xp upgrade from 98se

[philo]

philo wrote:



Again, what documentation or evidence can you provide to support this
claim? *Why* is it less likely to work? Nothing you've said below even
applies.




That should read "never..."

Nope, i once could not find an XP or win2k driver for a modem...
and tried a win98 driver...it worked fine.
Note: that was a one time only experience!

Not only "supposed to be," but have to be, if the device is to work
under the new operating system. WinXP won't even attempt to use the
Win9x device drivers, even if the files do remain on the hard drive.
The worst problem the Win9x drivers can cause is a the waste of a small
amount of hard drive space.




"Unsatable?" Does an upgrade somehow make the computer hungry? (And
the correct word would be "insatiable.") If you mean "unstable," this
would occur only if the original OS were problematic to start with, if
other installed applications were incompatible with the new OS, or if
the hardware platform were incompatible, defective, or sub-standard.

you know darn well that's a typo. *unstable*

Assuming there are no problems with the original OS, that all of the
Win95 device drivers were compatible with Win98 (which was often not the
case, if memory serves), other installed applications were compatible
with the new OS, and if the hardware platform is compatible,
non-defective, and not sub-standard, and there is no malware installed.




Again, assuming there are no problems with the original OS, that all of
the Win2K device drivers were compatible with WinXP (or were replaced by
WinXP-specific drivers), other installed applications were compatible
with the new OS, and if the hardware platform is compatible,
non-defective, and not sub-standard, and there is no malware installed.

Do you notice a trend, yet? Any upgrade can be problem-free, if the
underlying hardware is fully compatible with the new OS, if the existing
applications are fully compatible, and if the computer user properly
prepares and plans for the upgrade. Conversely, any upgrade over a
problematic OS, onto incompatible, defective, or sub-standard hardware
is likely to fail.




Again, can you produce any industry white-papers to this affect? On
what do you base your opinion?



Relevance? What percentage of these were properly prepared and
performed upgrades? What percentage were ill-prepared and poorly
performed upgrades? What, specifically, went "wrong" in the majority of
cases? What single common factor applies universally, to lead you to
summarily conclude that all upgrades are "bad?"

Note: none of my statements have been an opinion. I have emperical results
for
anything I have posted. If I've ever posted on usenet something that I have
not personally
tested I've said so. Now, to answer your question...I did not want to imply
that I've attempted 500
upgrades of win98 to XP...I just wanted to say that I have a lot of
experience with installing operating systems in general...and of the many
installs i've performed...maybe only 50 involved an upgrade of win98 to XP.

The first time I did it (my own system)...I thought...well why not just take
the easy route and just directly
upgrade the win98 to XP? I checked compatability and uninstalled one app
that was questionable...
then did the upgrade. It all was quite simple and painless and seemed to all
go well. *However*
even though the win98(se) installation had been working well ...my XP
experience was not a good one. There were occasional crashes and subtle
system instabilites
which led me to question whether or not XP was really as good as I was told.
Anyway...since I has already backed up my data, I decided to just do a fresh
install , then reinstall all the same apps...That was two years ago or so
and my XP installation
has been rock stable.

Anyway...since i am an experimentor by nature...I have done perhaps 20 or so
direct upgrades of win98 to XP on either test machines...or for other
people...and found
approx half of them to be less than desirable . Although for the most part,
the upgrade
did work...the system was not as stable as it was after I formatted the
drive and just did a clean
install. After that, I decided to just stick to clean installs and have had
virtually no problems since.
That's why I always recommend a clean install.

Additionally: How likely is it that the win98 installtion is 100 % trouble
free?
Doing a fresh install of XP pretty much eliminates that unknown.
Also, with a clean install, the drive is formatted again...and if there were
any drive problems...
that should also be taken care of.

Plus, it turns out that to do a completely fresh installation really does
not take all that long...
even including re-installing the apps.

I still recall the time I had spent over 4 hours trying to rid someone's
machine that was plagued
with viruses...And ending up just formatting the drive and reinstalling
their apps...all
within 90 minutes!


for more reading see this:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_9xupgrade.asp

Note: on google, if you look for problems upgrading from Win98 to XP
you will get thousands of hits. Most of the experts advise to perform a
clean install.

 

[philo]

philo wrote:

[snip]

FWIW: i have done well over 500 installations (of various operating
systems... not all microsoft)
for people over the last few years and have just wasted too much time
attempting to repair
bad upgrades!

OTOH: clean installs have worked fine virtually 100% of the time
( the ones that had problems, were typically minor and easy to fix)

check here for instructions on how to be more successful with your upgrades
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/upgrade_tips.htm

I assure you I've read and followed advice even more stringent that listed
on that site!

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I'll just bet you have.

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)

philo wrote: [snip]

FWIW: i have done well over 500 installations (of various operating
systems... not all microsoft)
for people over the last few years and have just wasted too much time
attempting to repair
bad upgrades!

OTOH: clean installs have worked fine virtually 100% of the time
( the ones that had problems, were typically minor and easy to fix)

check here for instructions on how to be more successful with your upgrades
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/upgrade_tips.htm

I assure you I've read and followed advice even more stringent that listed
on that site!

 

[philo]

I'll just bet you have.

yes,
before i did the first upgrade i had done a lot of reading.
from the time XP first came out...until I actually took the plunge...was
about 6 months.
no i did not spend the entire time reading...but I did do a lot of it.

Now that said...how many upgrades have you performed?
have the systems you've upgraded *ever* crashed?

I'd like to hear your results.

If you have done a lot of upgrades...
and they have all worked 100% then all I can say is...that's great...
but it does not always work out that way.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not attempt
upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the manufacturer's for
XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved issues before attempting to
proceed. All were straightforward retail cd upgrades. I got the same
results from upgrading Win 2000 Pro systems to XP Pro.

 

[philo]

Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not attempt
upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the manufacturer's for
XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved issues before attempting to
proceed. All were straightforward retail cd upgrades. I got the same
results from upgrading Win 2000 Pro systems to XP Pro.

OK
fair enough!

i'd not expect any problems with win2k > XP


did any of those win98 > XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during
let's say a one year period of time? not an application failure...but a full
system failure?
just curious.
thank you

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

OK
fair enough!

i'd not expect any problems with win2k > XP


did any of those win98 > XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during
let's say a one year period of time? not an application failure...but
a full system failure?
just curious.
thank you

My experience is much the same as Colin's and for the life of me I don't
understand how a crash during any period of time would relate any argument
that a clean install would be better than an upgrade. Grasping for straws?
The XP upgrade when properly prepped is very close to a clean install, and
since the Windows folder is completely removed and replaced with a new CLEAN
Windows folder, old drivers are NOT migrated. The same drivers that a clean
install would use are also used for the upgrade [hint! they are on the XP
CD]. When you remove incompatible hardware and software before the upgrade,
the upgrade is going to be a success.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

I agree with Ken. Do a virus scan and remove any spyware, defrag,
and then upgrade.

To add to the great advise both of you give, I suggest prepping for a clean
install but opt for the upgrade as the first option. This way if some freak
act of the unknown [power loss, hard drive failure, mental fart, etc.]
happens, everything is in place to do the clean install. The time spent on
an unsuccessful upgrade would be hardly noticed when added to the time it
takes to configure a clean install.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[philo]

In

OK
fair enough!

i'd not expect any problems with win2k > XP


did any of those win98 > XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during
let's say a one year period of time? not an application failure...but
a full system failure?
just curious.
thank you

My experience is much the same as Colin's and for the life of me I don't
understand how a crash during any period of time would relate any argument
that a clean install would be better than an upgrade. Grasping for straws?
The XP upgrade when properly prepped is very close to a clean install, and
since the Windows folder is completely removed and replaced with a new CLEAN
Windows folder, old drivers are NOT migrated. The same drivers that a clean
install would use are also used for the upgrade [hint! they are on the XP
CD]. When you remove incompatible hardware and software before the upgrade,
the upgrade is going to be a success.

Actually i was not grasping at straws...
because the systems i have performed clean installs on have been running
flawlessly for
several years now. Although i have had a few system crashes due to hardware
failure
(ie: cpu fan quit etc) the system itself has never crashed. That's several
machines
over a two year period of time.

Even though, in theory XP may have been designed to upgrade win98...
in practice (even if compatability is checked first) I've found that that
just is not the case.

One side point I'd like to make is that i was quite surprised at how well XP
really works...
even with legacy devices. I've install XP many times on machines that still
had some fairly old
ISA devices and have never had a problem. So hardware compatability is (at
least in my experience) , virtually a non-issue.


Now, getting back to my original question, which no one has answered yet. In
all the systems
which were upgraded from win98 to XP...Did any of them ever crash within
(let's say), a one year
period? Now if you'd say , sure so it crashed once or twice in that year, so
what...that's
normal. All I can say is..."How do you know that a clean install would not
have worked better?"

Finally...If one can truely say that they've performed hundreds of upgrades
and none of them have ever crashed, ever...then maybe I'll quit harping so
much on the clean
install method!
However , of course not all older software will work under XP...but for the
most part...
that which does not function is pretty darn old (such as dos games for
example)

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

In

Hundreds and no crashes. I simply prepared well first and did not
attempt upgrades to any systems that were not certified by the
manufacturer's for XP. I also ran the Upgrade Advisor and resolved
issues before attempting to proceed. All were straightforward
retail cd upgrades. I got the same results from upgrading Win 2000
Pro systems to XP Pro.

OK
fair enough!

i'd not expect any problems with win2k > XP


did any of those win98 > XP upgrades *ever* have a crash during
let's say a one year period of time? not an application
failure...but a full system failure?
just curious.
thank you

My experience is much the same as Colin's and for the life of me I
don't understand how a crash during any period of time would relate
any argument that a clean install would be better than an upgrade.
Grasping for straws? The XP upgrade when properly prepped is very
close to a clean install, and since the Windows folder is completely
removed and replaced with a new CLEAN Windows folder, old drivers
are NOT migrated. The same drivers that a clean install would use
are also used for the upgrade [hint! they are on the XP CD]. When
you remove incompatible hardware and software before the upgrade,
the upgrade is going to be a success.

Actually i was not grasping at straws...
because the systems i have performed clean installs on have been
running flawlessly for
several years now. Although i have had a few system crashes due to
hardware failure
(ie: cpu fan quit etc) the system itself has never crashed. That's
several machines
over a two year period of time.

Even though, in theory XP may have been designed to upgrade win98...
in practice (even if compatability is checked first) I've found that
that just is not the case.

One side point I'd like to make is that i was quite surprised at how
well XP really works...
even with legacy devices. I've install XP many times on machines that
still had some fairly old
ISA devices and have never had a problem. So hardware compatability
is (at least in my experience) , virtually a non-issue.


Now, getting back to my original question, which no one has answered
yet. In all the systems
which were upgraded from win98 to XP...Did any of them ever crash
within (let's say), a one year
period? Now if you'd say , sure so it crashed once or twice in that
year, so what...that's
normal. All I can say is..."How do you know that a clean install
would not have worked better?"

Yes, and so did a couple of clean installs, what exactly does this prove? I
also have a couple of dual boot systems that are a mixture of clean and
upgrade and neither have crashed, and I have to check to see which is the
clean or upgrade OS I am booted into. You really don't understand how the XP
upgrade works from what have you posted
95/98/Me drivers are not migrated to XP, any hardware that doesn't have XP
drivers by now, should be junked or if the hardware is very important the
system should not be upgraded at all.
Bottom line is a poorly prepped clean install will give about the same
results as a poorly prepped upgrade and the same goes for a well prepped
upgrade and clean install. The XP upgrade is vastly improved from previous
Windows upgrades and should not be treated the same as previous upgrades.
When done correctly, it is very close to a clean install in both stability
and final installed footprint with a major savings in time spent in
configuration and productivity.

--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[philo]

Yes, and so did a couple of clean installs, what exactly does this prove? I
also have a couple of dual boot systems that are a mixture of clean and
upgrade and neither have crashed, and I have to check to see which is the
clean or upgrade OS I am booted into. You really don't understand how the XP
upgrade works from what have you posted
95/98/Me drivers are not migrated to XP, any hardware that doesn't have XP
drivers by now, should be junked or if the hardware is very important the
system should not be upgraded at all.

Although I do understand the upgrade process...
I think there are a few people here who missed my point entirely.

I have done a number of upgrades after carefully
following advice and checking compatability...yet still have ended up with
some
less than optimal systems. Though the upgrades did not "fail" so to
speak...the system
was not as stable as i had expected it to be...and by formatting the drive
and performing
a clean install...all was well. Note: that was using the *same* hardware and
*same* apps.
As I said...I have certainly had quite a few upgrades work just fine...but
I've had enough
that didn't to generally discourage such.

Bottom line is a poorly prepped clean install will give about the same
results as a poorly prepped upgrade and the same goes for a well prepped
upgrade and clean install. The XP upgrade is vastly improved from previous
Windows upgrades and should not be treated the same as previous upgrades.

The following are your words, not mine:

When done correctly, it is very close to a clean install in both stability
and final installed footprint

with a major savings in time spent in

configuration and productivity.

In my experience, "very close" is not good enough.
Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist...but even if it takes a little bit
longer to
backup your data and perform a clean install...it's time well spent...
especially considering it may only take an extra hour or two...
compared to the many years one will probably be using the OS!

One more point...
one must examine how much time is spent in "prepping" a marginal win98
installation
in order to ready it for an upgrade... vs the time spent just backing up the
data
and reinstalling. More than likely it's actually quicker to just to a clean
install.

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

Although I do understand the upgrade process...
I think there are a few people here who missed my point entirely.

I have done a number of upgrades after carefully
following advice and checking compatability...yet still have ended up
with some
less than optimal systems. Though the upgrades did not "fail" so to
speak...the system
was not as stable as i had expected it to be...and by formatting the
drive and performing
a clean install...all was well. Note: that was using the *same*
hardware and *same* apps.
As I said...I have certainly had quite a few upgrades work just
fine...but I've had enough
that didn't to generally discourage such.

I have found any system that gave problems when I upgraded, were the same on
the clean install. But that is because of the way I approach an upgrade is
the same as a clean install.

The following are your words, not mine:





with a major savings in time spent in


In my experience, "very close" is not good enough.
Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist...but even if it takes a
little bit longer to
backup your data and perform a clean install...it's time well spent...
especially considering it may only take an extra hour or two...
compared to the many years one will probably be using the OS!

In my experience very close is just a concession that a clean install must
logically be better, but I have not actually noticed a difference in
stability. The only real noticeable difference is in the footprint.
If it only takes you an extra hour or two to do a clean install, then my hat
is off to you and please tell us your secret.

One more point...
one must examine how much time is spent in "prepping" a marginal win98
installation

I would not upgrade a marginal 98 system at this time.

in order to ready it for an upgrade... vs the time spent just backing
up the data

What would make a difference in time? I would prep for a clean install
whether upgrading or clean installing

and reinstalling. More than likely it's actually quicker to just to a
clean install.

No way is it quicker.

--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[philo]

In
I have found any system that gave problems when I upgraded, were the same on
the clean install. But that is because of the way I approach an upgrade is
the same as a clean install.


In my experience very close is just a concession that a clean install must
logically be better, but I have not actually noticed a difference in
stability. The only real noticeable difference is in the footprint.
If it only takes you an extra hour or two to do a clean install, then my hat
is off to you and please tell us your secret.


I would not upgrade a marginal 98 system at this time.



What would make a difference in time? I would prep for a clean install
whether upgrading or clean installing


No way is it quicker.

When upgrading a Win98 system to XP...
it's really not that likely that the Win98 system is 100% good...
even if there are no conflicts...and assuming XP properly replaces all the
drivers...
there still could be some minor registry errors that though they were not
casing any real problems...
would be multplied after an ungrade.

So, if one were to fully examine the win98 system and correct all errors
before upgrading...
it could take a bit of time.
A fresh install of XP, to me just has not seemed too terribly time
consuming...
I have no "secret" method other than just being sure to export the OE and IE
data first.

Now that said...even assuming one had a 100% funtional win98 system
which would lend itself to a 100% functional XP upgrade...
My question is...why would you want to upgrade a system that is perfectly
good in the
first place?

I never recommend to anyone that they upgrade a perfectly good win98 system
to XP...
OTOH: if someone is having incurable win98 stability problems... I generally
do recommend
a move to the more stable Win2k or XP...but of course would never do
anything but a clean
install in those cases...

Now that I've put my case down in writing it's obvious why I stand at odds
with some of the people here...It's simply because the main reason I upgrade
people's machines to XP is simply becasue of their win98 problems...so of
course do a clean install.

The win98 systems, that are working fine...i generally don't upgrade.

So now all I am left to ask is why you guys are upgrading perfectly good
100% working
win98 systems?

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

When upgrading a Win98 system to XP...
it's really not that likely that the Win98 system is 100% good...
even if there are no conflicts...and assuming XP properly replaces
all the drivers...
there still could be some minor registry errors that though they were
not casing any real problems...
would be multplied after an ungrade.

So, if one were to fully examine the win98 system and correct all
errors before upgrading...
it could take a bit of time.
A fresh install of XP, to me just has not seemed too terribly time
consuming...
I have no "secret" method other than just being sure to export the OE
and IE data first.

Now that said...even assuming one had a 100% funtional win98 system
which would lend itself to a 100% functional XP upgrade...
My question is...why would you want to upgrade a system that is
perfectly good in the
first place?

I never recommend to anyone that they upgrade a perfectly good win98
system to XP...
OTOH: if someone is having incurable win98 stability problems... I
generally do recommend
a move to the more stable Win2k or XP...but of course would never do
anything but a clean
install in those cases...

Now that I've put my case down in writing it's obvious why I stand at
odds with some of the people here...It's simply because the main
reason I upgrade people's machines to XP is simply becasue of their
win98 problems...so of course do a clean install.

The win98 systems, that are working fine...i generally don't upgrade.

So now all I am left to ask is why you guys are upgrading perfectly
good 100% working
win98 systems?

Unfortunately you do not have a realistic grasp on how the XP upgrade works.
There is nothing left of 98 after the upgrade except for the registry
settings you allowed it to migrate.
We stand in agreement upgrading a 98 system, I very rarely suggest anyone
upgrade a 98 system to XP. With the prices of entry level XP systems so very
close to the cost of upgrading a 98 system, I find it very foolish to
upgrade. Any 98 system you upgrade to XP would be obsolete and the cheapest
entry level Dell system would run circles around the 98 system upgraded to
XP.
I suggest lean out the 98 system, network it with a new XP system and get a
lot more bang for the buck.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[philo]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Stevens" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: xp upgrade from (e-mail address removed)> respectfully replied ;-)

works.
There is nothing left of 98 after the upgrade except for the registry
settings you allowed it to migrate.

My understanding is probably not perfect...
but if win98 has registry flaws...chances are the XP upgrade will too.
If the win98 registry flaws are repairable...
then they should of course be repaired.(and if win98 then works fine...why
upgrade?)
If they are not repairable...then that would call for a clean installtion of
XP
I don't see anything here that is a point of argument.

We stand in agreement upgrading a 98 system, I very rarely suggest anyone
upgrade a 98 system to XP. With the prices of entry level XP systems so very
close to the cost of upgrading a 98 system, I find it very foolish to
upgrade. Any 98 system you upgrade to XP would be obsolete and the cheapest
entry level Dell system would run circles around the 98 system upgraded to
XP.
I suggest lean out the 98 system, network it with a new XP system and get a
lot more bang for the buck.

Well now that all that's been said...
I guess I can think of one reason to upgrade to XP...
and that would be for a larger hardrive and the better cluster size and
fault tolerence of NTFS.
But most machines old enough to have win98 on them probably don't have the
hardware to run XP
too well.
BTW: I just worked on a guy's P-4 3.5ghz with a gig of RAM
and even with that hardware...the machine ran much better (faster) with
animations turned off...
I typicall work on older equipment (200 mhz - 2ghz)

 

[Ken Blake]

In

In Colin Barnhorst <colinbarharst(nojunk)@msn.com> respectfully
replied
;-)

To add to the great advise both of you give, I suggest prepping
for a
clean install but opt for the upgrade as the first option.

Yes, I completely agree.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

This way
if some freak act of the unknown [power loss, hard drive
failure,
mental fart, etc.] happens, everything is in place to do the
clean
install. The time spent on an unsuccessful upgrade would be
hardly
noticed when added to the time it takes to configure a clean
install.

 

[JT]

Unlike with previous versions of Windows, an upgrade to XP
replaces almost everything, and usually works very well.

"Usually" being the operative word. Sorry, but I many others don't
wish to gamble seven plus years of software purchases, updates, and
data on "usually".

However, don't assume that doing an upgrade relieves you of the
need to backup your data, etc. before beginning. Before starting
to upgrade, it's always prudent to recognize that things like a
sudden power loss can occur in the middle of it and cause the
loss of everything. For that reason you should make sure you have
backups and anything else you need to reinstall if the worst
happens.

The mistake that you and a few others make is the false assumption
that most users have the technical ability to make such backups. For
most users, your caveat to "have backups and anything else needed to
reinstall" would be virtually impossible to achieve without hands-on
expert assistance. No, the safest way to effect an XP Pro upgrade is
to first have someone who knows what they are doing either image the
drive(s) beforehand and store the image externally or clone the
drive(s) beforehand. That way, reverting back to a working Win98
system is just a matter of restoring the image or swapping drives.

 

[philo]

"Usually" being the operative word. Sorry, but I many others don't
wish to gamble seven plus years of software purchases, updates, and
data on "usually".


The mistake that you and a few others make is the false assumption
that most users have the technical ability to make such backups. For
most users, your caveat to "have backups and anything else needed to
reinstall" would be virtually impossible to achieve without hands-on
expert assistance. No, the safest way to effect an XP Pro upgrade is
to first have someone who knows what they are doing either image the
drive(s) beforehand and store the image externally or clone the
drive(s) beforehand. That way, reverting back to a working Win98
system is just a matter of restoring the image or swapping drives.

Good answer...
I agree ...
I did my first upgrade of win98 to XP on a drive that was all backed up...
so of course was able to "go back" when it did not work out well.
You are also right in that the average home user does not necessarily know
how to backup their OS.
Not only that, you really need a spare drive to *test* the backup like I
always do.
It's kind of scary to see that once in a while the backup is no good and you
have to
do it again. Not everyone uses removable drive kits like i do, to make the
whole
thing easy... I have a special machine setup with three removable drive
bays...
which i made specifically for cloing OS's.


Howerver...in this day and age, even my non-computer savvy friends know
enough
about it to at least backup their data to cd's or DVD's. If the OS or
harddrive dies...
it's not the end of the world to reinstall...just as long as the data is
safe.
One friend of mine in particular is a professional photographer...who's got
over 500
gigs of data!!!

"Usually works" and "almost as good" are not words in my vocabulary!

I've noticed that many of the people who post here are quite well seasoned
and know how to properly install and upgrade operating systems... The casual
user looking for advice here should not be assumed to use the same
precautions.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

"Usually" being the operative word. Sorry, but I many others don't
wish to gamble seven plus years of software purchases, updates, and
data on "usually".

What's the gamble? In the rare instances where an upgrade doesn't
work, the computer is no worse off than if he'd prepared for a clean
installation.

The mistake that you and a few others make is the false assumption
that most users have the technical ability to make such backups.

It's no assumption. It takes little more intelligence to back up one's
data, than it does to pound sand. You're either grossly
under-estimating the intelligence of the average human, or vastly
over-exaggerating the difficulty of safely using a computer.

For
most users, your caveat to "have backups and anything else needed to
reinstall" would be virtually impossible to achieve without hands-on
expert assistance.

Nonsense. Are you saying that most computer users are too dim to
manage a few mouse-clicks or to master the concept of click-and-drag?
How, then, are they using their computers in the first place?



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[philo]

What's the gamble? In the rare instances where an upgrade doesn't
work, the computer is no worse off than if he'd prepared for a clean
installation.

I think you missed the point...
although an upgrade generally does complete...
that does not guarantee a 100% working or stable system.
If the upgrade "hoses" the system...unless the drive was backed up...
there is nothing to go back to.
Unless the data itself was backed up...
at that point one would have to perform a clean install *without* formatting
etc
to at least keep the data.

In my opinion...the proper way to upgrade win98 to XP is to
first back up the data...and confirm its good.
Export any OE and IE data.(Netscaspe etc)
Then boot with the XP cd
and format the drive NTFS and do a clean install.
Reinstall the apps.
Import OE and IE data.(etc)
Copy the data to the appropriate folders.

Yes, it just may take a bit more work...
but there is little room for failure.