Upgrade to Windows XP? Please help.

[Shepherd1000]

I'm thinking of upgrading an old laptop running Windows 98 to Windows XP. It's a Presario 1694 with AMD K6-2 450 MHz, 6GB hard drive, 192MB RAM, 512 Kb L2 Cache. Will it be able to run Wiindows XP okay? Will it derive any benefit from the upgrade? Thanks for any and all help.

[Confused]

Personally I don't think it's worth it. HD is small, 256K RAM would be better and it really starts to run good with 512K and the CPU is on the edge.
Chas

[mb26]

Xp would run ok i think (i am running Pro fine on a 400mhz Cel.. its almost as fast as ME i had before) but as 'confused' said perhaps add a bit more ram (it will improve performance anyway ..i have 288 and considering weather or not to upgrade it ) .. i wouldn't say it was worth $100 if your planning to buy it... consider windows ME (it is better than 98.. there are a very small amount of advantges XP has over ME (mainly that it looks better), but then again ME has better compatibility with old progs/drivers etc, less resources, and you'll be more used to it having used 98)
ME has a lot of the features of XP aswell..
but if your heart is set on XP u can try it, it should be ok otherwise (i suggest; ) go for ME

PS: the hard drive space *might* be enough, but it is a bit low.. if you have lots of MP3s or video on there filling it now, then you wont have enough space.. if u have about 2 GB spare now, or u can free that much space happily, then u would probably have enough space to run XP fine (the XP install takes about 1.5 GB) ... windows ME i think takes up less (or a similar amount of) space than 98 so thats not a prob if u go for ME

- remember if u have space free on your HDD your system will run better

- also note that system restore can take up to 12% of HDD (720 mb) although u can set how much space u allow it to use. (system restore is available on both ME and XP)

[Shepherd1000]

Thanks for your replies. Unfortunately, the laptop is maxed out at 192MB RAM. But I do have lots of the original 6Gb hard drive space available. If I do install XP, am I likely to see a decrease in performance compared to Windows 98?

[enhanced08]

i would say yes. i upgraded from Win98 to XP on an old 466mhz celly with 191mb of ram and it was much slower! but then again it may run ok.

[TheJackal]

You would most certainly see a performance decrease if you upgraded to Windows XP from 98.

If I were you I would either stick with 98, or if you really wanted to upgrade go to Windows 2000 as you would see less, perhaps no performance decrease with 2k.

[Shepherd1000]

Okay, you guys convinced me. I'm going to stick with Windows 98. Thanks for all your help.

[crjdriver]

Second the win2k suggestion; you will see better performance with that setup. Make sure the laptop mgf has drivers for win2k before you start.