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#16
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xp upgrade from 98se
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message ... I'll just bet you have. yes, before i did the first upgrade i had done a lot of reading. from the time XP first came out...until I actually took the plunge...was about 6 months. no i did not spend the entire time reading...but I did do a lot of it. Now that said...how many upgrades have you performed? have the systems you've upgraded *ever* crashed? I'd like to hear your results. If you have done a lot of upgrades... and they have all worked 100% then all I can say is...that's great... but it does not always work out that way. |
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#17
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xp upgrade from 98se
Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not attempt
upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the manufacturer's for XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved issues before attempting to proceed. All were straightforward retail cd upgrades. I got the same results from upgrading Win 2000 Pro systems to XP Pro. -- Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine] (Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested) "philo" wrote in message ... "Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message ... I'll just bet you have. yes, before i did the first upgrade i had done a lot of reading. from the time XP first came out...until I actually took the plunge...was about 6 months. no i did not spend the entire time reading...but I did do a lot of it. Now that said...how many upgrades have you performed? have the systems you've upgraded *ever* crashed? I'd like to hear your results. If you have done a lot of upgrades... and they have all worked 100% then all I can say is...that's great... but it does not always work out that way. |
#18
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xp upgrade from 98se
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message ... Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not attempt upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the manufacturer's for XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved issues before attempting to proceed. All were straightforward retail cd upgrades. I got the same results from upgrading Win 2000 Pro systems to XP Pro. OK fair enough! i'd not expect any problems with win2k XP did any of those win98 XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during let's say a one year period of time? not an application failure...but a full system failure? just curious. thank you |
#19
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xp upgrade from 98se
In ,
philo respectfully replied ;-) "Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message ... Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not attempt upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the manufacturer's for XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved issues before attempting to proceed. All were straightforward retail cd upgrades. I got the same results from upgrading Win 2000 Pro systems to XP Pro. OK fair enough! i'd not expect any problems with win2k XP did any of those win98 XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during let's say a one year period of time? not an application failure...but a full system failure? just curious. thank you My experience is much the same as Colin's and for the life of me I don't understand how a crash during any period of time would relate any argument that a clean install would be better than an upgrade. Grasping for straws? The XP upgrade when properly prepped is very close to a clean install, and since the Windows folder is completely removed and replaced with a new CLEAN Windows folder, old drivers are NOT migrated. The same drivers that a clean install would use are also used for the upgrade [hint! they are on the XP CD]. When you remove incompatible hardware and software before the upgrade, the upgrade is going to be a success. -- Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP http://www.michaelstevenstech.com For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/ou...snewreader.htm |
#20
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xp upgrade from 98se
In ,
Colin Barnhorst respectfully replied ;-) I agree with Ken. Do a virus scan and remove any spyware, defrag, and then upgrade. In , JT typed: "dougie" wrote: Hi, I have xp pro upgrade package from win 98 and would like some info about if I need to reformat my hdd - do i need to completely reinstall win98 before xp pro or can i simply copy a few files across from win 98 to allow xp pro to recognise that I have a license for both? thanks You have several practical (although perhaps not strictly legal) options when using the XP Pro upgrade disk. 1) A true upgrade to your Win 98 computer in which case you simply stick in the XP Pro upgrade disk and proceed. Not advised. Not advised by you, but advised by many of us. Unlike with previous versions of Windows, an upgrade to XP replaces almost everything, and usually works very well. My recommendation is to at least try the upgrade, since it's much easier than a clean installation. You can always change your mind and reinstall cleanly if problems develop. However, don't assume that doing an upgrade relieves you of the need to backup your data, etc. before beginning. Before starting to upgrade, it's always prudent to recognize that things like a sudden power loss can occur in the middle of it and cause the loss of everything. For that reason you should make sure you have backups and anything else you need to reinstall if the worst happens. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup To add to the great advise both of you give, I suggest prepping for a clean install but opt for the upgrade as the first option. This way if some freak act of the unknown [power loss, hard drive failure, mental fart, etc.] happens, everything is in place to do the clean install. The time spent on an unsuccessful upgrade would be hardly noticed when added to the time it takes to configure a clean install. -- Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP http://www.michaelstevenstech.com For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/ou...snewreader.htm |
#21
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xp upgrade from 98se
"Michael Stevens" wrote in message ... In , philo respectfully replied ;-) "Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message ... Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not attempt upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the manufacturer's for XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved issues before attempting to proceed. All were straightforward retail cd upgrades. I got the same results from upgrading Win 2000 Pro systems to XP Pro. OK fair enough! i'd not expect any problems with win2k XP did any of those win98 XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during let's say a one year period of time? not an application failure...but a full system failure? just curious. thank you My experience is much the same as Colin's and for the life of me I don't understand how a crash during any period of time would relate any argument that a clean install would be better than an upgrade. Grasping for straws? The XP upgrade when properly prepped is very close to a clean install, and since the Windows folder is completely removed and replaced with a new CLEAN Windows folder, old drivers are NOT migrated. The same drivers that a clean install would use are also used for the upgrade [hint! they are on the XP CD]. When you remove incompatible hardware and software before the upgrade, the upgrade is going to be a success. Actually i was not grasping at straws... because the systems i have performed clean installs on have been running flawlessly for several years now. Although i have had a few system crashes due to hardware failure (ie: cpu fan quit etc) the system itself has never crashed. That's several machines over a two year period of time. Even though, in theory XP may have been designed to upgrade win98... in practice (even if compatability is checked first) I've found that that just is not the case. One side point I'd like to make is that i was quite surprised at how well XP really works... even with legacy devices. I've install XP many times on machines that still had some fairly old ISA devices and have never had a problem. So hardware compatability is (at least in my experience) , virtually a non-issue. Now, getting back to my original question, which no one has answered yet. In all the systems which were upgraded from win98 to XP...Did any of them ever crash within (let's say), a one year period? Now if you'd say , sure so it crashed once or twice in that year, so what...that's normal. All I can say is..."How do you know that a clean install would not have worked better?" Finally...If one can truely say that they've performed hundreds of upgrades and none of them have ever crashed, ever...then maybe I'll quit harping so much on the clean install method! However , of course not all older software will work under XP...but for the most part... that which does not function is pretty darn old (such as dos games for example) |
#22
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xp upgrade from 98se
In ,
philo respectfully replied ;-) "Michael Stevens" wrote in message ... In , philo respectfully replied ;-) "Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message ... Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not attempt upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the manufacturer's for XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved issues before attempting to proceed. All were straightforward retail cd upgrades. I got the same results from upgrading Win 2000 Pro systems to XP Pro. OK fair enough! i'd not expect any problems with win2k XP did any of those win98 XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during let's say a one year period of time? not an application failure...but a full system failure? just curious. thank you My experience is much the same as Colin's and for the life of me I don't understand how a crash during any period of time would relate any argument that a clean install would be better than an upgrade. Grasping for straws? The XP upgrade when properly prepped is very close to a clean install, and since the Windows folder is completely removed and replaced with a new CLEAN Windows folder, old drivers are NOT migrated. The same drivers that a clean install would use are also used for the upgrade [hint! they are on the XP CD]. When you remove incompatible hardware and software before the upgrade, the upgrade is going to be a success. Actually i was not grasping at straws... because the systems i have performed clean installs on have been running flawlessly for several years now. Although i have had a few system crashes due to hardware failure (ie: cpu fan quit etc) the system itself has never crashed. That's several machines over a two year period of time. Even though, in theory XP may have been designed to upgrade win98... in practice (even if compatability is checked first) I've found that that just is not the case. One side point I'd like to make is that i was quite surprised at how well XP really works... even with legacy devices. I've install XP many times on machines that still had some fairly old ISA devices and have never had a problem. So hardware compatability is (at least in my experience) , virtually a non-issue. Now, getting back to my original question, which no one has answered yet. In all the systems which were upgraded from win98 to XP...Did any of them ever crash within (let's say), a one year period? Now if you'd say , sure so it crashed once or twice in that year, so what...that's normal. All I can say is..."How do you know that a clean install would not have worked better?" Yes, and so did a couple of clean installs, what exactly does this prove? I also have a couple of dual boot systems that are a mixture of clean and upgrade and neither have crashed, and I have to check to see which is the clean or upgrade OS I am booted into. You really don't understand how the XP upgrade works from what have you posted 95/98/Me drivers are not migrated to XP, any hardware that doesn't have XP drivers by now, should be junked or if the hardware is very important the system should not be upgraded at all. Bottom line is a poorly prepped clean install will give about the same results as a poorly prepped upgrade and the same goes for a well prepped upgrade and clean install. The XP upgrade is vastly improved from previous Windows upgrades and should not be treated the same as previous upgrades. When done correctly, it is very close to a clean install in both stability and final installed footprint with a major savings in time spent in configuration and productivity. -- Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP http://www.michaelstevenstech.com For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/ou...snewreader.htm Finally...If one can truely say that they've performed hundreds of upgrades and none of them have ever crashed, ever...then maybe I'll quit harping so much on the clean install method! However , of course not all older software will work under XP...but for the most part... that which does not function is pretty darn old (such as dos games for example) |
#23
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xp upgrade from 98se
"Michael Stevens" wrote in message news:e% portions trimmed Actually i was not grasping at straws... because the systems i have performed clean installs on have been running flawlessly for several years now. Although i have had a few system crashes due to hardware failure (ie: cpu fan quit etc) the system itself has never crashed. That's several machines over a two year period of time. Even though, in theory XP may have been designed to upgrade win98... in practice (even if compatability is checked first) I've found that that just is not the case. One side point I'd like to make is that i was quite surprised at how well XP really works... even with legacy devices. I've install XP many times on machines that still had some fairly old ISA devices and have never had a problem. So hardware compatability is (at least in my experience) , virtually a non-issue. Now, getting back to my original question, which no one has answered yet. In all the systems which were upgraded from win98 to XP...Did any of them ever crash within (let's say), a one year period? Now if you'd say , sure so it crashed once or twice in that year, so what...that's normal. All I can say is..."How do you know that a clean install would not have worked better?" Yes, and so did a couple of clean installs, what exactly does this prove? I also have a couple of dual boot systems that are a mixture of clean and upgrade and neither have crashed, and I have to check to see which is the clean or upgrade OS I am booted into. You really don't understand how the XP upgrade works from what have you posted 95/98/Me drivers are not migrated to XP, any hardware that doesn't have XP drivers by now, should be junked or if the hardware is very important the system should not be upgraded at all. Although I do understand the upgrade process... I think there are a few people here who missed my point entirely. I have done a number of upgrades after carefully following advice and checking compatability...yet still have ended up with some less than optimal systems. Though the upgrades did not "fail" so to speak...the system was not as stable as i had expected it to be...and by formatting the drive and performing a clean install...all was well. Note: that was using the *same* hardware and *same* apps. As I said...I have certainly had quite a few upgrades work just fine...but I've had enough that didn't to generally discourage such. Bottom line is a poorly prepped clean install will give about the same results as a poorly prepped upgrade and the same goes for a well prepped upgrade and clean install. The XP upgrade is vastly improved from previous Windows upgrades and should not be treated the same as previous upgrades. The following are your words, not mine: When done correctly, it is very close to a clean install in both stability and final installed footprint with a major savings in time spent in configuration and productivity. In my experience, "very close" is not good enough. Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist...but even if it takes a little bit longer to backup your data and perform a clean install...it's time well spent... especially considering it may only take an extra hour or two... compared to the many years one will probably be using the OS! One more point... one must examine how much time is spent in "prepping" a marginal win98 installation in order to ready it for an upgrade... vs the time spent just backing up the data and reinstalling. More than likely it's actually quicker to just to a clean install. |
#24
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xp upgrade from 98se
In ,
philo respectfully replied ;-) "Michael Stevens" wrote in message news:e% portions trimmed Actually i was not grasping at straws... because the systems i have performed clean installs on have been running flawlessly for several years now. Although i have had a few system crashes due to hardware failure (ie: cpu fan quit etc) the system itself has never crashed. That's several machines over a two year period of time. Even though, in theory XP may have been designed to upgrade win98... in practice (even if compatability is checked first) I've found that that just is not the case. One side point I'd like to make is that i was quite surprised at how well XP really works... even with legacy devices. I've install XP many times on machines that still had some fairly old ISA devices and have never had a problem. So hardware compatability is (at least in my experience) , virtually a non-issue. Now, getting back to my original question, which no one has answered yet. In all the systems which were upgraded from win98 to XP...Did any of them ever crash within (let's say), a one year period? Now if you'd say , sure so it crashed once or twice in that year, so what...that's normal. All I can say is..."How do you know that a clean install would not have worked better?" Yes, and so did a couple of clean installs, what exactly does this prove? I also have a couple of dual boot systems that are a mixture of clean and upgrade and neither have crashed, and I have to check to see which is the clean or upgrade OS I am booted into. You really don't understand how the XP upgrade works from what have you posted 95/98/Me drivers are not migrated to XP, any hardware that doesn't have XP drivers by now, should be junked or if the hardware is very important the system should not be upgraded at all. Although I do understand the upgrade process... I think there are a few people here who missed my point entirely. I have done a number of upgrades after carefully following advice and checking compatability...yet still have ended up with some less than optimal systems. Though the upgrades did not "fail" so to speak...the system was not as stable as i had expected it to be...and by formatting the drive and performing a clean install...all was well. Note: that was using the *same* hardware and *same* apps. As I said...I have certainly had quite a few upgrades work just fine...but I've had enough that didn't to generally discourage such. I have found any system that gave problems when I upgraded, were the same on the clean install. But that is because of the way I approach an upgrade is the same as a clean install. Bottom line is a poorly prepped clean install will give about the same results as a poorly prepped upgrade and the same goes for a well prepped upgrade and clean install. The XP upgrade is vastly improved from previous Windows upgrades and should not be treated the same as previous upgrades. The following are your words, not mine: When done correctly, it is very close to a clean install in both stability and final installed footprint with a major savings in time spent in configuration and productivity. In my experience, "very close" is not good enough. Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist...but even if it takes a little bit longer to backup your data and perform a clean install...it's time well spent... especially considering it may only take an extra hour or two... compared to the many years one will probably be using the OS! In my experience very close is just a concession that a clean install must logically be better, but I have not actually noticed a difference in stability. The only real noticeable difference is in the footprint. If it only takes you an extra hour or two to do a clean install, then my hat is off to you and please tell us your secret. One more point... one must examine how much time is spent in "prepping" a marginal win98 installation I would not upgrade a marginal 98 system at this time. in order to ready it for an upgrade... vs the time spent just backing up the data What would make a difference in time? I would prep for a clean install whether upgrading or clean installing and reinstalling. More than likely it's actually quicker to just to a clean install. No way is it quicker. -- Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP http://www.michaelstevenstech.com For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/ou...snewreader.htm |
#25
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xp upgrade from 98se
"Michael Stevens" wrote in message ... In , philo respectfully replied ;-) "Michael Stevens" wrote in message news:e% portions trimmed I have found any system that gave problems when I upgraded, were the same on the clean install. But that is because of the way I approach an upgrade is the same as a clean install. Bottom line is a poorly prepped clean install will give about the same results as a poorly prepped upgrade and the same goes for a well prepped upgrade and clean install. The XP upgrade is vastly improved from previous Windows upgrades and should not be treated the same as previous upgrades. The following are your words, not mine: When done correctly, it is very close to a clean install in both stability and final installed footprint with a major savings in time spent in configuration and productivity. In my experience, "very close" is not good enough. Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist...but even if it takes a little bit longer to backup your data and perform a clean install...it's time well spent... especially considering it may only take an extra hour or two... compared to the many years one will probably be using the OS! In my experience very close is just a concession that a clean install must logically be better, but I have not actually noticed a difference in stability. The only real noticeable difference is in the footprint. If it only takes you an extra hour or two to do a clean install, then my hat is off to you and please tell us your secret. One more point... one must examine how much time is spent in "prepping" a marginal win98 installation I would not upgrade a marginal 98 system at this time. in order to ready it for an upgrade... vs the time spent just backing up the data What would make a difference in time? I would prep for a clean install whether upgrading or clean installing and reinstalling. More than likely it's actually quicker to just to a clean install. No way is it quicker. When upgrading a Win98 system to XP... it's really not that likely that the Win98 system is 100% good... even if there are no conflicts...and assuming XP properly replaces all the drivers... there still could be some minor registry errors that though they were not casing any real problems... would be multplied after an ungrade. So, if one were to fully examine the win98 system and correct all errors before upgrading... it could take a bit of time. A fresh install of XP, to me just has not seemed too terribly time consuming... I have no "secret" method other than just being sure to export the OE and IE data first. Now that said...even assuming one had a 100% funtional win98 system which would lend itself to a 100% functional XP upgrade... My question is...why would you want to upgrade a system that is perfectly good in the first place? I never recommend to anyone that they upgrade a perfectly good win98 system to XP... OTOH: if someone is having incurable win98 stability problems... I generally do recommend a move to the more stable Win2k or XP...but of course would never do anything but a clean install in those cases... Now that I've put my case down in writing it's obvious why I stand at odds with some of the people here...It's simply because the main reason I upgrade people's machines to XP is simply becasue of their win98 problems...so of course do a clean install. The win98 systems, that are working fine...i generally don't upgrade. So now all I am left to ask is why you guys are upgrading perfectly good 100% working win98 systems? |
#26
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xp upgrade from 98se
In ,
philo respectfully replied ;-) "Michael Stevens" wrote in message ... In , philo respectfully replied ;-) "Michael Stevens" wrote in message news:e% portions trimmed I have found any system that gave problems when I upgraded, were the same on the clean install. But that is because of the way I approach an upgrade is the same as a clean install. Bottom line is a poorly prepped clean install will give about the same results as a poorly prepped upgrade and the same goes for a well prepped upgrade and clean install. The XP upgrade is vastly improved from previous Windows upgrades and should not be treated the same as previous upgrades. The following are your words, not mine: When done correctly, it is very close to a clean install in both stability and final installed footprint with a major savings in time spent in configuration and productivity. In my experience, "very close" is not good enough. Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist...but even if it takes a little bit longer to backup your data and perform a clean install...it's time well spent... especially considering it may only take an extra hour or two... compared to the many years one will probably be using the OS! In my experience very close is just a concession that a clean install must logically be better, but I have not actually noticed a difference in stability. The only real noticeable difference is in the footprint. If it only takes you an extra hour or two to do a clean install, then my hat is off to you and please tell us your secret. One more point... one must examine how much time is spent in "prepping" a marginal win98 installation I would not upgrade a marginal 98 system at this time. in order to ready it for an upgrade... vs the time spent just backing up the data What would make a difference in time? I would prep for a clean install whether upgrading or clean installing and reinstalling. More than likely it's actually quicker to just to a clean install. No way is it quicker. When upgrading a Win98 system to XP... it's really not that likely that the Win98 system is 100% good... even if there are no conflicts...and assuming XP properly replaces all the drivers... there still could be some minor registry errors that though they were not casing any real problems... would be multplied after an ungrade. So, if one were to fully examine the win98 system and correct all errors before upgrading... it could take a bit of time. A fresh install of XP, to me just has not seemed too terribly time consuming... I have no "secret" method other than just being sure to export the OE and IE data first. Now that said...even assuming one had a 100% funtional win98 system which would lend itself to a 100% functional XP upgrade... My question is...why would you want to upgrade a system that is perfectly good in the first place? I never recommend to anyone that they upgrade a perfectly good win98 system to XP... OTOH: if someone is having incurable win98 stability problems... I generally do recommend a move to the more stable Win2k or XP...but of course would never do anything but a clean install in those cases... Now that I've put my case down in writing it's obvious why I stand at odds with some of the people here...It's simply because the main reason I upgrade people's machines to XP is simply becasue of their win98 problems...so of course do a clean install. The win98 systems, that are working fine...i generally don't upgrade. So now all I am left to ask is why you guys are upgrading perfectly good 100% working win98 systems? Unfortunately you do not have a realistic grasp on how the XP upgrade works. There is nothing left of 98 after the upgrade except for the registry settings you allowed it to migrate. We stand in agreement upgrading a 98 system, I very rarely suggest anyone upgrade a 98 system to XP. With the prices of entry level XP systems so very close to the cost of upgrading a 98 system, I find it very foolish to upgrade. Any 98 system you upgrade to XP would be obsolete and the cheapest entry level Dell system would run circles around the 98 system upgraded to XP. I suggest lean out the 98 system, network it with a new XP system and get a lot more bang for the buck. -- Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP http://www.michaelstevenstech.com For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/ou...snewreader.htm |
#27
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xp upgrade from 98se
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#28
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xp upgrade from 98se
In ,
Michael Stevens typed: In , Colin Barnhorst respectfully replied ;-) I agree with Ken. Do a virus scan and remove any spyware, defrag, and then upgrade. In , JT typed: "dougie" wrote: Hi, I have xp pro upgrade package from win 98 and would like some info about if I need to reformat my hdd - do i need to completely reinstall win98 before xp pro or can i simply copy a few files across from win 98 to allow xp pro to recognise that I have a license for both? thanks You have several practical (although perhaps not strictly legal) options when using the XP Pro upgrade disk. 1) A true upgrade to your Win 98 computer in which case you simply stick in the XP Pro upgrade disk and proceed. Not advised. Not advised by you, but advised by many of us. Unlike with previous versions of Windows, an upgrade to XP replaces almost everything, and usually works very well. My recommendation is to at least try the upgrade, since it's much easier than a clean installation. You can always change your mind and reinstall cleanly if problems develop. However, don't assume that doing an upgrade relieves you of the need to backup your data, etc. before beginning. Before starting to upgrade, it's always prudent to recognize that things like a sudden power loss can occur in the middle of it and cause the loss of everything. For that reason you should make sure you have backups and anything else you need to reinstall if the worst happens. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup To add to the great advise both of you give, I suggest prepping for a clean install but opt for the upgrade as the first option. Yes, I completely agree. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup This way if some freak act of the unknown [power loss, hard drive failure, mental fart, etc.] happens, everything is in place to do the clean install. The time spent on an unsuccessful upgrade would be hardly noticed when added to the time it takes to configure a clean install. |
#29
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xp upgrade from 98se
"Ken Blake" wrote:
Unlike with previous versions of Windows, an upgrade to XP replaces almost everything, and usually works very well. "Usually" being the operative word. Sorry, but I many others don't wish to gamble seven plus years of software purchases, updates, and data on "usually". However, don't assume that doing an upgrade relieves you of the need to backup your data, etc. before beginning. Before starting to upgrade, it's always prudent to recognize that things like a sudden power loss can occur in the middle of it and cause the loss of everything. For that reason you should make sure you have backups and anything else you need to reinstall if the worst happens. The mistake that you and a few others make is the false assumption that most users have the technical ability to make such backups. For most users, your caveat to "have backups and anything else needed to reinstall" would be virtually impossible to achieve without hands-on expert assistance. No, the safest way to effect an XP Pro upgrade is to first have someone who knows what they are doing either image the drive(s) beforehand and store the image externally or clone the drive(s) beforehand. That way, reverting back to a working Win98 system is just a matter of restoring the image or swapping drives. |
#30
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xp upgrade from 98se
"JT" wrote in message ... "Ken Blake" wrote: Unlike with previous versions of Windows, an upgrade to XP replaces almost everything, and usually works very well. "Usually" being the operative word. Sorry, but I many others don't wish to gamble seven plus years of software purchases, updates, and data on "usually". However, don't assume that doing an upgrade relieves you of the need to backup your data, etc. before beginning. Before starting to upgrade, it's always prudent to recognize that things like a sudden power loss can occur in the middle of it and cause the loss of everything. For that reason you should make sure you have backups and anything else you need to reinstall if the worst happens. The mistake that you and a few others make is the false assumption that most users have the technical ability to make such backups. For most users, your caveat to "have backups and anything else needed to reinstall" would be virtually impossible to achieve without hands-on expert assistance. No, the safest way to effect an XP Pro upgrade is to first have someone who knows what they are doing either image the drive(s) beforehand and store the image externally or clone the drive(s) beforehand. That way, reverting back to a working Win98 system is just a matter of restoring the image or swapping drives. Good answer... I agree ... I did my first upgrade of win98 to XP on a drive that was all backed up... so of course was able to "go back" when it did not work out well. You are also right in that the average home user does not necessarily know how to backup their OS. Not only that, you really need a spare drive to *test* the backup like I always do. It's kind of scary to see that once in a while the backup is no good and you have to do it again. Not everyone uses removable drive kits like i do, to make the whole thing easy... I have a special machine setup with three removable drive bays... which i made specifically for cloing OS's. Howerver...in this day and age, even my non-computer savvy friends know enough about it to at least backup their data to cd's or DVD's. If the OS or harddrive dies... it's not the end of the world to reinstall...just as long as the data is safe. One friend of mine in particular is a professional photographer...who's got over 500 gigs of data!!! "Usually works" and "almost as good" are not words in my vocabulary! I've noticed that many of the people who post here are quite well seasoned and know how to properly install and upgrade operating systems... The casual user looking for advice here should not be assumed to use the same precautions. |
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Not able to "burn" to Cd after SP2 upgrade | \old\ devildog | General XP issues or comments | 0 | November 30th 04 05:14 PM |
Mysterious Fatal Error during upgrade from 98SE to XP. Why??? | Kevo | New Users to Windows XP | 2 | October 16th 04 03:32 PM |
Mysterious Fatal Error Message during upgrade from 98SE to XP. Why | Kevo | Windows XP Help and Support | 1 | October 16th 04 08:41 AM |