Windows 98se to XP

Factual Questions
1

OK, so I’ve bought computer parts to put together a computer. For the system I’m building, I think I’ve done pretty well price wise, but still, for my budget, I probably shouldn’t have bought everything all at once. And that’s the reason for this question, I’m trying to keep from having to spend any more money than I have to.

The computer I’m building will replace my wife’s current one. The OS on it is Windows 98se. A few months ago, she bought Windows XP off of eBay to upgrade, only to find out that the seller sold her a version that only goes with new computers, which means that it won’t upgrade any other version of Windows.

Now, I don’t want to just put Windows XP on the new hard drive and then have to reinstall all of the programs from the old one, so, I have an idea, which, probably won’t work, but I’m hoping that someone here will tell me that it will.

My wife has two hard drives on her current computer, and uses one of them as a back up drive, constantly using the Windows back up program. Which leads me to three questions:

  1. Could I, install Windows XP on the new drive, then, use the Windows XP to “restore” the back up files from the back up drive?

  2. If so, would that be like installing all of the old files onto the new drive?

  3. If so, does Windows backup also save the registry, or would I need to back it up, and then restore it in Windows XP, assuming that this could be done?

Again, I’m trying to get out of paying for another Windows XP (this time, a proper version that will upgrade previous versions) if I can avoid it. But, if that’s the only option, then I guess I’ll have to go with it. And of course, if someone else has another idea that’s easy, and low cost or free, then I’m all ears.

Anyway, sorry that this message was kind of long. And thanks.

2
      • The difference between a “full install” Windows CD and an “upgrade-version” is that the upgrade version checks to see that you have an upgradeable OS on the computer before proceeding. As far as I have heard, any version of XP can be used to perform an “upgrade”; it’s just that the “Upgrade-only” CD’s require you to have a Win98 or ME operating system on the PC first. The “full version” CD is not lacking anything that the “upgrade” version has.
        …So I would just stick the XP disk in and run it, and see if it asks you if you would like to do an upgrade. At some point it should ask you which you want to do. And assuming it does, you may find that the XP has installed on the FAT32 filesystem, but you can convert that to NTFS after the fact -safely- without losing any data.
  • I upgraded a Win98SE OS to XP (and then converted FAT32 to NTFS) just a couple weeks back, and so far the only program I had to reinstall was the virus program. All the normal software still works the same. I would bet that the Windows backup utility does as well.
    ~
3

Actually, I know that our XP disk won’t upgrade, because we tried it already. Also, when looking it up online it’s mentioned that disks that are for new computers only won’t upgrade previous versions.

Anyway, since nobody seems to know the answer, I guess I’ll just wait till I get all of the computer parts, put it togeather, and see what happens.

4

Not to impugn his skills, but “DougC doesn’t know the answer” is a far sight from “Nobody seems to know the answer.” The way I understand your problem is that you have three drives:

(1) - old main drive, Win98. FAT32 file system, contains all old programs and settings.

(2) - old backup drive, Win98. Also FAT32, contains Win98 backups.

(3) - brand new, unused drive, for WinXP. Not formatted yet.

Now, first of all, I highly recommend that you suck it up and do a fresh install of all your applications and preferences. Your new computer will run more efficiently, faster, and with fewer problems (that’s why you bought it, right?) and you will be happier in the long run. You can copy docs over with a burned CD.

If you decide not to do it this way, you could go about halfway, but I don’t see that it’s much more convenient:

  1. take drive 3 and install WinXP on it, ensuring that you format it to FAT32 when you start.
  2. install all of your apps fresh on drive 3 under WinXP
  3. shut down the new machine, mount drive 1 inside it, and boot up
  4. move all of your preferences folders and files from drive 1 to the proper directories on drive 3; ditto for your documents. Keep drive 1 attached until you’re pretty sure everything works fine.
  5. shut down and unplug drive 1, but leave it mounted in the case
  6. reboot and test the new machine for about a week, ensuring that all of your settings make the new machine work as you desire it to work
  7. when you’re certain things are cool, move drive 1 back to the old machine.

I don’t think there’s any way – other than a Windows XP Update CD – to copy all of your settings in one fell swoop when changing OS’s like this. WinXP isn’t going to “copy” your registry; it’s going to “translate” it into WinXP terms, and there’s almost certain to be some loss of resolution even in that process.

5

That’s not why I said that. Before he answered, I looked and saw that 30 people saw my post, and made no reply. So that, plus the only answer being wrong (not that I don’t appreciate it DougC, I honestly do appreciate the effort) lead me to write that statement.

Yes, correct on all three counts. Well, 3 isn’t technically correct, but for all intents and purposes, it’s close enough.

OK, thanks for the info. I was afraid it would be something like that. Oh well.

6

I’ve never used the backup on 98, and I’m not sure that XP can process 98 backup files (I kinda doubt it but you never know). If you copied all of the files to the 2nd drive then copied them back to the first one after the upgrade, that would basically accomplish the same thing. This works for data files and some programs, but not all programs since some programs rely on things being in the registry.

There is a big difference between installing programs and just copying them, well, there is for some programs at least. Installations (like InstallShield and such) will do things like put entries in the registry and install dll’s to the system directory. If you just copy programs, you may end up with missing dll’s and missing registry entries. Some programs require a different dll on xp (or any NT) vs. 98, so just copying the dll from the old computer may not work either.

You can’t easily do this. XP does it as part of the install but only if it’s the upgrade version. You can open the registry using regedit and look for keys that you think might be important, but sometimes programs install things with rather cryptic registry entries and it’s hard to match up the registry entry with the program.

Your easiest way out of this is probably to copy over all files and re-install whatever programs don’t work properly.

7

I had a similar problem a few months back. The problem I had was I had a pile of stuff in my 98 drive, but didn’t had lost, damaged some of the discs to reinstall once I put in XP. I ended up sticking my new HD in as Drive D, did a fresh install of XP on it, and made it a dual boot. Depending on what program I need, I’ll boot into which ever OS I need. The good thing is XP can read the 98 drive. An inelegant solution yes, however it serve my particular purposes.

If I were you, I’d bite the bullet and fresh install XP.

8

Yeah, I’ve come to that conclusion as well. My wife probably won’t be happy that I’ll be buying a copy of XP, even if it’s fairly cheep off of eBay, since I’ve already charged up $240 in the last couple of days, but, since I don’t want all the hassle of reinstalling everything (she has a lot on her hard drive), I guess I don’t have much of a choice.

9
      • Okay, after checking up, it seems that there are at least four types of WinXP Home CD’s:
  1. A “full install”/retail CD that will install on an empty drive, or upgrade any previous OS to XP,
  2. A retail-upgrade-CD for Win98/ME that will do either a full-install or an upgrade, but only if the drive already has Win98 or ME,
  3. the same thing as #2 above, except for requiring Win2000/NT to already be installed, and-
  4. OEM CD’s, which will only to a total-reinstall or a destructive rebuild of an existing XP OS (a destructive rebuild recopies and resets all the system files back to install, requiring you to reinstall all your applications).
    …additionally, there seem to be a number of different variations of XP Pro but most of these are only available to business customers.
    ~
10

Ah, maybe a bit of hope. Looking at the book that came with XP, in the Questions and answers about Setup:

Of course, I might be a while before I can test it. I bought my drive off of eBay, and due to a small problem, it hasn’t been shipped yet.

Of course maybe what I could do, is take my wife’s back up drive, install XP on it, try the wizard and see how well it works. But I’ll probably just wait untill either my hard drive ships, or I take the money and buy a different one.

11

I’d recommend getting your hands on a copy of Norton Ghost, and cloning the 98 drive. If any problems occur and you nuke the drive while installing XP, you can reclone and try again.

I actually did this and it saved my ass, because learning on the fly with critial data on the line is no fun at all.

12

Thanks for the warning. I’ll defenently check it out.