To upgrade or not to upgrade that is the question (98-XP)

I have a 2 yearold motherboard with an athalon 1.33 mhz and 512 sdram and I was wondering if there are any advantages to upgrading to XP from Windows 98SE as I have the disk and liscence to do it if I want to?

Are there any advantages or risks ??


Thanks for the insights

 

I wouldn't recomend upgrading. I would however recomend formatting and doing a clean install of Windows XP.

If your install of 98 is pretty old and has been well used you will proably see an increase in speed all around.

You system sounds more than beefy enough to support and run XP very smoothly.

Risks: Check Driver Support if you have any old obscure hardware(xp has excellent driver support though). Its a good amount of work also.

Advantages: XP is many more times stable overall, and if you keep all the fancy looking stuff turned off it will probably be faster than 98. Microsoft is everntually going to discontinue support for 98 also, and some programs require windows 2000 or XP to run.

If 98 is running great for you and you are happy then stay with it. Basicly if it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

If he has the install media of a qualifying MS product like 98 he can do a clean install and insert his 98 CD when prompted.

I also vote for a clean install of XP, here's a good guide:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/xp_pro_install_-_graphic.htm

But first run the upgrade advisor from your XP CD to verify your system is compatible, info here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307726

Good point. And make sure you have all your drivers in hand before you do the install.

 

Just throwing in my two cents.

Clean install

And look for any BIOS updates prior to doing it.