Switching from 98SE - pros and cons

By the way, TCP/IP transfers via PC Relocator are pretty fast, but it's even faster just to go with a crossover cable between your two NIC cards. Approximately twice as fast, in fact -- or about 10 minutes per each gigabyte transfered.

 

To Be or not To Be...

I'll just say what I did with my P.C.:

P-III @ 550 Mhz. processor
ASUS P3B-F MOBO
384 MiB. SD-RAM

1-) Installed Windows 98 S.E. on first partition, as drive "C: ", formatted as "FAT-32 ". Leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned.

The size of "C:" depends on your needs. For Cal I recommend just 4Gb. (read: 4000 KiB.). No more.

(Now, for me that was about 15 GiB., because I'm a "sick collector" of old games and oldies, and in the "H/W emulation" land, emulators (like M.A.M.E.) *ALWAYS* run faster under plain Real-Mode D.O.S.: Monolithic Mono-tasking, no Windows loaded.)

2-) The rest of the disk ( "D:" drive) formatted as "NT-FS ", with Windows XP on it. Using Native NT/2k/XP's Boot Manager to select O.S. to boot.

Can install most applications as "shared" between Win98 & WinXP, if I always force XP to install to "C:\Program Files" instead of the "D:" one.

NOTE #1: I choose XP Pro because it's almost an upgrade from 2000. Think of an upgrade from WinNT 5.0 to WinNT 5.1. That's the reality under the hood.

I worked so heavily under WinNT 4.0 for the past years, and knew a bit of WinNT 3.5x, and even a taste of WinNT 3.1 back in middle 80's. And it's almost the same Kernel in XP as it was written by Big VAX Father for 3.1...

NOTE #2: The NetBEUI protocol can be found on Windows XP install C.D., if it's needed. I'm running it at home network (just 3 to 4 P.C.s) with no problems.

NOTE #3: For the curious: I sucessfully added LINUX, QNX and other O.S.s to NT Boot Manager using little'ol "BootPart" proggie. I prefer to it that way, 'cause no need to mess with the config file every time I phisically add or remove a Hard Disk (like LILO usually needs). Keep in mind I'm the kind of guy that always keep the P.C. opened, and not merely for ventilation isues...

NOTE #4: BootPart can be downloaded from: http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm

My 2 cents gone. Best regards and good luck to every contender on this "Sacred War"

 

dkline,

I read (misread?) somewhere that TCP/IP and PC Relocator don't get along very well. Your link and experience verifies that a TCP/IP connection is the fastest and best procedure. But there are other communication protocols that do present a problem. Thanks for the link and an explanation of your experience. It makes sense transfering data between PCs with a null modem would be slower.

I referenced XP's migration utility as a new feature that will accomplish file and setting transfers, but apps need to be installed, and the File Protection feature on XP will distinquish inappropriate software as does PC Relocator. Why MS does not include program apps in their utility routine doesn't make much sense from a technological and economical perspective!! It seems to me everything on their migration software feature would be in place for that addition without much trouble.

 

KenKeith,

The most amazing thing to me is that this issue -- migration of settings and apps and files from an old PC to a new one -- has not been addressed more effectively by MSFT and other firms.

I mean, this has got to be an issue faced by millions of PC consumers each year -- or at least hundreds of thousands -- right? So it's a big market. And yet only Aloha Bob seems to have developed a robust program to serve this market.

Weird.

 

Exactly. An easy no hassle migration from the old system to XP would have a promotional benefit to buy into XP=more $$ for MS.