Re: Windows XP Upgrade Disk

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

SandyO wrote: 
Thank you Bruce,
My laptop is Pent III 500mhrz 256 meg ram 12 gig hd. It has OEM Win98se and
I think I would like to upgrade to XP. I bought the XP upgrade for another
computer 2 1/2 years ago, but that computer hasn't even been turned on for
nearly 2 years.

I guess I will be ok then.
Thanks
SandyO


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 will easily 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.

"Glacial" is the term that comes to my mind, I'm afraid, even if your computer has a 500 MHz CPU with 256 Mb of RAM. If you turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be slow, but it might 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.


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Bruce Chambers

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