I'm switching from XP to 98SE

My son is selling me his computer with has XP installed but I particularly want to retain my 98SE with existing programmes and settings. My idea is to get him to switch the hard drives from the old machine to the newer.

Would this work? What are any potential snags?

 

first of all if the windows xp uses the default ntsf file format you will not be able to read the drive in windows 98
windows 98 can read fat32 but cannot even see a ntsf formatted drive
you will not be able in any way to move programs over - just data
On top of that if the programs are newer versions than what is on ( or will run on the windows 98 machine ) the older versions may not be able to use the data
Keep in mind marketing - Office / word etc XP run on 98
It does not need xp to run
What you do is copy the data over to a medium that can be read on the windows 98 computer - either burn cds , or use a flash drive or external hard drive that you can find windows 98 se drivers for
For flash drives the windows 98 se drivers may not be listed but if you go to support website you may find the driver for the product line under an older smaller version of the same product
Just copy the data over whether its on cd or flash drive
You can also copy data over an internet connection - router
You may want to compress - zip / rar the data and shoot it over from one computer to another using a messenger service
Set up 2 accounts with same service - msn , yahoo messenger skype or whatever

 

The less complicated way would be to install the applications you need from your Win98SE setup to the XP setup if they can be run on XP. Transferring any personal data would be simple by slaving the Win98SE drive to the XP drive.

If the applications cannot be run on XP and you positively need Win98SE on the new PC, I would do a fresh install of 98SE once the drive was installed on the XP PC. You would then need to find compatible Win98SE drivers to install for the hardware on the new PC. You would also need to get the updates for Win98SE and reinstall them. Once done reinstall your applications. Don't forget to backup any personal data before proceeding with any of these senarios.