Upgrading From 98SE

I am a novice so things have to be as simple as possible for me. I have read a clean install is the best but I don't feel that capable and my computer can't be down if I mess up.

If a clean install probably isn't an option for me do you recommend staying with 98SE, versus using XP Upgrade Home Edition?

If you say the XP upgrade is still worth it, will I have to reinstall printers, scanners, etc., or will everything be as before?

Thanks!

Mike

 

Everything will not be as before.

Some software will probably not work. Most will work when reinstalled, but not all.

No Win98 drivers for any hardware work in XP so all your hardware will have to be reinstalled, though most common pieces of hardware will have XP drivers on the CD and will be installed during setup.

Outlook and OE mail may get lost so you should save all of it elsewhere.

You'd definitely be better off doing the clean installation, and it is really very easy if you just follow the onscreen prompts during XP setup.

You can insert the XP CD and choose the option to check for compatibility before installing to see if there are any potentially serious problems you might face.

 

I sure would like to try XP, but I will have to think about this. I guess I could pay someone to do a clean install for me so they could make sure everything was working, or would this take so much time it wouldn't be feasible?

I have an old retired teacher who works on computers and he is the one who said using XP upgrade disc was easy but there appears to much more to this than he said. And he did not even mention doing a clean install.

I know XP has more stringent regulations about registering etc., but if I buy this will it allow you to install it on more than one computer? If so I could practice on my old computer but it's only a 400MHZ and has 250Ram.

I have free access to a copy of XP Pro, would that work?

Mike

 

Not wishing to appear as the Prophet of Doom, I should note that very many people have done upgrades with no problems at all. I just wanted to prepare you for the worst case.

Installing XP cleanly can be done in less than an hour. Reinstalling your apps will take longer, of course.

If you decide to go this route, take some time to save as much as you want to CD or elsewhere. The time will be worth it so you don't discover you have lost all your Favorites, cookies for frequently visited sites, documents, etc.

If you have an app available like Acronis True Image, you may even want to back up the entire 98 hard drive. Acronis has a facility that allows to to browse these images and retrieve anything you may have forgotten to back up originally.

You may even want to try the upgrade first. Just back everything up, install the upgrade, and if it has problems, then choose the clean installation method.

And, yes, you could practice the installation on another computer. But don't activate it. You will have 30 days (I think that is the amount of time) to use it before activating. Only activate on the computer you decide to keep it on. If not activated, you will not be able to log on after the grace period.

 

Plus, using the upgrade scenario and sticking with fat32, should you change your mind you have the option of uninstalling XP which will roll you back to your win98 state (minus anything you may have chosen to delete or uninstall while using XP.

I can't recall if it does this automatically or asks if you wish to save your win98 installation.

In any case it's a practice computer and that's what there for. To make your mistakes and learn from the experience. In most cases you'll find that something that sounded difficult, turns out to be no big deal.

By the way I have had Xp on a P2 333 mhz 74 mg ram and dual boot to boot. It is a bit slow but do-able. You have to turn a lot of XP's visual "bells and whistles" off, add a few tweaks and it works just fine.

 

Thanks for the responses. I may not get the nerve to do this as I would probably forget to back something up. I may need to just stick with 98SE.

 

If you have enough PC (mostly enough memory and spare hard drive space) you can have both.

goddez1 mentioned making the PC dual-boot which basically means installing XP but keeping 98 so that when you boot, you are offered the option of starting in 98 or starting in XP.

Most folks decide after a short while that they no longer need 98 but while you have both, you haven't lost a thing and it is really easy to get rid of XP without touching 98 if you want to.

If you want to consider this route, post back and say what CPU you have, how much memory, and how much free hard disk space. Right-click on My Computer and click on properties and you should see the CPU and memory information.

 

I have a 40Gb harddrive with a little over 50% free space, 512 Ram and a 1600MHZ processor.

That does not seem like a bad way to do it, but do I understand that I will have to reinstall all my programs like antivirus, Printmaster, burning software, E-Zip etc., plus printer, scanner, media reader etc.? I would have so much to reinstall if that was the case I and I'm not sure I have the capability or time.

Mike

 

Any program you want to use in XP will have to be reinstalled in XP.

But the beauty of Newt's idea is that you will still be able to use your Windows 98 as it is right now. You can gradually install programs into XP at your leisure and be sure they all work.

You'll have your present setup and XP to grow into
With XP's Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, you can easily copy your data files, documents, and many settings that you want to keep from 98 to the XP installation.

And you'll have all the time you need since you can still use 98. The best of both worlds.

 

Yup. With a dual boot setup you can take a year or two to get XP like you want it.

And I get a sense that not having to worry about bad things happening (since if they do it would be to the XP piece and not affect 98) would give you peace of mind that would make the additional work worth while.

 

ok

Can someone tell me how to implement "Newts" suggestion? Im Mikes brother and told him I would help him set it up. Will I have to partition his existing harddrive to do this? Just give me some instructions and I'll try to set him up with his "dual boot" computer. He does have another older harddrive on his other computer, I could take out and install in his present one, if we need to save some information from his present harddrive. Just give me some directions, and we will see what happens.
thanks,
coadman

 

I went ahead and bought another hardrive (120gb) so now we need to know how to proceed. I want to keep (for now) 98SE on my current 40gb drive but add the 120gb drive and put XP on it. Can someone explain what all we have to do in detail? Thanks!


Mike

 

(copy of my email response earlier today)

Lets assume you have your 98 load on C: and a CD drive labeled as D:

When you put in the XP install CD it will do a bit of this and that then bring you to a screen where you choose the drive where you want XP loaded. It should offer the choice of C: or F: (since the CD drive is not available).

Choose F: and make the partition there any size you want from 10Gb (about the minimum I'd ever put the XP OS on) to the full size of the drive. When you format the partition you'll have a choice of FAT32 or NTFS. Either one will be able to 'see' the 98 load but the 98 load will not be able to see a partition formatted NTFS. Usually not a problem and for me, NTFS is a better option since I think it is more stable and certainly has more security features. Other folks prefer to have it as FAT32. Your choice and either will work fine but if you go with FAT32 you will have quite a bit less effective storage space on the drive. Probably only about 2/3 as much as with NTFS.

When the XP install completes you will have a dual boot system and every time you start the PC you'll have the option to start in 98 or XP. The bulk of the XP files will be on F: although it will put a few system files on C: and will modify C: slightly to suit it's needs. Nothing you'll normally notice though.

Down the road if you want to just have XP, you can simply delete the 98 OS pieces and delete one line from the boot file to remove the 98 option since it would no longer work.

 

Thanks Newt! I should have my harddrive this weekend so we may be posting back if we run into a problem, thanks again.


Mike

 

I'm betting it will go smoothly for you.

 

I received a follow-up email from the fella who is going to do the hardware part of the work and had to tell him that I am useless with solid objects but was sure someone on here could give a real answer rather than the WAG he'd get from me.

 

Newt has provided invaluable information about upgrading to XP, but has deferred to someone else about hardware questions.

Could someone answer the question my brother and I had about hooking up a new harddrive and my various other drives? I'm not sure I want to give up the ability to copy cds from one drive to the other without first having to put on harddrive.

We are at the point of actually doing the install so I want to know all the pros and cons before we procede.

Also since I'm going to have one harddrive with 98SE on it and another with XP, will XP cause any problems for 98SE drive? I thought I read somewhere that XP will actually make some changes to 98SE even though they are on separate drives, but maybe I'm mistaken. Thanks!


Mike

 

Too bad there is not always a black or white answer to these things.

Personally, I've tried many different configurations with my 2 CD-ROM's. Finally settled on both the burner (master) and plain CD-ROM on the second IDE channel. One of them is an older PIO drive and I wanted the 2 hard drives that use UDMA on the same channel together.

Of course, copying CD's "on-the-fly" is not recommended, but I have never has any problems doing it. I should note, however, that I generally set up the burning project and leave it to complete without using the computer much during that time. But with the improved buffering of the latest burner software releases, the chances of problems are reduced.

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As far as XP interfering with 98, the effect is minimal. Other than changing the boot configuration and boot.ini, the 2 will act independently.

But you may want to go with a boot manager rather than allowing XP to manage the dual boot. I installed 98 after installing XP and then used a boot manager to choose which OS I wanted to use.

This has the dual advantages that XP or 98 can be reinstalled (or altered in any other major way) without any changes being needed to the boot configuration. There is no longer any "older OS first" requirement or any choices needed about active partitions, even on the same drive.

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The great thing is that none of these choices is irreversible.

If you have some problem with your initial choice of IDE configuration, for example, you can just switch your CD-ROM and hard drive connections without anything getting broken .

http://gag.sourceforge.net

And a boot manager like GAG can be installed or uninstalled from a floppy, leaving everything as it was before the installation.
(I have no real preference for GAG over other managers---it allows 9 OS's which is more than I will ever need and works well for me.)

 

Thanks for the info, we'll see what happens!

 

Hey Newt!

Installed XP per your instructions, and now when we reboot, in goes directly into XP, and doesnt give us the option to boot into 98,,,,,any ideas????
thanks,
coadman