XP Up grade or NOT

I am currently running Win 98se with all the ugrade packets. I have been suffering way to many freeze up and I want to ugraded to Win XP or XP Pro to get a modern OS. I have been doing some research on this and it seems like major deal. Some say do a clean install it is the best. But with all the s**t on this machine like my son's games, and favorites on my MS Explorer etc it seem like many hours of work. Also, if I do decide to do this how and where do you get the most recent build or copy of the Win XP? I wonder if a new build would not include the most recent upgrade packet rather than installing the OS then having to go on the WEB and now downloading and installing a SP1 or 2 or 3?? Lastly, does Majorgeeks have a link to an OS upgrade guide to walk me though this mess?

Thanks
Gman

 

read this:
upgrade

clean install

edit:
I forgot something. XP has a built in file transfer program, but I don't know how it works. I've always done a clean install. If you do a clean install, make sure you backup everything! You may also be able to get a cd with SP1 already installed. I did, but it was OEM. If not, installing SP1 is pretty easy.

 

FIRST what are your machine specs? microsoft says that if its under 128MB of RAM then there isnt any point... but i say somthing more like 256MB.

Also, File and Settings Transfer Wizard i belive is only avalable in XP and above you can use it if you have 2 seperate computers, with DCC. Clean install is the best idea, but upgrade is feasable i think from win 98..... but not sure...... :S .... might only be from ME and 2000, thats all ive had experience of...sorry.... (memo to self look up windows upgrade details)

Any program you had installed you would have to re-install, but favourites and documents can be saved. Do you have a CD writer? or Zip drive? if so, copy this folder C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\ to a CD or Zip drive or 5 (if its small enough). you might want to use a zip utility like winzip to compress it and span it over the disks.

 

Goldfish,

I have a 3 yr old Falcon NW Mach V 800 Mhz Athlon ( Not Tbird) and 256 Ram with a 16 x DVD and with a 8x Plexwriter and nVida graphic card is a GeForce GTS2 . A very sweet gaming machine and it is still very peppy but if I go with XP who knows it would be a bit of a gamble.

I'm considering just cannablazing all my save-able parts and uprgrading the MoBo and then I could get faster, FSB, and RAM and get 512 or 1024 MB's if I have the $'s. If I have Falcon do it wouild cost me over $1000 but then I'd have a machine that would be able to accomodate the next Windows OS in 2004-5 and what ever else I wanted to do. This machine would then become my son's who is now 12 and it maybe would last through High School.

Either way I have to get an new OS on this system at some point.

 

An upgrade works from 98. have done it

 

really its a better idea to upgrade first then install XP, because OSes get a little uprooted when you go changing the hardware setup too much. if you are planning to do the upgrade somtime soon, then put XP on afterward. IF when you upgrade your going to format anyway, just stick XP on now and see what you make of it. i ran XP perfectly well on 256MB ram, Celeron 800Mhz, on a pcchips board, so with your setup youll be fine in that aspect.

Upgrading is probably the easiest option, in that case.

 

Remind me never to ask to borrow that....

 

If you want to do any thing with the OS, I sugget a partation first before upgrade or install. just in case you screw up during upgrade as later you might want to format for a clean install.

 

Upgrade your hardware first or you might trigger XP's activator to bitch at you and tell you to reactivate it cause it thinks you're using it on a different machine.

Second, install the app compatability updates and hotfixes on Windows Update, but NOT SP1, SP1 introduces a bug in the memory manager that can make some programs up to 10 times slower.

My advice for service packs is wait until SP2 comes out.

 

A new install of XP will take time, but it is a pretty good way to learn the OS. Hard drives are cheap compared to my time so I do it this way:

1) Remove the old hard drive, leave it intact.
2) Install a new hard drive and install XP
3) Install all the drivers and upgrades to the OS
4) (Optional) tweak XP until it no longer runs and start at step 3 again, repeat until you get the tweaks right
5) Install your applications
6) Attach your old drive as a slave and grab your saved games, .pst files from Outlook, MyDocuments, etc.
7) Remove the old drive and use XP; you have a way home if you really hate it.

Oldest sucessful install was on a 233 Mhz Pentium with 128Mb RAM. XP runs fine.

 

hmm, thats bit adventurous way of doing it, but yeah i guess that works...

Personally I would just back everything up you needed, then re-format the drive then install XP off the boot disk ( see p.s. for boot disk info) and then restore all your data you backed up, and install apps. Well thats just me because i have a FoD (Finger of Death) and the more i go inside my computer the more times i blow it up!

I also second MA, clean install is the best, the earlier the OS gets the more unreliable the upgrade is. going from ME to XP isnt too bad because of its similarities to 2000, i would imagine, 2000 to XP works fine, but if you have the choice re-formatting is definatley the best option!

Of course if you really wanted to you could make a new partition and dual boot XP with 98, which is what a friend of mine does. He uses 98 for games and watching DVDs because his dvd software runs a lot faster on 98, and games for compatibility.

p.s. if your computer wont boot from a CD drive (my IBM did this....) use one of these:
XP Home Boot Disk
XP Pro Boot Disk
It uses about 6 floppy disks, so keep them handy! all you do is insert disk1, and insert the rest of the disks as propted. As long as you have the XP cd in the drive you should have no problems, you will then carry on with the install and bobs your uncle youve got XP.