hard drive too small for XP?

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008 04:09:00 -0800, curiouscustomer
wrote:

i have a pentium II laptop with an 8 gig HD and 256 Mb ram.
is there a generic windows me product key now that msft doesnt support it
anymore?
is there any other option other than the landfill?


If it were me, I wouldn't try to use such an old underpowered machine
without upgrading it. And upgrading it sufficiently might cost enough
so that you'd be better off buying a new laptop.

Also note that if the computer is old enough, you might not be able to
get Windows XP drivers for its components, and you might have to run
an older version of Windows.


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

My Windows Directory (MCE SP3) on my last count was over 6 GB's,

Theres no way you could squeeze that onto a 8GB drive unless you used a
stripped version which woudnt be advised for a novice user (it requires heavy
handed modding).

Win98 is better, you can install from the win 98 boot discs which I believe
are still free and available ..somewhere...

As mentioned here already, you can buy a new laptop at Walmart for less than
$400 so dont waste your time.
--
Brandon Dub., TO canada, Shell ''explorer''


"Alias" wrote:

HeyBub wrote:
Bob I wrote:
Pegasus (MVP) wrote:

"curiouscustomer" wrote
in message news
i have a pentium II laptop with an 8 gig HD and 256 Mb ram.
is there a generic windows me product key now that msft doesnt
support it anymore?
is there any other option other than the landfill?

You could also use it as a door stop. Note, however, that laptop
hard disks are readily replaceable. If you think that your CPU is
fast enough then you could replace the 8 GByte disk with a 100 GByte
unit and install Windows XP - provided that you can find the right
drivers for your laptop. While you could shoehorn Windows XP into an 8
GByte disk, I would
strongly advise against it. It would cause you never-ending problems.

I don't understand your question about a "generic Windows ME product
key".
he wants a free operating system, guess he hasn't heard of Linux.

EVERYBODY'S heard of Linux! The Linux acolytes have seen to that.



False. I had a client come in the other day -- not computer related --
and she asked me if the Ubuntu install on one of my computers was Vista.
I spoke to another lady on the phone about a file I sent her and I asked
her if she was running Windows and she asked, "How can my windows run in
a computer?" NO, not everybody has heard of Linux but I'm working on it ;-)

Alias

HeyBub wrote:
Bob I wrote:
Pegasus (MVP) wrote:

"curiouscustomer" wrote
in message news
i have a pentium II laptop with an 8 gig HD and 256 Mb ram.
is there a generic windows me product key now that msft doesnt
support it anymore?
is there any other option other than the landfill?

You could also use it as a door stop. Note, however, that laptop
hard disks are readily replaceable. If you think that your CPU is
fast enough then you could replace the 8 GByte disk with a 100 GByte
unit and install Windows XP - provided that you can find the right
drivers for your laptop. While you could shoehorn Windows XP into an 8
GByte disk, I would
strongly advise against it. It would cause you never-ending problems.

I don't understand your question about a "generic Windows ME product
key".
he wants a free operating system, guess he hasn't heard of Linux.

EVERYBODY'S heard of Linux! The Linux acolytes have seen to that.


Some of us even tried it. It's ok if a) it runs well on your hardware
and b) if you don't have any 'must have' apps.
On my machine, running Ubuntu, version 6.x ok, 7.x early version
suffered random shutdowns, later 7 seems ok. 8.4 back to random
shutdown. 8.10 evaluations cd loads to a black screen and nothing I try
will get me to terminal mode. I run a multi-os setup using bootitng.
While Linux is running, like Hillary, it's quite likable, but I need my
quicken, my scansoft software and other stuff.
The main problem as far as I'm concerned is I just don't have all the
problems with winxp about which Linux fans so loudly complain, so the
incentive to labor at it just isn't there. I'm a retired system
programmer, if I were still working the program support in terminal mode
would be an incentive, but my programming days are over.
Dave Cohen

"brandon dub" wrote in message
...
My Windows Directory (MCE SP3) on my last count was over 6 GB's,

Theres no way you could squeeze that onto a 8GB drive unless you used a
stripped version which woudnt be advised for a novice user (it requires
heavy
handed modding).


I wish I could find the link, but someone carried out an exercise where they
tried to install Windows XP into the minimalist system they could (Smallest
hard disc drive and least memory). They had to bypass the official
installation as it enforced minimum sizes that weren't actually necessary
and (of course) to avoid loading the bloat and other non essential features.
I can't remember the exact minimum specification that they got it to run
under but it was something like 20 Meg of Ram and a couple of hundred meg of
disc space. What I do remember is that it took over 20 minutes to boot up
and once booted up another half hour or so to load any reasonable
application.

Exactly why they wanted to conduct such an exercise remains a mystery.

"M.I.5¾" wrote in message
...
|
| "brandon dub" wrote in message
| ...
| My Windows Directory (MCE SP3) on my last count was over 6 GB's,
|
| Theres no way you could squeeze that onto a 8GB drive unless you used a
| stripped version which woudnt be advised for a novice user (it requires
| heavy
| handed modding).
|
|
| I wish I could find the link, but someone carried out an exercise where they
| tried to install Windows XP into the minimalist system they could (Smallest
| hard disc drive and least memory). They had to bypass the official
| installation as it enforced minimum sizes that weren't actually necessary
| and (of course) to avoid loading the bloat and other non essential features.
| I can't remember the exact minimum specification that they got it to run
| under but it was something like 20 Meg of Ram and a couple of hundred meg of
| disc space. What I do remember is that it took over 20 minutes to boot up
| and once booted up another half hour or so to load any reasonable
| application.
|
| Exactly why they wanted to conduct such an exercise remains a mystery.

I taught a computer repair class at a community college a few years back (pre Windows XP)
and I had my classes do OS installations in various configurations, just to find out how much HD
space and RAM was required. It was an academic exercise to give them experience and did not have
to have any practical value. We started with DOS, then added Windows 3.1 Also did Windows 95,
Windows 98, and Windows ME. I retired before Windows XP or Vista. The information you saw may have
been done for similar reasons.

M.I.5¾ wrote:
"brandon dub" wrote in message
...
My Windows Directory (MCE SP3) on my last count was over 6 GB's,

Theres no way you could squeeze that onto a 8GB drive unless you used a
stripped version which woudnt be advised for a novice user (it requires
heavy
handed modding).


I wish I could find the link, but someone carried out an exercise where they
tried to install Windows XP into the minimalist system they could (Smallest
hard disc drive and least memory). They had to bypass the official
installation as it enforced minimum sizes that weren't actually necessary
and (of course) to avoid loading the bloat and other non essential features.
I can't remember the exact minimum specification that they got it to run
under but it was something like 20 Meg of Ram and a couple of hundred meg of
disc space. What I do remember is that it took over 20 minutes to boot up
and once booted up another half hour or so to load any reasonable
application.

Exactly why they wanted to conduct such an exercise remains a mystery.


Wow, so you can walk from NYC to Philly, but do you want to!!!