Silly Question..

Big Chief

i was going to upgrade to XP Pro, I currently have Win2k (most stable os i have used to date!), how is XP stability wise? ive heard mixed decisions on this.

that and my main question, i currently have a 80 gig drive full of stuff that i dont want to lose under any circumstances! (few gig of mp3's and a whole load of games etc..)

Now if i upgrade can i keep that drive intact? its on NTFS file system so i see no reason why it would want to format it?

ive asked a few ppl about this and couple said i would have to format, others said it would stay intact.. (this is what i mean about the reliablity of XP.......)

i also have a load of programs on my system drive that i wouldnt want to lose (i d/l them off inet but lost net access from home a few months back) so wouldn't want to lose them either

Will XP force me to format drive or what?


(apologies for the daft questions, ive always been very happy with win2k pro and never seen a need to upgrade but thought i would give it a go now as XP seems to be the way of alot of new things coming out in this day..)

Kali

XP is grand stability-wise, as good as 2k.

You won't have to format if the partition is already NTFS, the only reason people say this is that its the handiest thing for a clean install (files will be defragmented, no clutter etc). Don't bother.

The majority of programs you currently have installed will need to be reinstalled again (so you need the setup files).

With an upgrade it should retain current user settings (favourites, mail files etc.) but its always advisable to make a copy/backup of your Documents & Settings folder (minus the temporary stuff) first.

zoro

before you get rid of 2K, just make sure you set the file permissions on the ntfs drive for eeryone to read / write to it ... in xp, it'll let you take ownership of the files on the drive then

otherwise you may be left with a **** load of games that you cant read from / save new games / load old games ... etc

I've learned from experience

Daniel

ronanp

I can only speak for myself here but i've run XP pro on a few different systems, with and without sp1, and likewise windows 2000 (various sp's up to and incl. sp4) and in every case have found windows 2000 to be a better, more stable, and less resource-hungry operating system. I would imagine that XP can be tweaked to run a lot better, but I for one will stick with be sticking with 2000.

BigEejit

I agree with ronanp here ... out of the box (with SP3 or 4), Win 2k will run faster on an older machine (P3 or older P4), reliability wise I dont think there is much between them ... Win XP can be tweaked to run faster as well (turning off eye candy is just the start) but how much time do you want to spend tweaking (not to mention the amount of time installing apps and games again)

Giblet

If you have Win2k pro, theres little reason to pay for an upgrade.

quarryman

If you have Win2k pro, theres little reason to pay for an upgrade.

does this not depend on what the computer will be used for? I used win2k briefly but the lack of compatibility just annoyed me. things like cameras and peripherals just seem to be supported better on WinXP. also gaming wise i feel winXP is the way to go.

Big Chief

Originally posted by Giblet
If you have Win2k pro, theres little reason to pay for an upgrade.

hmm elaborate please...

i got the volume license version disc from work and am going to install it tonight

also gaming wise i feel winXP is the way to go.

gaming is what i mostly do with my pc, that and some 3d design stuff etc..

i cba to put on an os im going to spend days tweaking though just to get it upto performance, i have a high spec machine though so shouldnt see the need to?

i read up on all the services that could be disabled on xp to stop it hogging up memory (from blackviper site..) which i thought was pretty useful.

Win XP can be tweaked to run faster as well

also elaborate please


to be fair win2k has done me well, but i just thought it was time for an upgrade... and seeing as most games coming out nowadays "recommend" xp then i was gonna move onto that..

Giblet

If you haven't paid for the upgrade, by all means upgrade. Just that I don't think it warrents splashing out the cash if you've got Win2k pro with SP4.

Big Chief

i have service pack 3, what does service pack 4 have?

moridin

Originally posted by zoro
before you get rid of 2K, just make sure you set the file permissions on the ntfs drive for eeryone to read / write to it ... in xp, it'll let you take ownership of the files on the drive then

otherwise you may be left with a **** load of games that you cant read from / save new games / load old games ... etc

Daniel

Meh, all you need to do is be an admin on the XP install and you can delete the old security permissions and add new ones, you don't have to do it before you reinstall.

unkel

Originally posted by zoro
before you get rid of 2K, just make sure you set the file permissions on the ntfs drive for eeryone to read / write to it ... in xp, it'll let you take ownership of the files on the drive then

Originally posted by moridin
Meh, all you need to do is be an admin on the XP install and you can delete the old security permissions and add new ones, you don't have to do it before you reinstall.

Both close, but not quite

You don't have to change anything in the security before the upgrade, no matter how you have setup security and restrictions. You just need to be administrator on the new setup. This alone is not enough, you might not have access. If you don't, you can then take ownership

Big Chief

put this on last night, seemed to go ok without losing a thing. Drives seemed to be going a tad slow though and i got my first system lockup in god knows how long (hello to you to winxp!).

done a dskchk on both the drives during the night, seemed to go good for the system drive as it "seemed" to be running a lil smoother without slowdowns like i was having. Chkdsk the storage drive while i slept so not had a great chance to check that as im at work, left the storage drive defragmenting this morning as someone i know said that is the best thing to do if your not doing a clean install (chkdsk then defrag both drives he said.. is that right?)

one thing annoyed me though, i had my gfx card overclocked a tad with win2k and it was grand, i had the same settings with xp and it threw up a whole load of problems (games not starting atall or if they did would come up with loads of pink squares flickering etc...)

changed back to the default clock settings and it was fine, but there seemed to be a "stutter" in some games, i was thinking that was maybe because all my games are kept on my storage drive which hasnt been defragged? or am i way off

And is it just me or does xp like to hog resources for doing sweet FA? had to go through disabling alot of there crappy services last night in administrator tools, but im sure there is still stuff there hogging up memory etc. I have 1.25gb or pc2100 ram but even then it was hogging it up doing nothing....

The majority of programs you currently have installed will need to be reinstalled again (so you need the setup files).

from what i could tell opening a good few programs last night they were working fine from what i could see (no doubt this statement will come back up and bite me on the àss though

Big Chief

also -

is there anyway of getting service pack 1 onto my machine?

I dont have net access at home but do in work with a cd burner, but going through there was no set file to d/l for the sp1. Is there anyway of getting around this so i could get this onto my own machine? Its a legit copy i have so feel that i should be able to get update for it...

Is there a workaround for this or a link where i could d/l sp1 and burn it onto cd for use at home?

Kali

Originally posted by Big Chief
[BIs there a workaround for this or a link where i could d/l sp1 and burn it onto cd for use at home? [/B]

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/4/f/54f8bcf8-bb4d-4613-8ee7-db69d01735ed/xpsp1a_en_x86.exe

Big Chief

thanks kali