A Couple WinXP General Questions

Factual Questions
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      • I am of the type resistant to upgrade until necessary, but I see that many of the newer videocards being released are not supported in Win98(SE). I don’t need a better videocard for this computer, but will want one for the next, so…
  • First, I would probably spend $99 for a retail XP-Home version upgrade, as I already own a Win98SE retail CD. When the upgrade runs, does it attempt to maintain programs and files on the HD or does it just check to verify you have an “upgradable” OS, and then just reformat as normal? -I am aware of the different filesystem, and would opt to use it…
  • Second, I have a couple parts/peripherals with questionable support in XP: I heard early on that XP does not support scanners that connect to the printer port. Is this true for XP-Home or not? - DougC
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  1. You can do either an upgrade, in which case all your user settings and programs will be maintained, or you can choose to do a clean install. I’d recommend a clean install for XP. Just insert your W98 disc when asked to verify.

  2. You can check hardware/software compatability on Microsoft’s website.

3

The computer I am typing on right now dual boots 98 and XP. When I installed XP, I had a choice to either upgrade the existing version of windows or do a new install. I chose the latter, but you could easily do the former.

You can change a FAT32 drive to an NTFS drive without doing a re-install, but it’s a one way thing. There’s no going back to FAT32 if you decide you don’t want NTFS later.

XP’s hardware and software compatibility is definately an issue. That’s why I dual boot instead of just having the box always run XP. What really surprised me is the number of windows programs that don’t work properly under XP. I expected problems with older games, but not with relatively new windows apps (and XP’s different compatibility modes haven’t helped much). As always, YMMV. I believe the scanner thing you are referring to was only true in a beta release of XP, but you can check Microsoft’s site to see if your scanner is supported.

One advantage to keeping the file system FAT32 is that you can keep your older version of windows, or can boot with a windows boot disk in an emergency.