cheapest way to upgrade from Windows Me to XP?

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by wallijonn On OSX, how are updates handled? Is there an Apple website that scans your system and then installs the updates?

You actually have a choice. If you're the manual type

you can download updates from Apple and install them yourself.

Otherwise, Apple has what's called "Software Update." You tell it to check daily, weekly, or monthly, and it connects to Apple's software server on the selected schedule to see if there are any updates available (for the main OS, installed components, or Apple-provided applications).

If there are new updates available, you can tell it to install them all, or selectively check off those you want to install. The updates are then downloaded and installed in the background. You generally don't have to restart, unless you're installing a major update to the OS. If a restart is required, you can wait until later so you can finish up what you're doing, etc.

The entire Software Update system can also be run remotely via Terminal (a shell environment). We regularly run it on other computers on the network when we don't feel like walking to another room or office

 

[spaceman]

Quote:

Originally posted by wallijonn Spaceman, you could probably use a WME or W98 boot floppy and cd E: and run the setup.exe. part of the reason why you do not want the upgrade is because W9x used mscdex to map out CD devices; that and it also used autoexec.bat and config.sys. Do that on WXP and you're likely to blow away your boot.ini file in the boot record. It's the main reason why I do not advocate dual boots. So, who went and got a pirated OSX? the old computer users, probably. if you bought a new Mac, chances are that it came with the latest OS. On OSX, how are updates handled? Is there an Apple website that scans your system and then installs the updates?

Walli,
I think you have me confused with someone else. I am already running XP on one machine, and 98 on the other

 

[KJ869]

I rather run win2k than XP, but thats just me.

 

[wallijonn]

that price is a LOT cheaper than ebay.

 

[jim]

Quote:

Originally posted by spaceman If you are a student, you may be able to get a significant reduction in price if you buy academic software. There are a number of places online that can do better than your local university

True that. Or, if you are a computer science major at UofI, you can get it for free (legitimately), along with many other ms products like visual studio, msdevnet, sql server, visio, etc, etc. Only things they don't have really are office and the games.

 

[CaptBubba]

Quote:

Originally posted by spaceman If you are a student, you may be able to get a significant reduction in price if you buy academic software. There are a number of places online that can do better than your local university

This is very true. THe difference is perhaps most startleing if you buy macromedia products, which can be over $600 off if you are a student.

And a $50 license to Office XP professional is very nice, even though the media cost an additional $17.

 

[spaceman]

Quote:

Originally posted by CaptBubba This is very true. THe difference is perhaps most startleing if you buy macromedia products, which can be over $600 off if you are a student. And a $50 license to Office XP professional is very nice, even though the media cost an additional $17.

I still take classes part-time, slowly meandering toward another degree, so my student ID comes in real handy when it comes to software purchases

 

[Patrickhat2001]

Getting the Windows XP home version from componentsdirect.com for $77 dollars sounds great but I have a problem. Their website states that I cannot use this version to upgrade to XP to another version of Windows because it is something called an OEM version. Is this true? If so, then, how do I simply upgrade?

 

[wallijonn]

Pat,

you don't upgrade.

you save as much of your old data as possible (docs, email, bookmarks, wallpapers, game saves, music, video, utilities programs, updates, etc).

then you fdisk the drive & format. (BEFORE YOU DO THAT THOUGH - DOWNLOAD & BURN all the new drivers & utilities for all of your old devices (like sound card, video card, scanner, printer, mouse, Nero, etc.). ABSOULTELY make a ME boot floppy. then copy some files from the olddos directory - like format, xcopy, xcopy 32, edit, himem.sys, etc., to it. VERIFY that the boot floppy works!

set your bios to boot from cd. (set your IRQs manually if you want).

insert XP CD and reinstall everything. (have it wipe out the old disk and have it format everything in NTFS). you'll have 30 days to register your license with Microsoft.

Don't forget to install all the patches & security updates BEFORE you install any applications (like MSOffice, Photoshop, Winamp, etc. Careful with Media Player 9 - it uses the Roxio / Adaptec driver, sets mp3 encryption, etc.).

you will need to buy a new copy of McAfee. The old one won't work on WXP. I hope that you do not have a lot of old games. Some of them may not work, correctly. So make sure that all of your old software will work on XP. Don't be surprised if certain devices, like scanners, have no drivers for XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/search.mspx

here's the one for video cards: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/search.mspx

if it's not on there - you may have (and most probably will have to) buy another card. the same would go for audio (especially built in audio), NICs (unlikely), scanner, printers, etc.