Upgrade

[Guest]

Dear Windowers,

I want to upgrade my old laptop from Win98se to WinXp; and I now have a
question regarding the minimum system requirements.

On the Internet site of MS
(http://www.microsoft.com/library/mnp/2/aspx/listener.aspx) stands that as
from 128MB RAM/working memory WinXp can be used. My old laptop has 2x64MB =
128MB working memory.

Now I have heard from someone that if you use service pack 1 or 2 that 128MB
is no longer sufficient.
Does anyone know if this is correct, for sure?

Grt, Wing

 

[Beck]

Dear Windowers,

I want to upgrade my old laptop from Win98se to WinXp; and I now have
a question regarding the minimum system requirements.

On the Internet site of MS
(http://www.microsoft.com/library/mnp/2/aspx/listener.aspx) stands
that as from 128MB RAM/working memory WinXp can be used. My old
laptop has 2x64MB = 128MB working memory.

Now I have heard from someone that if you use service pack 1 or 2
that 128MB is no longer sufficient.
Does anyone know if this is correct, for sure?

My old laptop ran XP and sp2 with 120mb ram (8mb taken for graphics). On
the whole it worked fine for internet and email but if a task required lots
of ram like photo editing then it would be a bit sluggish but not terrible.
What speed of processor do you have on the laptop?

 

[Dave B]

My personal opinion is that 128MB is never sufficient for XP, the minimum I
would ever consider would be 256, but it will run on 128, just not well.

 

[Malke]

Dear Windowers,

I want to upgrade my old laptop from Win98se to WinXp; and I now have
a question regarding the minimum system requirements.

On the Internet site of MS
(http://www.microsoft.com/library/mnp/2/aspx/listener.aspx) stands
that as from 128MB RAM/working memory WinXp can be used. My old laptop
has 2x64MB = 128MB working memory.

Now I have heard from someone that if you use service pack 1 or 2 that
128MB is no longer sufficient.
Does anyone know if this is correct, for sure?

Honestly, 128MB is not sufficient in any circumstances no matter what
the official system requirements say. You need at least 256MB of RAM in
order to run XP acceptably; 512MB is preferable.

Another important upgrade issue is that laptops have proprietary
hardware and software. You should go to the laptop mftr.'s website for
your specific model machine to see if there are drivers and laptop
software for the XP operating system. If there aren't any, then XP is
not supported on your laptop and you would really be best off just
leaving Win98 on it.

Malke

 

[Doug Sherman [MVP]]

SP2 requires more hard drive space, not more memory:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/sysreqs.mspx

No one 'recommends' 128 MB for XP anymore, and probably you would get better
performance by adding memory. But XP SP2 will run on 128 MB.

Doug Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, MCP+I, MVP

 

[Guest]

Dear Beck,

thank you kindly for your reply. I have a pentium 3 600Mhz. A part of the
RAM is probably also used for the graphics.

The point is that I also use a virusscanner and a fire wall... that probably
doesn't help speeding up right ;-)

What processor did your old laptop had?

Seems you have gotten yourself a beautiful fast new one by now. What are you
running now?
I myself am waiting for Windows Vista (...? Wish they kept it with the year
of release) to be released.

Grt,
Wing

 

[Guest]

Dear Dave B,

thank you for your reply.

I have heared this before. But since that is not an option for me, I would
like to know what you mean with "not well" when running on 128MB.

Do you mean it is terribly slow, it keeps crashing, or anything else?

I prefer to keep win98se on my system, but since some newer software need at
least Win2000 or WinXp, I am considering these two. What do you think of
Win2000 for my system with P3 600 mhz and 128MB ram?

Grt,
Wing

 

[Beck]

Dear Beck,

thank you kindly for your reply. I have a pentium 3 600Mhz. A part of
the RAM is probably also used for the graphics.

I did used to run a PC with XP on 500mhz processor and 128mb but it was
sluggish, not quite worth the upgrade, but was usable if only using internet
and email.

The point is that I also use a virusscanner and a fire wall... that
probably doesn't help speeding up right ;-)

Depends on the antivirus, Free Avast I find is not too power hungry.

What processor did your old laptop had?

It was a 900mhz celeron.

Seems you have gotten yourself a beautiful fast new one by now. What
are you running now?

Just got an Acer laptop. 1.5ghz processor with 512mb ram, have just added
another 512mb to it (uses 128mb for video).

I myself am waiting for Windows Vista (...? Wish they kept it with
the year of release) to be released.

Having seen Vista myself, I am not convinced at the moment it will be worth
upgrading to. There is however alot of time for them to work on it and
tweak it. However if they released it in the disorganisation that I saw it
in then I will not like it much.

Did you know you can check your laptop for compatibility with windows xp?
You can download a program from Microsoft. Run it on your system and it
will tell you if you have enough computer beef to run XP. Worth trying
before you consider buying. Its quite a big download about 50mb but if you
have broadband that is not a problem.

Download from here
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/advisor.mspx

 

[Guest]

Dear Malke,

thank you for your reply.

Your tip for the laptop proprietary hardware and software was very helpfull.
I will keep this one in mind.

About your system requirements comment. What do you exactly mean with "128MB
is not sufficient in any circumstances no matter what the official system
requirements say"? Do you mean that what the official system requirements
mentions makes a system too slow for comfort, or that it will crash all the
time, or anything else?

I am not sure if my follow up question is appropriately here, but if I don't
hear otherwise I would like to ask you how you feel about running Win2000
with sp3 on my laptop. It has a pentium 3 600mhz processor and 2x64mb ram,
running a virusscanner and zonealarm firewall.

Grt,
Wing

 

[Guest]

Dear Doug,

thank you for your reply.

Your link was very helpfull for my understanding of the influence of service
pack 2.
Is it generally with all service packs that they only require more hard
drive space and not working memory?

I am not sure if my follow up question is appropriately here, but if I don't
hear otherwise I would like to ask you how you feel about running Win2000
with sp3 on my laptop. It has a pentium 3 600mhz processor and 2x64mb ram,
running "Avast" virusscanner and "Zonealarm" firewall.

Grt,
Wing

 

[Doug Sherman [MVP]]

Well, it is always true that if you apply a service pack to an existing
installation as disguished from installing an OS with an integrated service
pack, it will require more space. I do not ever recall an OS service pack
which specified higher hardware requirements than the base OS. However, it
is certainly true that as an OS version ages, the 'recommended' hardware
specs tend to increase - so it would not be surprising if the 'recommended'
requirements at the time of a service pack release were higher than those
existing at the time of the original OS release. This phenomenon may
explain what you heard with reference to SP2.


I am writing this on a Dell laptop - P III, 700 MHz, 196 MB RAM, Windows
2000 Pro SP4 - it gave adequate performance for my needs for years with
128MB. In general, I would say that Win2k tends to perform better with
minimal memory than XP, and XP tends to benefit more from additional memory.
Nevertheless, until you reach extreme levels more memory is always better,
and an acceptable level of performance is directly related to how demanding
your computer needs are.

Doug Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, MCP+I, MVP

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Dear Beck,

thank you kindly for your reply. I have a pentium 3 600Mhz. A part of the
RAM is probably also used for the graphics.

The point is that I also use a virusscanner and a fire wall... that probably
doesn't help speeding up right ;-)

What processor did your old laptop had?

Seems you have gotten yourself a beautiful fast new one by now. What are you
running now?
I myself am waiting for Windows Vista (...? Wish they kept it with the year
of release) to be released.

Grt,
Wing

Yes, it's possible. As for performance, the word "glacial" comes
to mind, if the computer doesn't have a CPU of at least 500 MHz along
with at least 256 Mb of RAM.

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.

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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[Plato]

I want to upgrade my old laptop from Win98se to WinXp; and I now have a
question regarding the minimum system requirements.

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

 

[Guest]

Thank you all for your input. I will take them into account.

Grt,
Wing