XP - upgrade or new

[Anonymous]

My tech man told me that replacing the squirrely ME 2000 OS with XP was a good idea, but recommended I take it all the way down and load XP as if the machine was new rather than load an upgrade version over the top of ME. He was afraid the upgrade might not fix the lock up problems. Further, reloading the programs insured they would work right first time.

I was locking up and having to use reset, ctrl alt del would not work. It locked at the most annoying times. So far the techie is right, as i have had only 1 lock up in XP. Definitely more stable. But boy is it fun to load all the programs again. So far all have loaded correctly, work correctly, etc.

Just a thought for anyone threatening to upgrade to XP....interface stinks though. I am a text / windows explorer type guy, hate icons.

 

[Mountain Man]

Glad to hear yours is working. My tech dude told me to NOT leave Windoz 98 or 2000. Also am learning from other's experiences that a lot of older (over 1 year old) printers do not work in XP. Have you had any problems with printers or Adobe?

 

[Shannon]

I have two ancient printers. One is an HP III laser and the other is an HP 1600C deskjet. Both work great with XP, and I did not need any different drivers than the ones that XP stocks. All software works fairly well. I still run my scanner off the old machine, mostly cause I'm too cheap to buy a 32 bit SCSI card for the new computer. The old & new computers are connected via a router, and both share a DSL connection.

I really like XP, it's very stable, and it's easy. You can change the desk top look and get rid of the icon based menus.

Regards,

Shannon Julian
Chapel Hill, NC

 

[Stone]

I am looking at upgrading this summer, but have been told that our local MLS software has had problems running on XP. Has anyone had this problem with their local MLS? Or other programs?

 

[David Mullen]

Set up a dual boot system with WinME and WinXP. Then, you can gradually set up the XP partition at your leisure.

You may have some older programs or older hardware that will either not work at all or may not work as well under XP. Also, some of your devices may need new drivers that take time to accumulate.

With a dual boot system, you will be able to discover these potential problems and address them while still being able to work under the WinMe partion.

I did not know how to set up a dual boot, but after reading computer tech forums and buying Partition Magic, I figured out what dual booting was all about and did it on the first attempt. It is not hard at all but the idea can be intimidating at first. It is well worth the effort and will head off a lot of potential frustrations and problems.

 

[wyecoyote]

The only problem that I have had with XP is that I bought a Brother HL-1440. It prints when it wants to and locks up the machine will not print any word documents and prints metroscan information upside down and backwards. Finally after talking to the tech support at brother they told me to load the HPII print drivers. Now it works just fine and prints everything great.

Ryan

 

[Anonymous]

>>You can change the desk top look and get rid of the icon based menus. Thanks I needed to know that.

I have no problems with either Adobe distiller, writer, or reader and none with my printers. Again, my techie said this was a major problem with simply upgrading. That is why he recommends taking it down to the bare disk and starting all over.

XP is very stable, but I hate those annoying automatic notices about "do you want to upgrade.." Heck no. If it works why fix it?