Re: upgrade to Windows XP professional
- From: Bruce Chambers <bchambers@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:02:48 -0700
Clemson1 wrote:
OK, so I'm not always an "early adopter" when it comes to operating systems. I usually just leave whatever came with a computer on it until it's time to get a new box. However, in this case the computer was one my wife uses only for email and surfing. Upgrading from Win98 to XP seemed to be a cost effective way to go.
Unfortunately, I'm having problems with the upgrade. First the problem The install makes it through the "collecting information" and Dynamic Upgrade" sections. About halfway through the "Preparing to Install" section the computer locks up. It will just sit there happily telling me about all of the nice new features that I'll have after I upgrade, but never proceeds onto the next step. I've let it sit over night with no progress.
Background information.
The computer is a Gateway 433 Mhz machine with 256meg of RAM.
That's barely adequate. WinXP'll run, but it'll be slow. I'm afraid, given those specifications, that the the word "glacial" comes to mind, and you'll want to upgrade to a larger hard drive if you're planning on installing many applications.
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 may well 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.
If you turn off all of WinXP GUI eye-candy, it will still be very slow, but it might be 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.
The hard drive has 60 Gig available.
The computer has both Spy Sweeper and CA Antivirus software installed. Full scans with both have been done. Both programs are disabled during the upgrade.
Remove the anti-virus software completely. You'll need a different version to work with WinXP, anyway.
I am upgrading from Win98 SE SP2 to Win XP Pro SP2. Both operating systems are legitimate.
I defragged the hard drive prior to starting the upgrade.
No other programs are running during the upgrade.
I have backed up all data on the machine, so if I have to zap the hard drive and install from scratch, that can be done if necessary. But I'm not sure how easy that would be to do with an upgrade CD rather than a new installation CD.
It's quite possible to perform a clean installation using the
Upgrade CD, provided you have the true installation CD for the earlier
OS.
Simply boot from the WinXP Upgrade CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. The Upgrade CD checks to see if a qualifying OS
is installed, and, if it finds none, it asks you to insert the
installation media (CD) of that OS. Unfortunately, an OEM
"Recovery/Restore" CD will not work for this purpose; you must have a
true installation CD, complete with the "\Win98" folder and *.cab
files, or the "\i386" folder of WinNT/2K.
Does anyone have any ideas about what might be locking up the computer during install? I can dig pretty deep into things if needed. All of our other computers run XP and I can usually find my way around fairly well.
Thanks in advance for any help that you can give!
Regards
Clemson1
Had you verified that all of your PC's hardware components were capable of supporting WinXP? This information will be found at the PC's manufacturer's web site, and on Microsoft's Windows Catalog: (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/default.mspx)
You should also have taken a few minutes to ensure that there are WinXP-specific device drivers available for all of the machine's components. There may not be, if the PC was specifically designed for Win98/Me. Also bear in mind that PCs designed for, sold and run fine with Win9x/Me very often do not meet WinXP's much more stringent hardware *quality* requirements. This is particularly true of many models in Compaq's consumer-class Presario product line or HP's consumer-class Pavilion product line. WinXP, like WinNT and Win2K before it, is quite sensitive to borderline defective or substandard hardware (particularly motherboards, RAM and hard drives) that will still support Win9x.
HOW TO Prepare to Upgrade Win98 or WinMe
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q316639
Upgrading to Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpupgrad.htm
HOW TO Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation When You
Upgrade from Windows 98 or Windows Me
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q310064
--
Bruce Chambers
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