Win95 to WinXP?

[Steve N.]

My general rule of thumb is to ignore posts where the "help" portion is
smaller than the freakin' sig.

But you didn't

Steve

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

I hunted around Microsoft's site yesterday, looking for backing that
XP Upgrade will accept a Win95 CD as proof of a qualifying system. I
found the page that talks about "in place" activation, and that says
that XP Upgrade will not upgrade a Win95 system. No surprise there.

I also found this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/upgrading/matrix.mspx which
would seem to say what defines a "qualifying system". It says NO for
Win95.

I suppose that page could have been put together by a clueless person
who didn't realize that a Win 95 CD would be accepted as a "qualifying
system" even though that system can't be upgraded in place. Or could
Microsoft have changed their policy?

In any case, it's always been try that any machine that's been running
Win95 is probably old enough that it won't be happy trying to run XP.

I should probably let this thread die, but this is my take on why 95 was not
listed as qualifying for an upgrade, but was not blocked as a qualifier for
a clean install.
Systems that shipped with 95 had a minimal hardware requirement far below
XP's minimum and was never tested as a path for upgrading.
There were many 95 users that had systems with XP compatible hardware that
would easily upgrade to XP.
MS saw a market for this group of users and didn't want to miss a
substantial market base. Essentially, the upgrade and the OEM are about the
same price and have similar installation restrictions. OEM versions of XP
were not as aggressively marketed when XP was first released.
Windows 95 does work as a qualifier for the XP upgrade versions, I have
observed this myself using a Win 95 CD, and I have heard but not witnessed,
it will also accept Windows 95 diskettes.
There also is no problem activating over the internet when the XP upgrade is
installed using Win 95 as the qualifier.
I can't see Microsoft objecting to accepting $100-160+ from a current
Windows user when piracy is so rampant.

--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
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[Uncle Joe]

I saw an amazing sight at CompUSA the other day.
They selling were a box labeled "Windows XP
Professional for users of the Microsoft Windows
95 Operating System." The retail price was $199.
And, no, it was the full product, not an upgrade.

Microsoft knows full well that Win95 users are
going to suffer if their machines are mired in
ancient PC technology. MS plans to entice such
users anyway.