MAYBE ? XP may be here to stay

I Went for broke down, grabed the proverbial bull by the horns this AM and dumped XP Pro ( with SP1 ) in on top of 98SE.

After I got the updates which included .NET Extenshun fired up immediately.

I did not have to touch the LAN AT ALL. Everything was GO as soon as I booted the first time. It picked up the other two machines right off. Had a problem with printer sharing but that was expected. New drivers fixed it.

ALL games the we play between the PCs have NO problems. In fact too good. My Wife just beat me in a Golf game.

Had to re-install the printer, Nero And a couple of other things but for the most part all went quite well. Anything that brought up and error got re-installed.

I do not know how one of the Audio parts got on IRQ 40 but who cares. IT WORKS. and Quite well to.

Now all I gotta do is go find things. I have not found the MS Firewall yet but another day is coming.

But, overall things seem to be going VERY well. It fact better then expected with an overtop install.

BillyBob

 

I would forget the MS firewall. You will not be able to configure it so you will lose your network. Why I use a 3rd party firewall that can be configured.

XP is not bad, it is real stable, but do not expect the tools to work like they did in 98.

 

I forgot to say that I wanted to disable MS Firewall.

I do have Kerio install and working for both Internet and LAN.

but do not expect the tools to work like they did in 98.

That is for sure.

 

XP firewall - just get into the properties for your NIC or internet connection and you should see a check box for "protect my PC from bad stuff out there" or something to that effect.

If it is not checked, your XP firewall is disabled. I think that is the default for XP-pro while enabled is for XP-home but not positive.

And welcome to the interesting world of XP. You should have fun with it.

 

I found it FINALLY . It was unckecked.

It not so much knowing what to do with what is is just finding it in the first place.

You say interesting. That my Friend it for darn sure.

I do have to say that XP did a very good job to picking up what was in 98. It picked up all the other PC names and address.

The only thing ( hardware wise ) that I do not have back in service is my Scanner. I have not found XP drivers for it yet. But If I can't I will just set it up on the other machine.

But the bottom line is now that I have it in where it seems to be solid I WILL conqure it.

 

Good to hear BB

I said it often and I think you even commented on it, upgrades almost always work on a clean and tight system. I know yours was!

Great!

As for finding things, look in settings "Taskbar and Start Menu" and chose classic view (if you want) and it will begin to look like 98. There are a few other things you can do to get it even closer in look to 98.

I know you already have RegCleaner and EasyClean etc and they will work as always so here are my best XP specific recommendations.

RegScrubXP http://www.lexunfreeware.com/LexunFreeware.htm
NOTE: W2K and XP only!

http://www.webattack.com/get/xpantispy.shtml

Mike

 

I find it interesting no one made mention of making a clean install with a format & the ability to partition w/ the XP Pro install set-up rather than a paint-over, especially with an extremely stable NT platform over Win9x.

 

Well for one thing we are talking about what was done not what could be.

Mike Is correct. I have forever NOT recommended to upgrade overtiop of a troubled system.

But with a good error free as possible system, go for it. And Mike knows that I had that.

Have problems ? An overtop re-install with the SAME version, go for it.

I also have one of the best backups you can have if things did go wrong. I have the Ready to plug in and go ORIGINAL HD.

I have also deliberatly and purposely switched them to make sure that the BIOS ( CMOS ) was going to handle the change properly WITHOUT my intevention.

But either way we go there is ALWAYS a chance for un-needed, unwanted, un-expected, PITA, why the hello did it do that problems ? Then we have to figure out whether it was the OS or the User who caused them. A combination of same maybe ?

BillyBob

 

Mornin BB

Glad to hear things are still going well.

More suggestions for you to consider.

1. Get a good image now of the XP Boot drive so as you begin to tweak and personalize if something goes south you go back no further than you are now. Especially do this before any large Win update.

2. As I have written about before, when you install 2K or XP over 98 etc. even with a squeaky clean system there are a few extra things you need to do. You have done most of these already by installing new XP drivers where needed and even reinstalling some programs.

But one of the things you need to do is a registry clean. Because on an overlay upgrade XP overwites the parts of the registry it needs to install itself and additionally some of the registry items for the installed program base of applications and utilities. It even attempts to remove orphan and invalid registry entries

But it does not do them all, quite a few win98 specific registry items are left as orphans since XP install errs on the side of conservatism.

Typically I shotgun them by doing the following steps.
1. backup image (of course)
2. Run in the following order

a: EasyClean Reg Cleaner (temps also)
b. Regcleaner, clean the obvious ones on the first page, then run the "Do them all "
c: System Mechanic registry and (clean temps and links)
d: lastly the XP specific RegScrubXP reg cleaner.

You might consider the above steps to finish removing the win98 specific and other invalid or orphaned registry entries.

Mike

 

BillyBob
If you end up not being able to find drivers for your scanner you might try using Win NT drivers (if available) or maybe a Win 2K driver. I have an old Visioneer scanner that isn't supported by XP and all the info I found said it won't work with XP. I tried the NT driver available (no Win 2K driver either) and it did the trick for me. Works like a charm.

 

Uddate.

Scanner problems has now been resolved.

Went to HP site and there as pretty as you please sat an UPGRADE for my SE software to make it work with XP. Dnld/installed and BINGO !!

No un/re-install required.

I think right now I will just let this thing settle in for a few days. Try running all installed programs to see if any adjustments are needed, then start peaking & tweaking.

BillyBob

 

Hey Mike

I applied that rule to 98SE with the Scanreg. I made a new RB00X.cab file JUST BEFORE making any major changes. It saved my sorry butt more than once believe me.

And I plan to implement the same proedure with XP. Just a different file. And it contains stuff other than the registry.

Makum Back-em-up. Makum changes. Things go wrong. Restore backup and start over.

Things go well and good then me makum NEW back-em-up.

Right now I only have SR enabled on the C: drive as I am tring to get rid of un-needed stuff on the others.

BillyBob

 

"SR" ??

Mike

 

System Restore

 

I live dangerous,

RegscrubXP downloaded and installed

New restore point made.

RegsrubXP ran.

Now have 50 less useless keys in the reg. With a good many of them refering to already uninstalled software. ( more than 1/2 )

System improving.

BilllyBob

 

10-4 on the SR Bruce.

BB did you run the XpAntiSpy yet?

And did you try Classic view?

Mike

 

Yes to xp-AntiSpy and Classic views.

BB

 

10-4 to TonyT

BB this is where it will get really different from what you are used to in 98.

You have already turned off messenger with XpAntiSpy so the next most obvious are Indexing, DNS and DHCP clients.

Mike

 

DNS and DHCP clients.

Aren't they needed by the LAN ? I was going to stop them via services.msc but chanced my mind.

I believe I did get indexing shut down ??????

Also Kerio FW shows SVCHOST.EXE and SYSTEM with open connections. All are listening. That is the only question there.

But I look at the Admin advanced tab and I see nothing but legal stuff coming or going.

BTW. with the help of you folks this is coming along much better than I expected. But I think a lot of that has to do with getting a better install in the first place.

But I also have a good old fashioned PENCIL and PAPER to write down what I changed. I find that I can no longer saftely rely to heavily on MY memory.

BillyBob