2. is it really worth the headache of upgrading winMe.
3. is it really worth the headache of upgrading any os?
4. which is it you think is better the upgrade or the full install?
those are just some questions i came up with in my recent
nightmare of trying to upgrade 3 computers and or repair one computer's os.
heres the low down
1 sony vaio loaded with win xp home, but had been messed up by pevious owner.
check the forum here for my sony vaio message thread to see how bad it was hosed.
the previous owner did atleast buy a replacement pack of recovery cd's to give us because she lost the others.
it is wise to NEVER try and FIX anyone elses hosed computers when they give you
NEWLY BOUGHT recovery disks. that should have been a clue?
take them recovery disks and put the system back to its factory spects.
you will save yourselves 4 days of headaches just by doing that.
then if you want to upgrade that computer do not i repeat do not update any of the factory spec's install.
reason being the win xp pro upgrade cdroms will wipe the updates you just spent time getting. it will also wipe the version of Ie you have on the computer and install its own from its setup cdrom. it also kills the lic of your antivirus program.
so after you upgrade the xp home up to xp pro you need to reinstall the ie browser version you want to use. and you need to reinstall your antivirus program.
and you need to get all the updates again. if you like to go to windows update and sit there for hours on end then have at it. but it would be best to get a friend with a highspeed inter net connection and have them download the autopatch program. you need to get the core for that program then any updates to it. the need for broadban is visable when you see the size of the core version.
okay now for the other two headaches i had.
2 the winMe computer. if at all possible save what ever documents you have on that computer in a format you can read later.
then do a clean install not an upgrade. that was the headache i did not think about. but now i have a hd that is almost full and i can't find any junk files to get rid of. and from the known programs there's not enough files to fill up 30 gbs of space? but the upgrade of the winMe did fill it up some how?
so do your self a favor and clean install on that program os if you can. if not
get rid of all the old games and other winMe programs you don't want that wont work on xp pro anyway. remove all your documents on to cdroms get as much of the stuff off the hd as you can before you upgrade that winMe, make it a bare bones install if you can get rid of that much stuff.
other then the number of junk files and hd getting filled up that upgrade really went a lot easier then the one on the sony vaio.
now for the dell.
you know how dells are every one has heard about not being able to add hardware with out the dell stamp on it. thats true for the most part i did
try to replace the modem with out a dell stamp on the new one. but it did not work
how ever going from winXp home to Xp Pro is best done after you have
cleaned the junk out of the home's system and have it all defragemented and in order. make it as clean and neat as you can. you don't have to remove anything unless you have a failed install prior to your wanting to upgrade. then you need to
find that and get it cleaned out.
but a nice clean and good working xp home is the best thing to upgrade to xp pro.
only had to reinstall the browser, the antivirus and the updates but i used the autopatch program.
just one word of major advice. if you have not got rid of that geforce mmx 420 video card yet. do so before you upgrade. theres a bad upgrade for that on the microsoft update site and it keeps showing up like a bad penny.
by bad i mean if loaded it changes to "640 x 480 4 color " and wont let you change it out of that.
Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4871, old post ID:38171
don't know how much it will help 