Re: XP Pro Upgrade or full version?

John wrote:

> I am thinking of upgrading an older PC by adding hardware and
> software and installing XP Pro. I now am using Win98SE and wonder
> which way to go. What would be best and reasons why not just upgrade.
> Thank you very much.


I'm not sure what you mean by "what would be best?" but bear in mind that
most computers of Windows 98 vintage will need substantial upgrading to be
able to run XP at all, and even more to run it at acceptable speed.

For example, I wouldn't try to run XP with less than 256MB of RAM (and
depending on what apps you will run, more might be much better). Do you have
that much? Will your motherboard take that much?

How fast is your processor? About 400MHz is the practical minimum, and speed
will be poor at that speed. Somepleace around 1GB would be more realistic.

How big is your hard drive? About 10GB is the practical minimum, and that
only if you have very few applications. 40GB is a more practical minium for
most people.

I dont know, but I'm guessing that you won't meet this minimums and will
probably need to upgrade at least the motherboard, CPU, RAM, and hard drive,
as well as buyiong a copy of XP. If so, look very carefully at the cost of
upgrading so much vs the cost of just buying a new computer from someplace
like Dell with XP included. You will probably find that upgrading makes no
sense.

Also bear in mind that you can probably get away with lower specs, but it
makes little sense to spend $250 to upgrade to a very minimal configuration,
when for $350 you could get a whole new much-better-configured machine.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup


.

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