HELP needed with Upgrade Advisor

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wayne Roop
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Wayne Roop

I wrote this hoping to send it to Microsoft but couldn't figure out
where or how to do so.If I come off a bit rough it's directed at Microsoft.
I do hope someone can give me some help.
I have a question or two using the 98SE-to-XP upgrade advisor. I do not
believe it's very helpful. I decided to try XP. Instead of directly
upgrading my 98SE I did a clean install on a different hard drive. The hard
drive is a new Western Digital WD400. All went as it should. XP installed
and ran fine. I then erased the hard drive and used the software provided by
W.D to copy my existing 98SE to the WD400. Again all went fine and 98SE
worked as it had been working: just fine. I then ran the compatibility check
from the CD. It hung at Setting Up the Database,running 3-4 minutes. It had
updated as needed. I tried that four times with the same result. I let it
sit over 30 minutes. I downloaded the upgrade Advisor, ran it, same result.
I had no programs running except Explorer and System Tray. I also had the
same results doing this in the safe mode. WHY??
All the hardware has worked with XP. I don't see where that could be a
problem. How am I being helped to see were the problem is? I may not have
the latest video or NIC drivers, but so what? They work just fine for 98SE
and will have to changed for XP no matter what. What good is an Upgrade
advisor/Compatibility Checker that won't tell me what's not compatible? What
database is it trying to set up that it can't? I am very disgusted with
this. I have too much installed to actually do a clean install then
reinstall everything. I should not have to do that.
PLEASE, help me out! What do I do next? Where do I look? I have to believe
I'm not the first person to have this happen.

Regards,
Wayne R.
 
The Upgrade Advisor checks software issues as well as hardware issues. A
clean install of XP would not involve any of the software problems that the
Upgrade Advisor might find in the Win98 setup. Before running the Upgrade
Advisor it is a very good idea to defragment the old drive and of course
check for spyware with Adaware, Spybot, Pest Patrol and anything else you
can find. If the drive is heavily fragmented the Upgrade Advisor would take
quite a while to build the database of programs and issues (if any).

In any case, although 30 minutes sounds a little long to me, I suggest you
let it run overnight and see what happens.

Also, if the WinXP cd is a retail copy that you purchased you can call MS
support for free assistance with installation issues. The number is at the
end of the cd folder. They are real pros on just this sort of thing.

Although it is an all-day job on most systems, I still would have run the
File and Settings Transfer Wizard to save my data files and program settings
onto another medium and then reinstalled my programs fresh onto the new hard
drive XP installation. FAST can take a while to run also, so don't get in a
hurry with it.

Clean installs are nicer to use than upgrade installs anyway. I use the
occasion to houseclean stuff I have hanging around on my old harddrive that
I don't use anymore anyway.
 
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