WindowsME Vs Windows2000

In My Humble Opinion
1

I inhereted a computer running WindowsME. I hate, loathe, and despise WindowsME. I own the upgrade discs to convert Windows98 to Windows2000. Can I successfully use these disks to upgrade WindowsME to Windows2000? I would welcome any and all opinions on this, but please don’t tell me to buy a Mac cause I ain’t gonna.

2

Please don’t buy a Mac.

3
      • It depends on the disks you have. Some will upgrade from only Win98, some only from WinME, some will upgrade either. The easiest way to tell which you have is to just go all-out crazy, stick the thing in and see what it says.
        ~
4

Can we tell you to use Linux?
(Please don’t kill me, I’m still rooted on XP…)

Short answer, I don’t know. But it’s not a huge cost to get a new upgrade set for XP, which is surely a better option?

5

What do you use the machine for? WinME is part of the Win9x family and will run quite a bit of older software, including stuff that wants direct hardware access. Win2k is part of the NT family and is more stable, but not so good at running games (it also used to be the case that the hardware drivers were thin on the ground for Win2k, but I think this is no longer true).

Having said all that, I pretty much agree with your analysis of ME; I despise it too - even though it is just Win98 with a millennium ballgown, my experience has found win98SE to be more stable.

Ideally, I’d say upgrade to XP Pro, but if that isn’t an option, then how about repartitioning your hard drive and running a dual-boot ME/2k machine?

I have a suspicion that the upgrade from winME to Win2k might be a bit iffy, given that they are very different OSes.

6

Per what the others have said, if you’re going to do it a clean install is best if possible. Try to DL the most critical Win 2000 version drivers for your hardware and burn them on a CD for the install.

What kind of disk space and CPU horsepower do you have on the machine? IIRC 2000 is bit more demanding than ME, and XP is a lot more demanding than ME re the hardware horsepower necessary to run smoothly.

7

I changed from ME to 2000 at my office. (Royal PITA that was. Do get and burn to disk drivers and patches before you start.) You can upgrade from 98, but there is no upgrade from ME. You need a clean install. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;272627

8

Thanks for the input. The computer in question is 676MHz–I think. Something like that, anyway. It has a 20gig hard drive, with about 12gig free. Ram has been upgraded, but I forget by how much and I don’t want to start the thing up now, since I am about to crash for the night. I bought the upgrade disks to step up to 2K from 98. Kind of sorry I did it, now. I bought Office2K at the same time and I don’t regret that.

I don’t play games so the things will be used just as plain, workhorse PCs—nothing fancy, nothing tricky. I’m mostly just plain sick of WindowsME and want to exorcise it. I probably will need a Shaman, a few goats to sacrifice, and a virgin or two just because.

It has been suggested by a friend that the best course would be to upgrade both my computers to XP and have done with it. He also insists on a “clean” install, and I frankly don’t know what that entails. Any opinions on moving both machines to XP? And how do I do a “clean install?”

9

A clean install of XP simply involves putting in the CD, letting it boot up, and following the instructions on screen…there’s unlikely to be any problems (of course, having said that,…)

AFAIK, an upgrade from ME to XP will virtually be a clean install (they’re completely different systems from top to bottom), but there’ll be a stage in the process where it asks for the original ME discs or registration details or whatever, to check that it was legit. But that’s all third-hand info, someone else can explain.

Basically, an XP install is by far the least likely to give problems such as not identifyin modems etc. It’s got a huge amount of hardware support - it’s really only once you start to install specialist items (or brand-new stuff) that there’s a problem.

676MHz sounds fine to run XP. The absolute minimum RAM is 128MB, the realminimum is 256, and 512 is advised. A full install of XP will fit onto a 4GB drive (I’ve done that before :dubious: ), so 20 is fine - indeed, the 12 free is enough to set up a dual boot system, as suggested above.

10

What Gorillaman said. If you’ve got an (approx) 676 mhz machine XP and 256megs of RAM anda 20 gig hard disk , XP will run OK and will be a lot more functional overall re overall hardware and software support than 2000.

11

Okay, thanks for all the suggestions. I’ll save my nickels and dimes and then convert both the dern things to XP.

12
      • WinXP is slow just like Linux is. When I would open a typical program in Win98, it might take 3-5 seconds. With a WinXP-upgrade installed on the same computer, it can take 30 seconds or more to start the same program. At first it installed on FAT32, but I switched it to NTFS and found no difference. WIn98 was less stable, but with most programs that was not a problem–it was only a few I found that really affected it. I rebooted every couple days and had no problems.
  • And I found Linux to be the same way–sometimes when you try to open a program, it sits there and crunches the hard drive for a half-minute or more, before doing anything.
    ~
13

30 secs to open a program in XP isn’t the fault of the system. It’s your hardware. Probably insufficient memory, although a sluggish hard drive could also be at fault.

14

What’s your hardware? If it’s less than gig CPU and 256 megs RAM XP will tend to be a bit pokey, esp if you’ve got an older hard drive. If your hardware is OK then I would suggest saving, formatting and doing a clean install right off the XP CD. Upgrades off an installed, pre-existing OS tend to lard up a system with unnecessary crap. 30 sec to open a program is way too slow for anything with a sufficient hardware base.

Also, have you checked for spyware/malware infestations. They can really bog a system down.