XP Home Ed specs for laptop

[Guest]

Hi,

I have a laptop with Windows 2000 Pro Edition and would like to upgrade this
to XP Home Edition. I've just had a look on the microsoft webpage for the
minimum system spec but how do I find my laptop specs to see if they will
work together?

Thanks,

 

[R. McCarty]

Check your notebook vendor's website for your specific model.
Many times the vendor themselves will note whether the notebook
is capable of running XP.

 

[Guest]

It's a Toshiba but I cannot find it on their website, as it a rather old and
even typing in the various number found on the underside of the laptop does
not find it. Is there some way I can find it on the C drive for example?

Thanks.

 

[Alias~-]

It's a Toshiba but I cannot find it on their website, as it a rather old and
even typing in the various number found on the underside of the laptop does
not find it. Is there some way I can find it on the C drive for example?

Thanks.

Download and install Belarc. It will tell you what's on your computer:

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

You could also look at your device manager that can be found by right
clicking on My Computer/Properties/Hardware tab/Device Manager.

Alias

 

[charli b]

It's a Toshiba but I cannot find it on their website, as it a rather old and
even typing in the various number found on the underside of the laptop does
not find it. Is there some way I can find it on the C drive for example?

Thanks.

"R. McCarty" wrote:

try
right clicking on the "my computer" icon,
then select "properties"
on the window that comes up read the bottom section, it should tell you your prossessor and RAM.

 

[Nepatsfan]

(e-mail address removed),

Hi,

I have a laptop with Windows 2000 Pro Edition and would like
to upgrade this to XP Home Edition. I've just had a look on
the microsoft webpage for the minimum system spec but how do
I find my laptop specs to see if they will work together?

Thanks,

Keep in mind that there is no direct upgrade path from Windows
2000 Professional to Windows XP Home Edition. Installing XP
Home on your laptop would require a clean installation. I'm not
sure you can even use the Windows 2000 Professional
installation CD as qualifying media during a clean installation
with an XP Home Edition Upgrade CD.

You can upgrade to Windows XP Professional.

Take a look here for more info:

Upgrading from Previous Versions of Windows
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/matrix.mspx

Windows XP supported upgrade paths
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;292607

Windows XP Upgrade Advisor
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/advisor.mspx

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have a laptop with Windows 2000 Pro Edition and would like to
upgrade this to XP Home Edition.

Sorry, but you can not do this. Windows 2000 Professional to XP Home is
considered a downgrade, and is not supported. You can upgrade to XP
Professional, but not to XP Home.

If you want XP Home, you'll have to clean install it.

I've just had a look on the
microsoft webpage for the minimum system spec but how do I find my
laptop specs to see if they will work together?

Minimum specs aren't very useful; they tell you what you need to get it to
run at all, not what you need to get it to run at acceptable speed.

There are three things you primarily need to be concerned with for XP:
processor speed, amount of RAM, and size of hard drive. As practical
minimums for most people, I recommend no less than a 400MHz processor, 256MB
of RAM, and a 40GB hard drive. Such a machine will be far from a speed
demon, but should run well enough to be at least acceptable to most people.

You can see the size of the hard drive directly in My Computer. For the
processor and RAM, in Windows XP, you can right-click on My Compter and
choose Properties; it shows those there. I can't remember Windows 2000 well
enough, but I *think* the same works there.

 

[Guest]

Thanks all for your help. I used the Belarc link and the specs are 600MHz
Celeron processor, 10GB Hard Drive and 128MB RAM.

One another question. Can I plug my Netgear WG111v2 wireless USB adapter
into the laptop and it will work with my router straight away or will I have
to do something more complication?

Thanks.

 

[Gordon]

Thanks all for your help. I used the Belarc link and the specs are 600MHz
Celeron processor, 10GB Hard Drive and 128MB RAM.

10GB HDD is /just/ about OK - 128MB RAM is on the minimum for reasonable
operation. If you can, I suggest upgrading certainly the RAM to 512 MB, and
possibly the HDD too, they're not expensive if you buy a generic one rather
than the maker's. example - to upgrade my Toshiba Tecra 9000 HDD from 10 to
30 using the Toshiba part - £270 + vat. Using a generic Hitachi HDD, £60 +
vat......no competition!

One another question. Can I plug my Netgear WG111v2 wireless USB adapter
into the laptop and it will work with my router straight away or will I
have
to do something more complication?

Should do.......

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks all for your help. I used the Belarc link and the specs are
600MHz Celeron processor,

That will be slow, but acceptable.

10GB Hard Drive

Depending on how many and which apps you run, andhow many and how big your
user files are, that may or may not be sufficient. It's very close to the
minimum that's usable, so dodn't expect to be able to put a lot on it.

and 128MB RAM.

That's definitely too little. Almost nobody who does more than play
Solitaire with his computer will be satisfied running XP with only 128MB. My
recommendation is either to upgrade tpo at least 256MB if your motherboard
supports it, or forget about XP. You get good performance if the amount of
RAM you have keeps you from using the page file, and that depends on what
apps you run. Most people running a typical range of business applications
find that somewhere around 256-384MB works well, others need 512MB. Almost
anyone will see poor performance with less than 256MB. Some people,
particularly those doing things like editing large photographic images, can
see a performance boost by adding even more than 512MB--sometimes much more.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Thanks all for your help. I used the Belarc link and the specs are 600MHz
Celeron processor, 10GB Hard Drive and 128MB RAM.

I'm afraid, given those specifications, that the 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. Yours meets the bare minimum
requirements to install WinXP; I certainly wouldn't want to actually
have to use such a machine.

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 may well 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 be 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.

One another question. Can I plug my Netgear WG111v2 wireless USB adapter
into the laptop and it will work with my router straight away or will I have
to do something more complication?

You'll have to install the WinXP-specific device drivers for that device.


--

Bruce Chambers

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