Re: Upgrade ME to XP

Gregg Hill wrote:
Anna,

You stated that "there's no reason *not* to use the upgrade path as Malke has recommended to upgrade your system."



And she's correct, unless the older OS is experiencing problems.


I heartily disagree. I have NEVER seen an upgraded system perform as fast as a freshly installed system.


Then you haven't been upgrading over properly maintained and prepared operating systems.



You inherit all the old OS's registry entries, many of which are not needed by the old system and certainly not by the new
system.


That's not true, at all. Any applicable registry entries are translated from the old format into the new, but superfluous entries are not carried over.


Fairly often, the drivers written for the current OS will crash the new OS.


Again, untrue. In fact, it's not even possible for device drivers written for WinMe to function under WinXP.


Many times, the Upgrade Advisor has found incompatible software that had to be removed, then reinstalled after the new OS was in place.


That's not the fault of the OS, but rather the specific application. And it doesn't occur all that often. Even so, that, in and of itself, is no reason to avoid an upgrade; reinstalling one or two applications is a lot less time consuming than having to needlessly reinstall everything.


If you do an upgrade, you inherit all the old settings,


Which is precisely the point of doing an upgrade....


spyware,


Which would not exist on a properly maintained system....


bloated registry,


Flat out wrong.



Granted, I have not been doing this as long as others (only since 1992), but that has been my experience and the experience of all the network consultants I know.



And it's completely contrary to my experience with WinXP. FYI, very few network consultants are overly conversant with the technical capabilities of workstation operating systems; they're outside their area of expertise. Granted, there are many knowledgeable "consultants" who learned their trade from the ground up, but there are all too many who have nothing but a degree, some boot camp certifications, and *no* hands-on experience.

Many uninformed people do recommend that one always perform a clean installation, rather than upgrade over an earlier OS. For the most part, I feel that these people, while usually well-intended, are living in the past, and are basing their recommendations on their experiences with older, obsolete operating systems or hearsay. One would save a lot of time by upgrading a PC to WinXP, rather than performing a clean installation, if there're no hardware or software incompatibilities. Microsoft has greatly improved (over earlier versions of Windows) WinXP's ability to smoothly upgrade an earlier OS.



Upgrades are for people who are not concerned with maximum stability or speed.



No, upgrades are for people with properly maintained systems who have better things with their time.



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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Registry Disaster
    ... I did a backup of the registry and the entire computer ... >I've never (nor recommend) upgrade OS to OS in-place, ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.registry)
  • Re: Problems with MCE
    ... Those people who contemplate doing an upgrade as a ... It's one that I used to have myself, back in the days of Windows 9x, when it ... something else, in your opinion. ... However, just as you are free to advise and recommend, others are too. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Re: Upgrading to Windows 7 from Vista Home Premium...
    ... Granted, some people will always blindly recommend that one always perform a clean installation, rather than upgrade over an earlier OS. ... For the most part, I feel that these people, while usually well-meaning, are living in the past, and are either basing their recommendation on their experiences with much older operating systems, or are simply inexperienced and uninformed. ... I've lost count of the systems I've seen that have been upgraded from Win95 to Win98 to Win2K to WinXP, without the need for a clean installation, and that are still operating without any problems attributable to upgrades. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
  • Re: Windows 7?
    ... Therefore, unless YOU have actually used Win7, you cannot recommend anything at all, other than what "the boss" wants you to recommend/say. ... Gotta do some questioning/inquiring to determine if a customer really needs to upgrade to the latest or is just fine where they are. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.vista.general)
  • Re: usb stick as swap partition
    ... have you used this usb stick for other stuff? ... I would recommend to upgrade your RAM. ... of your notebooks HDD. ...
    (Fedora)