Pre-installation question

Hello. My Gateway PC is running Windows 98 First Edition. There is a
possibility I may need to upgrade the operating system so that it will work
with wireless Internet hardware, such as USB routers. I'm somewhat leery of
Windows ME because of all the negative feedback I've read over the past 3
years. Windows XP seems a much more attractive choice, but I fear it would
be too much of an upgrade for my 4 year old computer (P2 450Mhz processor,
384MB of RAM, 13.5GB hard drive) to handle. I ran the XP compatibility
test, and found several potential driver problems. So, ME seems like an
easier, smoother upgrade. Okay, finally to my question:

By default, Windows Millennium installs IE 5.5 and WMP 7.0. My
computer is currently running IE 6.01SP1 and WMP 7.1. If I install ME, will
the installation program notice this and not touch those programs, or will
it erase them and install the older versions?

Jim
Sat Sep 06 17:51:42 CDT 2003

Observer3 wrote:
> Windows XP seems
> a much more attractive choice, but I fear it would be too much of an
> upgrade for my 4 year old computer (P2 450Mhz processor, 384MB of
> RAM, 13.5GB hard drive) to handle.

WIndows XP will run just fine on that computer. At some point you *might*
want to kick the RAM up to 512 MB but, unless you have some extraordinary
hoops to run it through, that's a perfectly good Windows XP computer.

You don't say how much hard drive space is free, though. I recommend,
especially for an upgrade, that you have 5 GB free just for Win XP. For a
clean install, you can get by with more like 3 GB. You can reduce the
demands more if you disable hibernation, reduce the amount that System
Restore retains, and move most of your pagefile off the main Windows
partition.

> I ran the XP compatibility test,
> and found several potential driver problems.

That's worth considering. Before making a final decision, check with the
manufacturers to see if, since the compatibility test came out two years
ago, they have newer drivers. Odds are that they do. Biggest exceptions are
pre-USB scanners... but most of them that don't work under XP also don't
work under ME.

> By default, Windows Millennium installs IE 5.5 and WMP 7.0. My
> computer is currently running IE 6.01SP1 and WMP 7.1. If I install
> ME, will the installation program notice this and not touch those
> programs, or will it erase them and install the older versions?

Not sure. In any case, after the install, just reinstall the upgraded
versions. Note, though, that it is often better to uninstall all upgrades of
this sort before an OS upgrade, then reapply afterwards.

--
Jim Eshelman
MS-MVP, Windows Shell/User
http://aumha.org/
http://WinSupportCenter.com/

Mike
Sat Sep 06 18:02:41 CDT 2003

Win XP:
Personally I don't think you need to be too leery of running XP on a PII 450
with 384MB as that is a similar configuration to the system on which I did
most of my beta testing for XP and that box is still here beside me happily
running XP Pro SP1 although it does have somewhat more disk space than your
system (16GB and 32GB scsi drives).

Win Me:
I don't think you need worry about having WMP7.1 installed although WMP9 can
cause problems but would definitely recommend that you uninstall IE6 SP1
before attempting to upgrade to Win Me. Once installed there is no reason
then not to upgrade to IE6 SP1.

See MS KB 312451 - "How to Remove Internet Explorer 6 by Reinstalling Windows"
(http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=312451) and also KB 293907 - "How to
Uninstall Internet Explorer 6" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=293907).
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP
mcmaltby@hotmail.com


Observer3 <nospam@nospam!.com> wrote:

> Hello. My Gateway PC is running Windows 98 First Edition. There
> is a possibility I may need to upgrade the operating system so that it
> will work with wireless Internet hardware, such as USB routers. I'm
> somewhat leery of Windows ME because of all the negative feedback I've
> read over the past 3 years. Windows XP seems a much more attractive
> choice, but I fear it would be too much of an upgrade for my 4 year old
> computer (P2 450Mhz processor, 384MB of RAM, 13.5GB hard drive) to
> handle. I ran the XP compatibility test, and found several potential
> driver problems. So, ME seems like an easier, smoother upgrade. Okay,
> finally to my question:
>
> By default, Windows Millennium installs IE 5.5 and WMP 7.0. My
> computer is currently running IE 6.01SP1 and WMP 7.1. If I install ME,
> will the installation program notice this and not touch those programs,
> or will it erase them and install the older versions?