stick with what's working. Dont fix what aint broken.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Hi,
I have a:
Dell Inspiron 3800 G600GT
Intel Pentium III, 600MHz process (L2 cache size 256)
192Mb RAM
9.36Gb hard drive
BIOS A09 (08-01-00)
Windows 2000Pro

According to the MS website this meets the system requirements for WinXP.
Is it worth installing XP on this system or should I stay with Win2K?

Thanks.

Acceptable performance is, of course, a matter of personal opinion
and depends entirely upon what *you* expect to do with your computer. If
all you want to do is play WinXP's built-in games, send and receive
simple emails, browse the Internet (while avoiding the more "ornamental"
web sites) etc., such a machine will easily meet your needs. If,
however, you plan to take advantage of WinXP's multimedia capabilities,
play graphic-intensive games, or do advanced word or data processing,
such a machine would probably be woefully inadequate.

"Glacial" is the term that comes to my mind, I'm afraid, if your
computer doesn't have a CPU of at least 500 MHz along with at least 256
Mb of RAM. If you turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be
very slow, but it might usable for simple word processing, email,
web-browsing, etc. It won't be any good for graphics-intensive
applications, and most newer games. (During the public preview period,
I tested WinXP on a 500 MHz machine with 256 Mb of RAM, and it was much
slower than I like.)

To help improve WinXP's performance on older machines:

1) Right-click the Task Bar > Properties > Start Menu, ensure "Classic
Start menu" is selected.

2) Right-click an empty spot on the Desktop > Properties > Themes >
select "Windows Classic."

3) Right-click My Computer > Properties > Performance > Settings >
Visual Effects, ensure "Adjust for best performance" is selected.


--

Bruce Chambers

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