windows 2000 pro

please help
i have a win 2000 pro , orig 98 wind i believe, 550mhz,7gb hd, for my son
he has gotten viruses that have crippled it in the system registry, i have avg anti-virus, but the system is still messed up, it does not have a recovery cd or anything, i bought it from a shop with a clean system with no cd's,
i guess i would buy a new operating system cd's, to reformat it?
thanks for helping
John

 

You can't really do much without an operating system CD, so yes you will need to buy one.

Going by the specs (doesn't say how much RAM it has), probably 98 SE would be the best and you should be able to get it fairly cheap.

 

thanks insomniac,
it has 128 mb ram for now,
where could i get 98se?
i ,ve looked at tiger and all can't seem to find something older like that
thanks
John

 

I run Windows XP perfectly fine on a 734 MHz, 128 RAM Pentium III processor computer. I never have spyware or anything though. My advice to you would be to have someone make a copy of Win98 or XP and then install it on the computer. And start using Symantec AntiVirus. The hell with that AVG shit. I can send you a copy of Symantec. There must be someone you know who you can borrow the CD from, or else have someone on here make a copy for you.

 

Or else if you can't find someone to get the CD from, then check on EBAY; that's where I bought Windows NT 4.0, etc. I collect operating systems.

 

Apart from Product Activation issues, what you are suggesting is illegal.

Rusty, although you could run XP (I knew someone would suggest it), 98 is far more suitable for your system and would also be cheaper. (Especially on a slow 7 GB drive where XP would swallow 1.5 GB!)

You can still buy it from retail outlets, or look in computer fairs or classifieds, it's not very hard to find.

 

thanks james and insomniac,
i appreciate the advice, i believe youre right the xp was what i wanted to put
on there but it takes alot of mem , i would need a full install with drivers
and all right? what is this oem cd's are they not complete?
thanks
John

 

98 will give you far better performance on that system than XP would.

A minimum install of XP would use 1.5 GB of a 7 GB hard drive (this is storage space and is seperate to memory), leaving you less than 5 GB for software. XP is optimised and written for todays hardware, 98 is better suited for older computers.

As far as OEM CD's they are a full Windows CD. It's only system recovery CD's that aren't, they are just an image of Windows already installed on the PC.

 

98 would run a lot better on your computer, but I just can't stand running Windows 98 because if crashes wayyy too often. I guess I would try maybe running Windows 2000. I installed XP on a computer at home (15 gig hd, intel celeron 533 MHz, 64 megs of ram) and it runs really slow but is rock solid. It all depends on what you're using the computer for. If it's just to run Internet, I would do 2000, and if it's for word processing, etc, I would do 98 combined with office 2000. OEM cds are fine, they're just the operating system cds that are bundled w/ a new computer, versus boxed and sold retail. They don't have the nice box! Actually, I would even recommend trying Windows NT 4.0. What do you think of that, Insomniac. I only suggest, because I would do almost anything over 98. I collect operating systems....

 

I guess my vote would go for Windows 98 or NT 4.0

 

thanks all i have an xp restore cd, e machines , i was thinkin of using that but
i heard it would crawl, prob need more ram, for it,

 

I would say you need more hard drive space. I run XP on 128 megs of RAM and it runs alright. You're lacking in processor speed and hard drive space. As, Insomniac said, XP will take up 1.5 gigs of your hd, leaving you with only 5.5 to work with. The worst system I've ever installed XP on has a 533 MHz Intel Celeron processor, 15 Gig hd, and 64 megs of ram. I would put either Windows 2000, 98, or NT 4.0 on there. I currently run XP on a 734 MHz Intel Pentium 3, 20 gig hd, 128 megs of RAM. And it runs well, but still not as fast as I compute.

 

Legality issues aside, you would have to worry about Product Activation.

That's if it would even install.

A restore CD contains drivers and settings for a certain system with certain hardware only. It is not a Windows CD.

You can't use it in another system unless it's identical or it will more than likely just crash.

 

I got an old Compaq with Athlon 455MHz and a dead 10GB hard drive for free...

Then I upped memory from 64MB to 192MB and added a 20GB hard drive, then I installed retail Windows 2000 Pro, and Office 2000... Runs fine... a bit slow, but still very usable! (Total cost, used RAM, used 20GB Hard Drive: $60. Thank you EBAY! lol)

Your 7GB hard drive you have could easily be upgraded very cheaply.

 

John,

How's it going?

- Geo

 

low spec PCs will run fine on XP, just have to tweak it right. Mainly that means disabling many of the default services. XP will have many of the drivers as it is years newer than 98se, however, drivers for any OS are USUALLY, easy to find. Your system will run faster on 98.

 

Win2k Pro here...

I upgraded a 450MHz AMD K6-2 (Compaq Presario 5360, mfg. 1999) with 64MB ram to 196MB ram and runs about 3x-10x faster... and it can actually run three or four apps (MS-Office 2k apps, Explorer or FireFox, ... Shareaza, or LimeWire...) in six or eight windows A-OK! My initial VM default is set to about 500MB...

PowerDVD plays DVDs almost flawlessly, but runs best if standalone... Nero 6.6 burns ok, when running standalone...

With more than four apps, running in more than eight windows... it does get bogged down a bit... especially, when switching to a window that has been inactive for a long time (swapped out to VM...)

Cost: Maybe under $25 for used memory... check EBay... get a NO-DOA warranty and you should be OK!

I also added an 80GB hard drive and a 4x DVD burner! (Burns A-OK at 2x, but kinda dicey at 4x...)

Total upgrade investment: under $200. Not bad for a free, dead PC!