Upgrading to WinXP.
 

I'm going to go from Win98SE to XP. I have a WinXP Home Edition disc, product key, authenticity tag etc. However, I think it is installed on another home PC (though one that isn't used very much). Is there a way to have it installed and function on another PC?

thanks

It should be fine..Just install..


But I will advise not to upgrade from 98 > XP.. These reasons are why..


1. You will be still using the FAT32 partition type on your Hard Drives. Not as good as NTFS

2. Any bugs, etc, while using 98 may have a good chance of spilling into XP also.

3. Not all Win98 programs will work in XP. Especially drivers.

3. If your Hard Disk is cluttered and hardly any space left, XP will take agessss to install as an upgrade, and performance will be very poor due to the defragemented files on the hard drive.

With the newer versions of XP aren't you required to activate it before 30 days? I don't believe you can have the same product key used on multiple systems. They do the hardware hash and keep it in their records don't they? And check it against any other machine previously used to install that key.. Maybe i'm wrong or forgetting part of the process. But I thought they took measures against that now.

DABhad,

I'd choose the option to reformat my hard-drive.

This is my concern. However, what I have is not a particularly new version of XP HE. Do you know of a way to check and see if my version is old enough to install and work on two PCs?

thanks

you dont have to reformat, xp has a program to convert fat32 drives to ntfs and so on.. 98 is dead.. there is one reason to upgrade :) and if you cant find a driver for xp for your hardware then your hardware is either (1) rare (2) discontinued, all in all im sorry dabhand but the reasons you state really dont hold water

Can I select what I want kept? My PC is currently a mess. It needs to be cleared out. It would be nice if I could keep my email and internet in tact (so I don't have to spend forever getting them up and running again). Is there a way to clean out everything else besides those two things?

thanks

email (assuming its outlook) you can export the address list and messages i think, internet depends on the setup, if its dialup i think you can save the configuration, if not just note down the settings.. it really isnt that difficult, if you update with any luck the data will be retained.. a fresh install will definately not retain the data...

Oh yes they do..


It is my business after all, reinstalling etc....


When upgrading from 98>XP (Not a fresh install but an upgrade) you arent getting a 100% working XP, some things are not changed from 98.


If you dont believe that 98>XP upgrade doesnt cause problems, take a little poll and see how many people have had problems when upgrading compared to when they did a fresh install.

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I'm agree with dabhand in my experience upgrading OS I have seen horrible things when you upgrade over the previous operating system and partition without format first That is whal I always do. All what he said is true

Cheers acal ;) you knew it makes sense :)

I agree with DABhand as well. You also may have to Upgrade the PC"s RAM depending on what its currently using. XP is very RAM hungry compaired to 98 and wont run correctly if it doesnt have enough.

Upgrading the operating system? Well, just install the new version over the old one; or install the new version to another partition and copy the configuration files of all applications from the old partition to the new one...

Oh, we're talking about Windows, not Linux? ;) Sorry, no luck then, you'll have to start again and reinstall and reconfigure all applications until you get back to your favorite environment. Annoyed? Thank Micro$oft!