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1. what are you upgrading?
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

There's something radically wrong if you're using 30 GB on that ME machine.

A fully upgraded XP Pro should only take about 6 GB.

It's too bad that you didn't pay the extra money for a full XP Pro & then just wipe all the hard drives & forget those recovery disks.

I have been told that those recovery disks are not true, complete OS cds anyway, although I'm not sure about this.

For the space issue, look under C:Windows--for any uninstall files that look like this :

C:WINDOWS$NtUninstallKB900725$

The dollar sign thing.

Those can all be deleted.

They are there for rolling back updates--you'll never use them.

You can use the search--dollar sign--select all -delete--that's the easiest way.

Get the program CleanUP!--It's the safest & most through cleaner yet & works on all OS--can even be run from a floppy.Look under options--you can even delete all your favorites & even overwrite the deleted stuff--takes much longer.

The COOLEST thing is that it makes a toilet flushing sound!--HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?optio...id=29&Itemid=72 FREE!


For that video card--go into the hardware manager & uninstall it & reboot--Windows will reinstall it with the default driver.




Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4871, old post ID:38172

yep those are nice things to do.

but you see i can't see the files that are takeing up the room

there is no extra partitions. there are no folders hidden that have them in
and there is no un hidden folders i can find them in.

but something filled up the space.

i've run the cleaners i have some 4 or 5 of them
and each one finds a little more each run.
its almost like something was making files just
to fill it up? but i know theres nothing in there to do that.

i have that cleaner but it is bogging down
to a stop with 28 gb's to scan through.

i got an new one that really does a better job.

so good you better take all the carefulnes you can find
when you use it.

majorgeeks.com has it.

called "Ncleaner" no idea what the n is for? maybe nuke?

it does give tons of choices and it is fast nomatter how large the
file count is.

and it still cant find all the junk filling up the hd.

i get a little more with each run of the cleaners so sooner or later
it will get cleaned out..


but it is 19% free of file and the defragmenter needs 15% to defrag
so its working. same thing happened on this dell it is down to 14% free
space?

but i know what these files are. music on this one hd.

but the other xp pro which is in a pc i put together does not
have music on the c drive. its all on the d drive.

which is over half full now with music. its 80 gb's.


Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4871, old post ID:38175

WOW

I got that Ncleaner--that really is quite the program for free.

I have all these cleaners & registry cleaners & that thing found so much junk, I was SURE I'd get a blue screen when I rebooted, but it didn't.

Thanks.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4871, old post ID:38202

Also. I Googled a bit & came up with this to help you find where all your hard drive space went to.

TreeSize Free V2.1

Every hard disk is too small if you just wait long enough. TreeSize Free tells you where precious space has gone to. TreeSize Free can be started from the context menu of a folder or drive and shows you the size of this folder, including its subfolders. You can expand this folder in Explorer-like style and you will see the size of every subfolder. Scanning is done in a thread, so you can already see results while TreeSize Free is working. The space, which is wasted by the file system, can be displayed and the results can be printed in a report. TreeSize Free is freeware for Windows 9x/2000/XP/Vista.

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml FREE

I downloaded it--it works great.

You can delete or do whatever from the program & it's simple.

Doesn't need to be installed.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4871, old post ID:38204

thanks i got the free one also.

don't know how much it will help
if i can't see the files i hope it can.



Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:4871, old post ID:38220