Upgrading to Windows XP Home Edition from Windows Millenium Editio

[Guest]

I am considering upgrading to Windows XP - Home Edition but have no technical
expertise or practical knowledge in this respect.

I have a Desktop Pentium 111 processor, 933 MHZ, with 14.6 free of an 18.6
Hard Drive. The memory is 128 MB SDRAM at 133 MHZ.

I am a retired person and only use the computer for personal items. I have
a 17" Dell Trinitron Monitor, a Hewlett Packard PSC 500
Printer-Scanner-Copier, Altec Lansing ACS-340 Speakers, DIM, Fact., with
Subwoofer and an MS Internet Keyboard ME, Dell Edition for Windows ME. I
hope these are all compatible with this upgrade.

I would be very appreciative of your opinion as to the feasibility of such
an upgrade.
I understand more memory would be required and perhaps a clean installation
rather than attempting to upgrade XP over Windows ME. If you feel my system
is
adequate with additional memory, I would be willing to have a computer
service company do this and add XP at the same time. I do not feel adequate
to handle.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Stewart Fluney

 

[Sharon F]

I am considering upgrading to Windows XP - Home Edition but have no technical
expertise or practical knowledge in this respect.

I have a Desktop Pentium 111 processor, 933 MHZ, with 14.6 free of an 18.6
Hard Drive. The memory is 128 MB SDRAM at 133 MHZ.

I am a retired person and only use the computer for personal items. I have
a 17" Dell Trinitron Monitor, a Hewlett Packard PSC 500
Printer-Scanner-Copier, Altec Lansing ACS-340 Speakers, DIM, Fact., with
Subwoofer and an MS Internet Keyboard ME, Dell Edition for Windows ME. I
hope these are all compatible with this upgrade.

I would be very appreciative of your opinion as to the feasibility of such
an upgrade.
I understand more memory would be required and perhaps a clean installation
rather than attempting to upgrade XP over Windows ME. If you feel my system
is
adequate with additional memory, I would be willing to have a computer
service company do this and add XP at the same time. I do not feel adequate
to handle.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Stewart Fluney

If your system has a separate display card, you *might* get by with 256 for
internet/email purposes. However, if the system has "onboard video" (uses a
chip instead of a card), it is borrowing memory from the system to operate.
That means you would have less than 128 MB of RAM for system processes and
applications. NOTE: Some features are limited if there is less than 128 MB
of RAM available. Personally, I would hesitate to run XP on a system with
256 MB of RAM or less.

There may other hardware considerations. Here's the page with the system
requirements for XP:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/sysreqs.mspx

Are there any features in XP that are "must have" for you? If no, then
maintaining ME would probably be a better alternative for the hardware in
question. Consider: If ME was shipped with the computer, it was designed to
run that version of Windows optimally. While the system may be able to
"handle" XP, you may be pushing the envelope.

 

[Guest]

128mb of ram is on the borderline,512mb is ok,youre hd is also on the min.,
side,a new hd can be had for 60.00 to 75.00,then use youre old for storage
and set as a page file for xp.All else is ok,youre correct in youre
statment "clean
xp installation" instead of upgrading from ME.To do that,one simply boots to
xp cd (set for this in BIOS if needed,1st boot drive or similiar),once at
xp cd boot
menu,select install xp,new copy,delete the partition (ME),create one,then xp
formats and installs auto.You will be required to briefly install ME cd,for
verification.

 

[Ron Martell]

I am considering upgrading to Windows XP - Home Edition but have no technical
expertise or practical knowledge in this respect.

I have a Desktop Pentium 111 processor, 933 MHZ, with 14.6 free of an 18.6
Hard Drive. The memory is 128 MB SDRAM at 133 MHZ.

I am a retired person and only use the computer for personal items. I have
a 17" Dell Trinitron Monitor, a Hewlett Packard PSC 500
Printer-Scanner-Copier, Altec Lansing ACS-340 Speakers, DIM, Fact., with
Subwoofer and an MS Internet Keyboard ME, Dell Edition for Windows ME. I
hope these are all compatible with this upgrade.

I would be very appreciative of your opinion as to the feasibility of such
an upgrade.
I understand more memory would be required and perhaps a clean installation
rather than attempting to upgrade XP over Windows ME. If you feel my system
is
adequate with additional memory, I would be willing to have a computer
service company do this and add XP at the same time. I do not feel adequate
to handle.

Thanks in advance for your response.

More RAM would definitely be an advantage if you upgrade to XP.
Otherwise your hardware seems adequate although the hard drive is a
bit small, and the XP install will probably eat up about half of the
available free space by the time it is finished.

Do not be afraid of doing an upgrade from Windows Me to Windows XP.
During the beta testing of Windows XP I usually installed XP as an
upgrade over Windows Me, using a copy of my "production" system as the
starting point. On a number of occasions I also installed the same
beta version as a clean install. The only substantive difference that
I ever found between the two was that a clean install was an absolute
p.i.t.a. due to the hours and hours and hours of work that it took to
reinstall several dozens of application programs, update and configure
them, and restore their data files from backups.

And if the upgrade install does not work out well for you (and there
are occasional instances where this does happen) then you still have
the option of doing a clean install.

See MVP Gary Woodruff's article on upgrading to XP:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpupgrad.htm

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Gene K]

I am considering upgrading to Windows XP - Home Edition but have no
technical
expertise or practical knowledge in this respect.

I have a Desktop Pentium 111 processor, 933 MHZ, with 14.6 free of an 18.6
Hard Drive. The memory is 128 MB SDRAM at 133 MHZ.

I am a retired person and only use the computer for personal items. I
have
a 17" Dell Trinitron Monitor, a Hewlett Packard PSC 500
Printer-Scanner-Copier, Altec Lansing ACS-340 Speakers, DIM, Fact., with
Subwoofer and an MS Internet Keyboard ME, Dell Edition for Windows ME. I
hope these are all compatible with this upgrade.

I would be very appreciative of your opinion as to the feasibility of such
an upgrade.
I understand more memory would be required and perhaps a clean
installation
rather than attempting to upgrade XP over Windows ME. If you feel my
system
is
adequate with additional memory, I would be willing to have a computer
service company do this and add XP at the same time. I do not feel
adequate
to handle.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Stewart Fluney Stewart, Too little RAM; 256MB is minimum, 512MB is much, much better. Too small a hard drive, you could get by with 40GB. As cheap as hard drives have become, I would recommend an 80GB so that you can store more without being concerned too much with the storage space it consumes. Frankly, I would just buy a new computer . For $500 to $800, you could upgrade EVERYTHING substantually including processors and hardware and software. I would venture that you will at least approach these figures when you have a computer shop upgrade your present computer AND you will still wind up with much less than you would with a properly chosen new computer.

Gene K