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General discussion

Upgrading from ME to XP

Dec 14, 2003 4:46AM PST

I'm a rookie here and currently using Windows ME and
I want to upgrade to XP Professional. I have a Dell Dimension 8100 with 512 RAM.
Which is the best way, an upgrade or the full version??
Also, Retail or OEM??
Do I need to remove the Me or will it be erased automatically??

Please help

Discussion is locked

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Re:Upgrading from ME to XP
Dec 14, 2003 5:40AM PST

Which is the best way, an upgrade or the full version??
Also, Retail or OEM??

You may save some money by going with an upgrade version provided you have the original CD from ME. Retail gives you MS support, OEM doesn't.


Do I need to remove the Me or will it be erased automatically??

XP will take care of these details, but backup your unlosable data first to some external source. On a clean install programs and drivers need to be reloaded. The advantage here is you do not take any corrupted files with you to XP.

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Re:Upgrading from ME to XP
Dec 14, 2003 5:56AM PST

Your first stop should be to DELL's website to check if you can get any XP drivers for your DELL Dimension model.
Also see if any updates are needed to support XP.

Then you should run the XP readiness test from this link:
http://www.pcpitstop.com/xpready/default.asp

As suggested the best way is to do a clean install instead of upgrade.

If you are running Adaptec Easy CD Creator v/4.0 and older make sure it's removed. But if you do a clean install then all will be wiped anyway.

Here are some links for your review:
Clean Install XP
Windows XP Installation

Make sure you create a user account for day-to-day use and not use the Administrator account for such.

All else said XP is a much better OS than ME in terms of stability and functionality.

If you are running ME it'll be worht it to switch over to XP.

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Re:Upgrading from ME to XP
Dec 14, 2003 7:26AM PST

I reccomend that you make sure you have a processer that's at the absolute least-1.8 Ghz . Most of the computers I have seen running XP under 1.8 gigahertz did not run smoothly.

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Re:Re:Upgrading from ME to XP
Dec 16, 2003 2:41PM PST

I am running an AMD Athlon 1.3 gig processor for over 2 years now on xp with 512mb of ram. i have no problems what so ever if that helps you any.

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Re:Re:Upgrading from ME to XP
Dec 16, 2003 7:07PM PST

I have a 1 ghz celeron running @1.3 and 512 mb of ram and XP runs beautifully on it!

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CPU speed....
Dec 16, 2003 8:08PM PST

Here's what Microsoft says:

* PC with 300 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233-MHz minimum required;* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended

* 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)

* 1.5 gigabyte (GB) of available hard disk space.*

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/sysreqs.asp

I had XP running successfully on:
* Portege 7010ct Laptop PII~300MHz/160MB RAM.
* Celeron 333MHz/256MB RAM.
* PIII~450MHz Compaq DeskPro/256MB RAM.
* PIII~677MHz Compaq DeskPro/256MB RAM.
* PIII~800MHz/768MB RAM.
* PIII~750MHz/512MB RAM Fujitsu E-Series Laptop.
* PIII~1.13GHz/512 MB RAM Desktop.
* P4~1.7GHz/512 MB RD-RAM.

FYI, CPU speed is not the main criteria but suitable hardware & available drivers for motherboard and devices as well as BIOS update for older PCs are the main determinant on where XP can run successfully on your machine.

So before you upgrade to XP run the XP Readiness Test and gather all required drivers straight from the manufacturers' website.

If you do your research and have adequate preparation you will be safe.