Yet Another Computer Question.

[biglou]

I have a question. My IT guy at work can change my OS from ME to 2000. He says it will be just like starting with a new computer with Windows2000 on it. My question is, I don't have discs for all of my programs that I have on my PC at home, it just came with the programs already on the computer. He says there is no way to extract these programs to save them for reinstallation once we change the OS. Does this sound right? Are these programs on the start up disc or on a backup disc somewhere? The reason I am looking to upgrade is because, well, ME sucks, in case no one's noticed! I also realize that I may have given incomplete info here as I am at work at the moment. I need to do some more research or get some more info before I tear the system down and bring the box in to work for the transplant. Any ideas on any of this? Thanks for any help.

 

[Papakeith]

If all of those programs are on a recovery disk you are kinda skrewd. Whatever you do, back up your data before you bring it anywhere.

 

[Papakeith]

What programs are installed now that you will loose?

 

[Okiewan]

Why bother going from ME to another outdated OS? Go to XP.
Most of the programs on the machine will run on XP, Win2K was a lot less compatable.

Yes, usually preinstalled software is on a strat-up or setup disk that came with the machine. Back in the day, the mfg's included full copies of the programs.

I used Win2K for a couple of years, XP is a LOT better. Faster and more stable by far.

 

[Milk]

Lou-Xp has Microsoft Movie Maker included. :thumb:

Okie-Have you noticed XP slowing your system down? I had it installed on my office PC (667mhz 128mb RAM) and it seemed to get slower by the day.

 

[bsmith]

What programs do you need?

I second the XP.

 

[biglou]

OK, I'm on hold here. I was just mentioning the other day how I have all these weird hangups and glitches on the home PC not unlike the problems I was having with the old work PC, and my IT guy says he can hook me up with 2000. He believes ME is the root of all my evil (on the PC, that is). I think Movie Maker is the only one I really can't live without that I don't have the disk for or that I can't download online. Everything else I think I have the disc for. Oh, I would love to get Word and Excel at home. Right now I just have "Works", and it leaves a little to be desired. Anywho, I'm on hold for right now. Thanks for the recomendations. I believe XP perhaps on a new Dell (Dude!) may be in order if I can figure out what the heck I am doing here. :)

 

[TwinSpar]

ME is the devil! I've got it at home (HP Pavillion w/ 1.3 Athalon). I blew everything away and tried installing W2K. I couldn't find drivers to work with some of the hardware (proprietary crap) and that fact finally drove me back to ME. That was about 6 months ago. I'm looking at having to run the recovery CD AGAIN! :flame:

 

[XRpredator]

I use level 4 on my Speak n' Spell . . .

 

[Chili]

I pretty much run the gamut of OS's here with XP one one machine (general family use, gaming etc) Win2k Pro on one(basically a storage pc and ftp server) and Win98SE on my older laptop. The machine I am running XP on came with ME on it and I reformatted it and put on XP after less than a week of Using ME. I would recommend XP and Win2k Pro both highly although I would run XP if I had to choose. As for Milk's experience 128 Megs of RAM is pretty much the absolute bottom end for specs I would try to run XP on.

 

[tcarp]

Ahh good ole ME..That stands for Miserable Edition right? If you happen to have the recovery CD or if Its a Compaq you can order one through them and sometimes browse the CD and extract programs. XP PRO is the way to go though!!

 

[Rich Rohrich]

Lou - FWIW, I've successfully used the Magic Mover utility that comes with Power Quest's Partition magic to accomplish the OS/data conversion. It takes a little thought and some slight of hand, but it worked well. The caveat is I have never used it to go from ME to 2000 so the whole thing may be meaningless. ME isn't my favorite either, but as Twinny pointed out finding drivers for a new OS may cause the cure to be worse than the disease. :)

 

[SpokerAce]

I agree with staying away from 2000. Even if you do find a way to keep everything after upgrading, you can't go from 2000 to XP without the same sort of fight.

ME should go to XP without you losing anything (at least in all my upgrades it's worked fine).

I had 2 laptops running 2000 but after fighting with drivers for a day I scrapped it and went to XP. 3 machines at home running XP and no problems. I have a 4th running 98 still and it's contsantly getting hung up.

 

[biglou]

Thanks everyone. I think I have an idea of what I am going to try. XP Pro. Might be a couple weeks, but I'll see how it goes. I'm still in the multiple questions stage right now! I have a bunch of research yet to do. I'll give a report when finished.

 

[motodawg]

Microsoft has released Windows Media Series 9 in beta for W2k and XP. Many new features and services.

 

[Chili]

Originally posted by SpokerAce
I agree with staying away from 2000. Even if you do find a way to keep everything after upgrading, you can't go from 2000 to XP without the same sort of fight.

ME should go to XP without you losing anything (at least in all my upgrades it's worked fine).

I'm not sure what kind of issues you'd have going from 2000 to XP but as far as the second statement goes I would never recommend upgrading an OS. You are far better off to format and do a clean install, upgrades simply add up to more potential headaches down the road.

Just my .02

 

[Tony Eeds]

Chili - Are you one of those white lab coat types? :)
I got my laptop back from the shop yesterday with a new 20gig harddrive and an OEM load of 98. They would not load XP Pro for me because they don't sell software!? Oh well, 24 hours later and only 3 or 4 drivers to go .... then 4 or 5 more programs ....

Yearend brings a new Toshiba laptop!!! :thumb:

Tony

 

[SpokerAce]

I don't like doing upgrades directly on top of OS's unless it's a home machine. All of my customers are required to install on clean servers whenever they go to a new OS. Heck, I even make some of them do that when they upgrade the software I support. Thankfully I'm almost done with this job and should be out of the support arena soon....after I take a couple months off from working that is....

Personally, I do clean installs, but I also have CD's for every bit of software I own so I'm not concerned about losing anything.

The problem with 2000 to XP is that it won't even allow it to happen.

 

[Chili]

Originally posted by Tony Eeds
Chili - Are you one of those white lab coat types? :)

Tony there are tons of white lab coats around here but they won't let me wear them, something about the people might think I work here or something or other :scream:

SpokerAce My bad on the win2k --> XP I wasn't thinking upgrade as I typed I was thinking about driver issues. I've never had any driver issues with XP of course it helps when your equipment is 2 years old at best :think: