Windows 98se vs. 2000 Pro vs. XP pro

[fc3646]

I am currently running win98se. I have been thinking about upgrading the OS. What are the pros and cons of going from 98se to win 2000 pro or XP pro. I have heard that xp home isn't stable or that there are driver issues.
Any input would be appriciated!
Thanks.

[EzyStvy]

Alot depends on what you use your computer for. And then there's the old saying about if it ain't broke........

If your pc is more than a year old, I'd stay away from XP..Win2k is great.

[Cricket]

Hi fc3646,

Whatever OS you decide to move up to, don't upgrade over your current installation of Win98...do a clean install of the new OS by formatting the hard drive first (backup your important data first) and then install the new OS.

It's been reported that people who upgrade over Win98 have been seeing problems such as system instability and flakey performance.

Cricket

[reboot]

If you really must get a new OS, you may as well go for XP. Nothing wrong with a clean install of the Home version, as you probably don't need the Pro version, unless you're running a LAN or server.
XP will also allow you to go back to the classic style of Windows you're used to looking at, but gain the stability of the NT kernel.
You won't miss all the stupid restarts that 98 makes you do whenever you install/uninstall something.

[sdkfz]

The driver issue will not be different from XP home to Pro, yes there are still some older devices that XP does not have drivers for, this is due to both MS not creating them and the device company not creating them. If you do not need the ability to join a domain then save the 100 and go for home version.

also as someone mentioned if 98 is treating you fine then there is no reason to upgrade. I did only because my OS was getting a little long in the upgrade path, I had 95 complete version on floppy (yes floppy(ies!), 98 upgrade only and when I did a reinstall it was becoming a pain.

XP has treated me very well, my only issue was with an old MS game called close combat, that will not install on a nt machine.

[Reedimus]

I just went to xp home from 98se last week. I love it. the speed difference is probably the biggest thing for me. everything is faster.

one thing that may seem small, but really contributes to my enjoyment of my computer is the ability to run a few programs that 98 can't. specifically, glass2k and coolmon. these may be small programs, but I love having them! stability is important to me too, but it's still to early to comment on that.

[fc3646]

I don't know, maybe I should leave well enough alone......

but

I seem to get my fair share of those Warning, Illeagal Errors.... xxxxx caused an invalid page fault in module KERNEL32.DLL at 017f:bff7b9f2.
Registers:....


Scott

[ssahl]

In your sig it says you have an Athlon XP 1700 with 384MB of RAM, if this is true then I would get XP. I have been running XP for awhile now on my computer with the same amount of RAM and only a Duron 1200Mhz CPU and it runs great. It will be much more stable then 98_SE thats for sure. As far as driver problems I think that win2k would have more then XP. Plus XP has native support for AMD and the VIA chipset. I have (and still do) used win98_SE, win2k, winXP all on my computer and I would say that XP out performs all the others.

[reboot]

Even NT4 with a few service packs is more stable than any Win9x machine.
Explorer can crash out, the desktop will blink a couple of times, and your taskbar comes back. No restart, no hassles. You can even end task on just about every service, and if it's really needed, it will restart on it's own (if set to "auto" in the admin services section).
To put it bluntly, nothing is as stable as a fresh install of XP (in the Windows family). I'll not get into Linux/BeOS/etc, here.

[Pimpmaster]

Internally XP and 2000 are the exact same. If you want a basic OS that does what you want, get Windows 2000. If you want a cooler interface, get XP.

[Gasket]

I have an AMD Athlon 900Mhz with 512Ram on Asus A7V. Can I upgrade to WinXP ? I currently run Win98_se but tired of rebooting all the time. Also not very stable.

Thanks.

[sdkfz]

Short Answer - Yes

MS has an upgrade tool on their site that checks for compatability of your hardware and software. Your machine will run a little slower as XP has a bigger footprint, but with 500 MB of ram this will not be huge. How much hard drive space do you have? and alternativley I'd suggest doing a clean install anyway. Wiping out all the old registry information etc. is a good idea.

Here is the upgrade advisor tool http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...ng/advisor.asp

Note: you may lose use of some software, especially older games and AV programs not specifically written for XP. If you do not want to lose the games etc then I'd run a dual boot with both OS installed, but you'll need the real estate on the hard drive of course......and a new AV anyway even in a dual boot.

[glc]

This is just my opinion - I would upgrade to Windows 2000. I do NOT care for XP at ALL.

I have done many successful inplace upgrades to 2K from 98 by doing this:

1. Clean up the 98 the best you can - delete temp files and temp internet files, trim down your startup to the bare minimum, scan for viruses and spyware with updated apps, revert your IE back to square 1, uninstall your antivirus and any other utility packages such as System Works, uninstall any firewall you may have. Do a thorough scandisk and defrag Run a registry cleaner - M$ Regclean is good enough.

2. Put the 2K cd in in Windows, tell it to upgrade. It will prepare a report for you before it does anything. If it asks you whether you want to convert your drive (to NTFS), say NO for now.

3. READ and HEED the upgrade report, cancel out of the upgrade, and take care of all items it tells you to do.

4. Do it again, still do not convert the drive (in case it goes to %$#^& you CAN uninstall 2K and go back) and finish the upgrade.

5. Install all needed drivers and immediately go to Windows Update and get all critical updates.

6. Finish reinstalling what you need and get it all running smooth. When you are happy, then use the command line CONVERT tool to convert the drive to NTFS.

[Gasket]

Well, I finally went for XP Pro+SP1 (clean install). One word: WOW! My machine is alive again! XP only missed two peripherals drivers on the whole bunch I have. Quite impressed. I have been running this for almost two weeks now, no problems at all.

I even went to a LAN party this week-end and had no issues. I was actually pretty happy to see that I could compete with those 3.2Ghz mega-computers!!! The games did'nt load as fast, but gaming was the same. I have an ATI 9800 128Mb.

I had an old SCSI 9Gb hard drive in my office. I took a chance and hooked it up to my comp. Installed XP on it. It runs really good and these two together makes my machine much faster, especially when using Windows itself.

I which I had made these upgrade earlier! Thanks for your comments.

>G<

[EzyStvy]

Year and a half old thread makes me feel old.