down grade from me to 98se

[Airmack]

I have a Toshibe(sp) Laptop. 800celeron, 64mb of ram.

The problem is, is its running windows me and I have a 98se cdrom and a 2000pro cd and I want to install one of the two.

The only thing is that im scared to mess with ME. I heard to many bad stories about ME.

So what do you think I should do? Put on 98se or 2000?

Do you think ill have any problems installing the os?

[GaryRouth]

Unless it's having specific problems (which you can post here for ideas for fixes), I'd leave WinMe on there. There's not as great a difference as popular Internet mythology reports between Win98se and WinMe. The Toshiba drivers may well have been optimized to run on WinMe for that notebook.

My experience is that the bad reports for WinMe were from it's earlier days, when folks insisted on trying Win98 drivers instead of WinMe versions of the drivers - and caused themselves a lot of unneccessary grief. [This was expecially true of sound drivers]

One thing you could do is add another 64mb to 128mb stick of RAM (crucial.com can find compatible sticks if you enter the model #) - should only cost about $20 - $30. Notebook memory isn't nearly as expensive as it used to be.

Besides, if you use WinXP (. . . or perhaps "Longhorn" XP's upcoming successor. . . ) in the future, you'll be familiar with the interface already [WinMe and WinXP have many similiarities in the interface]

But it's your call. Check on the Toshiba website to see if a full suite of Win98se drivers are available for that model before you make the switch, if you decide to do so. With the right drivers in hand, either OS should work fine.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[Airmack]

The Toshiba laptop is not having any trouble but if it does them im at a lose as I dont have any of the stuff that came with it.(knock on wood)

Ill leave it on there and set it up for a web cam spy thingy. Thanks

[GaryRouth]

Hi again -

Might have a copy of the WinMe cabs in C:\Windows\Options\Cabs =have a look, see if they are there. If they are, you can make a backup copy of them for emergencies.

You could also make a Norton "Ghost" image of the drive, if you have that available.

And last but not least, WinMe has the builtin protection of it's System Restore feature = which lets you restore the system to saved "restore points" [details are in your Help menus]

Toshiba makes wonderful notebooks. My 3-year old neice plays with an old P120 Toshiba Satellite that I cleaned up when my folks got a new mobile Athlon notebook. That Toshiba still runs today like it did when my folks bought it.
. . . Gary

[Airmack]

ya i was looking at new laptops of the same brand..

can you explain more about what you said here
"Might have a copy of the WinMe cabs in C:\Windows\Options\Cabs =have a look, see if they are there. If they are, you can make a backup copy of them for emergencies.
"

[GaryRouth]

The .cab file extension stands for "cabinet". It's the compressed file type that the system files on Microsoft installation disks use. Each "cabinet" contains many individual files. You can think of these like the "zipped" files you see a lot with programs like WinZip or PKZip.

Many OEMs (Toshiba, Dell, Hp, Gateway, IBM, etc.) put the system cabinet files in a directory called "Cabs" - in that C:\Windows\Options\Cabs" location I spoke of earlier. It's like having your Windows installation disk on your hard drive. Should you need a backup of these files (which would be just as accessible as on the hard drive itself), you can burn a private copy for your personal use [this is all detailed in the license] for emergencies (for example, if the hard drive goes south).

To see if the files are there, look for the Windows Explorer tool on your Start/Program menus. It displays the contents of your system in a convenient tree view. More details are available in the Windows Explorer's Help menus. I much prefer the tree view of Windows Explorer as compared to exploring in "My Computer" = which has a view more alike a web browser. You can use either tool, and decide which view you like best.

By the way, I saw a Toshiba on sale this week with a mobile P4 (not the Celeron, but a "Banias" from the "Centrino" mobile platform) 512mb ddr ram, 30gb hd, dvd/cdrw, 15" TFT screen, etc etc for $1,024 (USD).... Goodness. They expect to have some models soon with the new Radeon Mobility powering the graphics. It's supposed to be a very nice onboard mobile graphics solution.
. . . Gary

[HAL9000]

Why are you all worried about "stories"... if it's running fine.. keep it going. Everyone is always willing to listen to and believe the bad... well, I've had WinME on my second machine since July of 2000 and it's still going strong, no formats, or re-installs over top.

[Airmack]

ok so i got a cd of all the cabs here. so this cd just acts as a windows install cd and i can pop it in a install from it?

[GaryRouth]

You still need to write down your product key, or keep the MS label in a safe place. But yes, if your hard drive dies and goes to digital heaven, and you can't find your original installation disk [or only have a "Recovery CD"] - you'd have the option of re-installing Windows from that disk. [one machine per license, of course]
. . . Gary