OT: Operating System Upgrade

TurinTurambar · #1 September 6th, 2005, 02:37 PM

Given the gargantuan limitations of Windows ME, I'm going to ditch it and install a new OS.

Given the intent of Mr.Gates and his ilk to stop supporting Win2K as soon as possible, and the fact that Photoshop CS2 needs it, the "upgrade" will unfortunately be XP:Pro. I've been learning to deal with XP on another machine, and since SP2 it's been tolerable, so I'll manage.

Now the last time I did this was from 95 to ME. They both run on DOS so there was no problem just installing the new one over the old one. Now since XP has no DOS in it, will I be able to do the same thing? Just throw in the CD and spend an hour at it?

Any help/advice/warnings appreciated. (Other than "Oh my god, don't go to XP - it sucks!" I'll just ignore that.)

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Ed Kolis · #2 September 6th, 2005, 02:53 PM

You could go with Linux... who needs Photoshop when you have the GIMP?

El_Phil · #3 September 6th, 2005, 03:06 PM

The GIMP or a GIMP. That is an imporant distinction.

XP can boot and install from the CD, I did it no problem. The dual booting support was amazingly simple, but then I did have a new hard drive to put XP on. Unless your short of space or want to do clever rights access stuff I wouldn't put NTFS on, even then the space saving appears to be pretty small in the scheme of things. The disadvantage of NTFS is that almost nothing can read an NTFS drive without pissing around.

Finally you may want to run the file and transfer wizard before nuking ME. It does roughly what it says on the tin and is good at getting my documents, start menu, IE favourties etc. On the other hand as you'll need to re-install most software and may not use IE it could be a total waste of time.

Just my 1.4 trillion Turkish Lira.

TurinTurambar · #4 September 6th, 2005, 04:32 PM

I do use I.E. and would of course run the wizard. I hadn't thought about having to re-install everything. Gag. The registry values installed for ME would make a whole buncha crap not work anymore in XP. I sicken just thinking of it.

Ah well, can't stand in the way of "progress." I've got nothing better to do over the next coupla weeks than reinstall software that I find not working, right? Gag.

Would purchasing an upgrade CD (not usually advised, I know) lessen some of the impact and self-upgrade some things like Office 2000, etc.?

Iron Giant · #5 September 6th, 2005, 04:32 PM

I would:

1. Copy off all your important files to a CD or USB memory stick

2. Write down all your components from Device Manager and get the XP drivers downloaded a CD or Memory stick

3. Completely wipe the hard drive as part of the XP install and reinstall all applications.

Everything just runs better when its all minty fresh

TurinTurambar · #6 September 6th, 2005, 04:34 PM

Considering the size of this system, I would rather have GT shove his Red Hot Firepoker Cannon up my arse than wipe these two hard drives.

Xrati · #7 September 6th, 2005, 05:21 PM

Don't worry about reinstalling all your stuff. I upgraded to SP2 only to find I had to reset all my programs after SP2 installed itself and erased all my settings. Thanks

Gates!!!

Just do what Iron Giant recommends (on CD or DVD if you can) and remember that "CHANGE IS GOOD" and the longer you procrastinate, the longer it will take you to get up and running.

Suicide Junkie · #8 September 6th, 2005, 06:01 PM

Note:
You don't have to wipe all the drives.

Only the particular partition of the particular drive you're going to be installing to.
You can move all the generic files you want to keep to the other drive for safekeeping.

Thermodyne · #9 September 6th, 2005, 07:20 PM

I wouldn�t upgrade, way too many limitations. What I would do is buy another drive and then do a dual boot. That way you get the best of both worlds. You can still run your legacy software on 9x. As for files, not apps, you�ll be able to access them from XP.

TurinTurambar · #10 September 6th, 2005, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Thermodyne said:
I wouldn�t upgrade, way too many limitations. What I would do is buy another drive and then do a dual boot. That way you get the best of both worlds. You can still run your legacy software on 9x. As for files, not apps, you�ll be able to access them from XP.

Interesting idea...

Someone once posted the method for creating a dual-boot system, but IIRC, doesn't XP have to be on FIRST? Anyone have a link where I can read up on that?