XP-Home upgrade issues on IBM Thinkpad 600

[Donald Newcomb]

I did a Google search of recent post but did not find anything that touched
directly on these issues.

I have recently upgraded my old IBM Thinkpad 600 laptop from Windows 98 (1st
ed) to XP Home (SP2). I was cramped for disk space, so I first purchased a
new 40GB disk, partitioned it into two 20GB partitions and copied my 98
system to the first partition. (So, I still have the original disk with 98
as a fall-back.) This rebooted as if nothing had happened, everything
worked, etc, so I decided I was good to upgrade to XP. The upgrade went fine
with the expected reports that some things would not work under XP, etc.
System rebooted. Everything was hunky-dorry.

Or so I thought. First issue: Norton Antivirus will neither work or
uninstall. Go to Symantec's website and follow the six pages of instructions
on how to use regedit to remove the hundreds of regestry keys and values of
Norton AV from an XP system. (If I had only known, before hand.) This was
only the first of many problems with programs that neither work nor
uninstall under XP. I almost feel like going back and reinstalling 98,
uninstalling these programs and then redoing the upgrade, or just doing a
clean install of XP.

Right now my three problems are the Western Digital USB disk driver, the
Lexar Media JumpDrive 98/SE drivers and the old Thinkpad Utility. The
JumpDrive uninstall reports "The operating system is not adequate for
running JumpDrive 98/SE Drivers" and then fails. The WesternDigital
uninstall reports that it can't find USBInst.msi, and fails. The ThinkPad
Utility reports than "You must be an administrator to run this program."
(even though I am), then fails.

I hate leaving all this garbage in my system, but XP seems to have no tools
for cleaning it up. Maybe I should have known, but none of this was
addressed in the document on IBM's webiste that deals with upgrading to XP.
Other programs just have strange failures: Today I had to reinstall the
Csapi3t1.dll that does the spellchecking for OE6 (Where it went to, I have
no clue.) I had to reinstall my Belkin WiFi card handler because it was
still running the 98 program. (Minor issue) I still can't connect to the
internet using my ThinkPad modem. (No idea why) Fortunately I have a PC card
modem that does work.

Are there any good tools for cleaning up these problems? It seems like I'm
doing a lot more work than this is supposed to require. Suggestions? My
suggestion for anyone planning an upgrade to XP is to first uninstall
everything that looks like it deals with the file system, operating system
or devices at a low level. Uninstall any applications that you can easily
reinstall after the upgrade. It will make life much easier.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Assuming that drivers are available for all things ThinkPad 600, I would do
a clean install of XP and leave Win 98 behind..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Next time please just ask your question.

 

[Donald Newcomb]

Next time please just ask your question.

You are so kind. I habituate some other groups, where I offer assistance to
folks who have problems with communications issues. What is most annoying to
me is when people do not fully describe their problems. (e.g. "Can I use my
current phone in Europe?" But don't tell you what that phone is.) As a
result of long experience, I have learned that whenever I ask for
assistance, I should try to fully describe the problem I am encountering. I
suppose this makes my questions a little to detailed for some.

 

[Donald Newcomb]

Assuming that drivers are available for all things ThinkPad 600, I would do
a clean install of XP and leave Win 98 behind..

Thanks, Mike. I think that's what I'm going to end up doing. I had hoped
that 98 would really upgrade gracefully to XP but it seems not. It's almost
as if more applications are not working than are. Right now, I'm lining up
the installation media, updates and registration codes for the 39+
applications and drivers I will need to reinstall. One way or another, this
won't be as easy as I had hoped. Sigh....

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

The problem, yes. The history, no.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

I bought a tri-band cellphone while working in Spain.. I returned to Canada
and was told that Spanish phones wouldn't work here.. even showing the guy
that it would work on the Canadian/US frequency and that it was made in
Canada for world wide use still didn't convince him.. there are times when
any amount of information confuses..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user

 

[Donald Newcomb]

I bought a tri-band cellphone while working in Spain.. I returned to Canada
and was told that Spanish phones wouldn't work here.. even showing the guy
that it would work on the Canadian/US frequency and that it was made in
Canada for world wide use still didn't convince him.. there are times when
any amount of information confuses..

Mike,
I'll look for you on alt.cellular.gsm BTW, I'm in the process of running
a clean install on that ThinkPad.