[Upgrading Windows 98 to XP?]

My desktop is nearly 9 years old. It runs Win98SE.

It has a 900MHz AMD Athlon processor,DVD ROM and CD-RW and floppy drives,30Gb HD with acres of space, 256Mb RAM. It came with a "Recovery Disk "---well used!

Running very well.

Been looking at a "Sky" TV/broadband bundle. Sky tell me that I can't have BB with them as they don't support Win98SE.I asked why as I already have a BB connection with "Orange ". The answer was that they developed their BB when 98 was already "obsolete" ---not strictly true but I get their gist. They suggested upgrading.

I don't want to buy/can't afford a new computer.

I've read lots of advice re upgrading to, say, XP but it's all years old (not surprisingly I suppose.)

So, now here in the middle of 2009, can I upgrade to say XP and, if so, how do I go about it and roughly what sort of cost would be involved?

Look forward to any help you can give me.

Graham Newey

 

Graham,

The Sky BB should be OK on your computer (though Sky won't support it). The two biggest issues you'll have are.

1) Sky's installation CD may not work but you should be able to enter any required settings manually (provided you have a tech savvie friend to help you).

2) If your connection breaks down even if it's a sky issue you'll get little help from Sky (a workaround is to borrow a supported system though).

 

first of all - or perhaps second - if you were able to do an upgrade of win 98 to XP the two formats are just so different that an upgrade rather than a complete new install would not be a good choice
It would be better to install fresh
If you do have some irreplaceable software that you need then perhaps an upgrade might make sense rather than a complete new install
It will take however a great amount of time of the computer chugging away to do the upgrade
Its really not worth it to do the windows xp upgrade on your current computer ( which ever way you do it)
To get the ram to make Windows XP run ok will be expensive if not logistically difficult due to the available size of ram of your vintage and the number of ram slots that you have on your motherboard
On top of that what of hard drive space
Remember as well that over time Windows XP has grown not only larger in size but much more demanding
See if you cannot get an off lease IBM or business compaq
You will get adequate ram or at the least an upgrade of ram will be available
The computer should come with a XP sticker
Stay away from off lease Dells as they are fairly propietary - if you need hardware repairs
Spring for the new computer

 

Although that PC would little improve on his existing one, looking at the RAM, that would have to be upgraded... And his current hard-drive would be best off moved into it, or replacing it if necessary... Apart from the CPU, it's no improvement, from what I can tell...