Updating operating system to XP

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bsloe

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I plan to update my OS from ME to XP over the weekend. I am transferring all the data on my pc to an external hard drive and then removing all programs, then removing ME and loading XP

Is this the way to do it as I have never attempted this before... the last thing I need is to wreck the PC. I have 512 RAM in it so I should be ok on that side

Any tips or advice would be welcome
 
I'm pretty sure you can just use an upgrade of xp and not lose anything. If you just put the cd in after ME loads you can run the install that way.
 
bsloe said:
then removing all programs, then removing ME
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What do you mean by this?

If you save off all your data/files and have installation CDs for all of your applications then you should be able to just install XP from scratch (assuming that you have a full install and not an upgrade version of XP) by selecting the [re]format disk option in the installer.

I'm sure that there is lots of information about moving from ME to XP through upgrading or reinstalling and about migrating to different versions of Windows and making sure to retain all of your personal data on the web in general.
 
rkeane said:
I'm pretty sure you can just use an upgrade of xp and not lose anything. If you just put the cd in after ME loads you can run the install that way.
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Personally I would be more inclined to do a clean install if at all possible to avoid accumulating crap from one version of Windows to another. Especially ME!
 
ClubMan said:
Personally I would be more inclined to do a clean install if at all possible to avoid accumulating crap from one version of Windows to another. Especially ME!
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Its a longer process and no need to back anything up. Any crap that is still there can be removed afterwards.
 
remember if you are doing an upgrade you will need your ME cd and will be prompted for it during the upgrade to allow XP to verify the upgrade license!
 
rkeane said:
Any crap that is still there can be removed afterwards.
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It's not that easy. Even technical users would be hard pressed to distinguish legacy ME stuff (e.g. drivers, system DLLs etc.) that can safely be removed after an upgrade and I for one don't trust Windows upgrade installs to do this automatically. In any case I prefer doing clean installs from time to time especially when doing an upgrade.
 
nai said:
remember if you are doing an upgrade you will need your ME cd and will be prompted for it during the upgrade to allow XP to verify the upgrade license!
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I dont think you need the ME cd. I done one of these upgrades about 2 months ago and I think XP just verifies it from whats already installed. Maybe I'm wrong.
 
But wheres the harm in leaving them there? They are not going to take up a huge amount of drive space.
 
rkeane said:
But wheres the harm in leaving them there? They are not going to take up a huge amount of drive space.
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Upgrade installs can result in a flakey system that will not be the case with a clean install.
 
ClubMan said:
Upgrade installs can result in a flakey system that will not be the case with a clean install.
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There is no denying that it can, however, its easier and cheaper to just do the upgrade.
 
Not easier in the long run if it results in a frustratingly unreliable system. Perhaps try the upgrade install and if it doesn't prove reliable look at doing a clean install.
 

I am going to remove all the software and then ME. I am doing a full installation not an upgrade...I was told this was the best thing to do. Can I overwrite XP over ME ie dont remove ME and just insert the XP CD?
 
How are you going to remove the applications (Add/Remove Programs?) and ME (?). If you are doing a full install then you don't need to "remove" anything - you just choose the option to repartition/reformat the hard disk when installing anew. Obviously only do this after making sure that you have backed up all important user files and that you have the installation media for all important applications, drivers etc.
 
Backup *.dll files (driver files) for any devices that you have, unless you have them on disk already. Especially video drivers. from what iv found XP only has basic viideo driver, and sound driver. do a full install with a format. i also recoomend doing tha following. partition your disk in 2 eg 40gig break it up into 15gig and 25gig. set up windows on the 15gig. use the smaller partition for windows and applications and the bigger one for My Documents. you can set the location using regedit if you know how to use it. if not there is an application called tweak UI
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Set the location of MY Documents to the larger partition.
why?
if you have a second disk then use the second one for my docs. (handy way to protect your data from theft, fire just remove the disk and take it with you)
If you ever have a fatal system crash and need to do a rebuild you dont have to worry about your data on the partition it wont be touched.
If you get a virus more often it will not seep into another partition.
You can rebuild the OS anytime you want i generally do it every 6 months because of all the rubbish i accumalate over the period and like to get the max spped out of the machine.
 
hey bsloe - not being smart with you but if you've never done this before i'd suggest getting a buddy or someone you know to either do it for you or oversee what you're doing. i work at this lark and its very easy to make a complete and utter mess of your machine and/or and of the data that you may have wanted. believe me, i've wasted a couple of machines in my time! but my ratio isn't too bad. some days i may have to reformat and reinstall 5-6 machines and this is fairly straight forward when you know what you're about but be careful. as was also mentioned is the partitioning. once again, fairly straight forward when you know what you're doing. what file system are you going to use etc? i really suggest you get someone to help you. good luck and fingers crossed!
 
joeysully said:
Backup *.dll files (driver files) for any devices that you have, unless you have them on disk already. Especially video drivers. from what iv found XP only has basic viideo driver, and sound driver. do a full install with a format.
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I would not try to manually cobble together the relevant drivers from the ME installation for use on a new XP installation. I would be more inclined to go to the various manufacturers' websites and download the driver packages for the relevant devices before tearing down the ME installation and starting anew with XP.
I also always create a small (e.g. twice the size of physical RAM) partition dedicated to the Windows virtual memory paging file (so that it is not adversely affected by fragmentation on partitions used for other purposes) and then tweak Windows to use just the pagefile on that partition.
 
I agree with Clubman that a clean install is a better idea than upgrading, as I have found upgrading Windows OSes to be a very long-winded exercise in the past. You will find yourself updating drivers for weeks and will almost definitely have a system with a lot of crap on it. The best way to clean down the crap is to format it and start again.

I would also question why you want to upgrade from ME to XP? If the hardware is that old, is it going to work reliably and satisfactorily with XP? Probably not!

To be honest, and based mostly on experience with laptops, I have never had a satisfactory eXPerience (if you'll pardon the expression) upgrading the OS. The OEM version - Dell, IBM, HP, whatever - usually comes with many specific drivers and features (such as the Access IBM key, battery utilities and other hardware and software specific features) that you lose when you move to a generic Microsoft Windows version. Plus, you spend weeks or more updating drivers for CD/DVD writers, graphics cards etc. Plus, with Dell in particular, you can get odd behaviour that is difficult to troubleshoot - inability to resume from suspend mode, for example - and impossible to sort out with Dell technical support once you have moved away from the Dell OEM OS.
 
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