Format & Reinstall Needed, but which OS

[Crispy]

I have been running Win ME since soon after it was released, but recent problems suggest that I need a fresh install. My wife has XP Home on her machine, and I quite like what I've seen of it, so the question is, do I have a fresh install of ME or upgrade to XP?

It seems like it might be the perfect opportunity to upgrade to the newer technology, but then again, after defending ME against all the claims made against it for the past few years, it might be sensible to stick with what I know. I'd like to hear your opinions.

Chris

[Cricket]

I would upgrade to WinXP.

Cricket

[rjfvillarosa]

I am a bit of an ME fan, I have two machines running ME, one machine running XP pro and a laptop running XP home, quite honestly I like them all.
I have never had a problem with ME and I am always surprised at the problems I see people having with it.
If you are thinking about putting XP on that machine maybe you should consider the hardware you have first, to run XP reasonably you will need at least a 500mghz proccessor and at least 256mb's of ram. (at that it's going to run slow)
Do you know what CPU and ram you have at the moment in that machine?

[Crispy]

Thanks both, that looks like a 50/50 response so far. I wonder what the response might be if I posted in the XP forum. It's still early days.

I've checked all the hardware before posting, so I know that is OK. I have an AMD Athlon 1200Mhz and 512 MB of Physical Memory.

Other responses would be very welcome.
Chris

[GaryRouth]

The advantage to going to XP is it's better handling of system resources. If the computer you want to upgrade is on a home network, and if it will be connected to the Internet often, XP's advantage is that you'll be able to run your firewall and real-time antivirus/antispyware programs without worrying you'll run out of resources after opening & closing a few other programs. And the performance won't suffer as much while multitasking as a result.

The disadvantage of going to XP is that the cheapest the Home Edition sells for is around $80, and XP Pro is almost twice that. I generally advise clean installs with XP (from Win9x/Me) rather than in-place upgrades - since these two kernels are so different.

If your multitasking needs are fairly light, and WinMe has been performing OK until just recently, that is the less expensive way to go. You could try an over-the-top if you think it's just the system files that need refreshing http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=70846

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[& hi Cricket & rjfv- ]

[acr98disc]

Originally Posted by Crispy I have been running Win ME since soon after it was released, but recent problems suggest that I need a fresh install. My wife has XP Home on her machine, and I quite like what I've seen of it, so the question is, do I have a fresh install of ME or upgrade to XP? It seems like it might be the perfect opportunity to upgrade to the newer technology, but then again, after defending ME against all the claims made against it for the past few years, it might be sensible to stick with what I know. I'd like to hear your opinions. Chris

from my understanding, win ME is a horrible operating system, because it came from Win 98 combined with Win 2000 pro.
Stay away from ME, update to XP!

[edfair]

I suspect that the problems attributed to ME were dependent on what it was installed on.
I ran it for about 3 years without problems on one partition of one machine. Replaced it because I needed the partition for 2K, otherwise I would still have it.
If it was sufficient for your needs I would advise putting it back on. Saves money and may save a hardware upgrade.

[glc]

I'm gonna go against the flow here and recommend Win2K. The stability of XP without the fluff. It will run very well on your hardware.

[Crispy]

Thanks to all those that have contributed on this one.

glc, I have to admit to not knowing much about 2K, but I do know that heading down that route would cost me even more, so I'll probably rule that out.

Gary, I really liked your post, it's such a change to have detailed reasons behind the thinking, rather than just a 'use OS X', so thanks again.

I'm still deep in thought and continuing to research the different options, I'll let you all know what I finish up with.

Regards,
Chris

[thefultonhow]

XP would run fine on your hardware. My dad was running XP on a PII 400 with 256 MB of RAM, and it wasn't fast, but it worked. He's now running it on a PIII 1 GHz with 512 MB of RAM and it has decent performance. Just make sure, if you do decide to go with XP, that you turn off the performance-sapping window animation in the System Properties control panel (Advanced tab > Performance).

Incidentally, if you are worried about the cost of Windows 2000, people are selling it on eBay for about $60 a pop. I recommended that route to one of my customers earlier this year so that they could upgrade a 366 MHz laptop with 64 MB of RAM so that it could run a wireless card (the card wasn't working on 98). Incidentally, I learned from that experience that 64 MB of RAM is not really enough for Windows 2000.

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by glc I'm gonna go against the flow here and recommend Win2K.

I wasn't surprised to see glc post this reply and in a way I agree, Win2K is an ideal way of getting a feel for XP without all the eye candy.

[Crispy]

Hi all, and thanks again to those who contributed on this thread.

After weighing up all the options and discussing the matter further with other friends, I've decided to go with XP. Apart from the points raised by members here, I think it will be beneficial in the long term to have the same system running on both machines.

I now have to work out my plan of action for a clean install, without losing too much data in the process, or mucking up the existing home network. On top of that I have to gather up the set-ups for fifty odd programs. It all sounds a bit of a pain, but I'm finding the whole process to be quite exciting.

An answer to that might be 'get a life', but after being retired for more than ten years, it helps to maintain my interest.

All the best,
Chris