The Leap to XP

Ron Eggers

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 6, 2001
Posts
16,932
Loc
Wisconsin
I spent eight hours yesterday upgrading my HP laptop from Windows ME to XP Home Edition.

Most people I talked to advised against it. This is not a new computer. It's 700 MHz with 256 megs of memory and came installed with Windows ME.

Periodically, I would do a reinstall of the original software and ME would behave for a week or a month and then start to refuse instillation of new peripherals or even the critical updates from Microsoft.

I tried installing 98SE, which I like a lot, and it was obvious I was going to spend the rest of my natural life chasing down drivers and patches.

So I took a leap of faith. I reinstalled the original ME, then choose the option during the XP install to completely replace ME. There's no going back.

Peripherals that NEVER worked on this computer before were painless to install. 'Plug-and-play' is no longer a joke.

A question for XP users: What happened to the little system tray green light to tell me my dial-up connection is active? Can I get it back?

So far, that's my only complaint (other than spending eight hours on a Sunday reinstalling everything.)

If you're thinking about making the leap to XP, let's talk about it.
 
Think it's the little computers

I jumped with a 700 256 tower. The machine runs flawLessly. There is a whole bunch of security patches.
 
Ron, don't know about a little green 'tray' thing, but my Home XP has a task bar at the bottom the shows 2 little 'screens', the bottom-most being the computer, and the topmost being the server. (not to be confused with the LAN icon, which is identical)
When the computer's on line, they blink blue, on and off, appropriately, as data is sent and recieved. If they don't blink, and show a 'black screen', either your computer isn't sending anything out, or the server is ignoring it.

I had a 'guru' tell me recently that XP was a much more intuitive OS than any prior ones. It DOES seem to know your preferences. Which, depending on your point-of-view, may or not be a good thing.
I've had very little trouble with the v. that came with the HP, but the one that came with the Gateway was a very early edition, and apparently had some problems.
 
The only other leap you should have taken was professional instead of home. I have two sets of screens in the task bar, one is for networking and the other set for internet and it blinks only when actually sending or receiveing and only shows when connected. It's the show hide part, you need to let it know your preference. You will need to do those updates from MS. I found doing one or two at a time works much better on dial-up and if too slow shut off the firewall which comes with XP.

Have more fun.
 
Isn't XP great? They finally got one right


To turn it on with XP Home, I believe these might be the correct steps:

Go to MY NETWORK PLACES -> VIEW NETWORK CONNECTIONS -> DOUBLE CLICK ON YOUR INTERNET FEED -> PROPERTIES -> at the bottom click on the check box that says "SHOW ICON IN NOTIFICATION AREA WHEN CONNECTED" -> click on OK.

Suggestion: It's VERY important that you install all of the MS patches from www.windowsupdate.com as soon as possible. Just by being on the internet for a few hours, you're likely to be attacked/infected. (maybe even while downloading the patches with a dialup modem) I wouldn't turn off the firewall (if you do and if its on) until after those are installed.

Mike
 
Yes, Less, Charles and JPete - that's the icon I'm talkin' about. Turns out, it appears with one of my ISPs, but not the other. So I'll try Mike's suggestion to make it appear with the other.

Mike, after I installed XP, I installed Norton's Internet Security and configured the AV and firewall and downloaded and installed all the updates for that. Then I downloaded and installed about 17 megs of Windows critical updates. That's why the process took all day.

I guess it's because I installed a brand-new operating system that's already a couple of years old.

But, so far, nothing has hung up, crashed, spontaneously rebooted or issued cryptic error messages.

I'm still sceptical enough to put off activating XP for a while, though. Once I do that, I doubt I can start over with a fresh install.
 
So thats why it took 8 hours! makes perfect sense. Some of those updates (sp1 and the new web browser) are huge.

Mike

PS: Did that idea work for the icon? I don't have dialup, but i see the option is there for my ethernet feeds.
 
Mike, the icon appears by default with my primary dial-up ISP. But, when I changed the settings for Netzero, it changed them right back.

I rarely use Netzero. It has it's own interface, so it's nearly impossible to reconfigure. It's a handy and cheap back-up, though.

Another XP question. Norton says my hard drive is 69% optimized, which means it's 31% fragmented. That seems impossible. I can use Norton's Scandisk or the native MS XP defragmenter. Any preference?

I have a sneaky suspicion that ScanDisk is intended for a FAT32 file system, which is not what I'm using now with XP.
 
Ron, I always use Disk Fragmenter. Never had a minutes trouble with it.
Used to use Scandisk in the old Win 95 days. I was always leery about asking it to repair disk, 'cause I couldn't see what it was doing. Defrag, on XP, anyway, lets you defrag both types of drive I have...FAT and the other one. (is it NTFS?)
If you don't have a really huge HDD, it's kinda neat to watch it work.
I have a 120G, which, I know, isn't big by todays standards, so I defrag weekly so it doesn't take long..
 
Charles, is that in the display where it marches across the screen in rows like a little PacMan, gobbling up red squares and making them turquoise? (Sometimes I get mesmerized by the darndest things.)
 
Thats it MM. I can always depend on you to make me smile.

Charles, what do you do with all of that HD? It must be music.

Ron, did you do the SP2 also. I ordered that one for free from MS on CD. Much faster.

System restore is also a nice feature. Hope you all realize I did the big jump from 95 to XP.
 
As far as I can tell, the only downside to an OEM version of XP is that it's non-transferable. In other words, that copy of XP is branded to one computer and if it dies that copy of XP dies with it.

A friend of mine found that out the hard way.
 
Hey Cathie! I love to watch the defrag thing! It just amazes me! (Yeah - don't take much to entertain me either...)

Does any of this info/advice/encouragement change for XP pro? That's what I'm getting on my laptop with M/S small business (I think)

Betty
 
Another downside to the OEM is that it does not install well over a current OS, you really need to drop the guts of the PC first and then start it afresh with the OEM version.

I found that the hard way! It works fine though.

WizSteve, I have heard that there is an allowance for such events and that calling MS will result in the product being activated on a new system. May be worth a call.
 
Ron, People keep saying XP is "intuitive" and let me echo that! When I got my new computer last year, I dumped all my files into one "My file Cabinet" for the guy to transfer, and then thought I would finally once and for all straighten them out once I got the new computer home and running.

I had about 12 files in the first folder I tried to organize. Being new to the little blue menu off to the left of the screen, I let my mouse do the walking before I got to "move this file." When I looked back into the file proper, instead of eleven files, there were 13. Every time I tried to move something, I was somehow duplicating it! I ended up with over 140 files!!!

I turned off the computer and took a nap out of sheer desperation. Just as I was drifting off to sleep the solution to my Sorcer's Apprentice type problem came to me: every time I moved up the list with my mouse to click on "Move this file," I was accidentally crossing over "Copy this file." XP was just trying to HELP me!!!

Somedays I feel like strangling the darned thing it's just SO danged helpful!

Have fun and don't
icon45.gif
just
sleep.gif
and you'll be
thumbsup.gif
.
 
I have heard that there is an allowance for such events and that calling MS will result in the product being activated on a new system. May be worth a call.
That's what I thought too... but that doesn't apply to the OEM version that comes with a PC, only the retail or corporate versions. I was told flat out by the MS phone rep either to fix the PC it came with or buy a new copy of XP.
 
While I don't agree with MS in all things, The OEM version of XP cost you a LOT less than a retail version. There is some logic in MS's position.

Pat
kaffeetrinker_2.gif
 
By 'OEM' are you talking about the XP that comes, usually pre-installed, with a new computer? I wouldn't expect that to be transferable.

I bought the Home Edition upgrade for under $100 and exercised the option to completely replace ME. I haven't activated it yet but, once I do, I figure I'm stuck with it until the day my old laptop decides to crash and burn.
 
Isn't XP a nice improvement? The only thing about XP is that it likes to be fed plenty of RAM (memory). If the computer only has 128, it will be unbearably slow. 256 is better, 384 is great, 512 will work with just about anything.

Mike
 
Well, the honeymoon with XP isn't over yet.

There are a couple of minor features on my notebook that don't work, even with updated drivers. And I need to buy and download a DVD decoder to work with Windows Media Player.

The newest version of Delorme's Street Atlas won't install. Coincidently, Microsoft's Streets and Trips installs just fine. Hmmmm . . .

If I have a complaint, it's that XP is sometimes a little TOO intuitive. Sometimes it's just, plain spooky and I've shut off some features to make it behave more like 98SE.
 
That looks like a pretty impressive program.

It looks very finicky during the install. They have some special XP installation instructions at http://www.delorme.com/support/installxp.asp

Basically, they have you temporarily disable everything.

Mike
 
Mike:

I recently upgraded to XP and only had a few glitches.

You menitoned how XP loves RAM. I have a little program called WINBAR, www.winbar.nl that monitors your ram among other things.

I have 128 RAM in this computer and it never reads above 30. Many times my machine seemes slower than it was before XP and thought that maybe I needed more ram. But not according to WINBAR.

Am I understanding this right??
 
XP does have a lot more overhead than some previous versions. Keep in mind that XP is the upgrade from NT and Windows 2000, not from 95/98/98se/ME.

If you notice it running slowly and the hard drive light is on more often than it would be for your old system (while using the same programs), you'd most likely benefit from a memory upgrade. In most cases, you can pop a 256mb chip in there and it will add to your existing 128 (for about 384 total). The chips run about $25-$75.

When the computer runs out of temporary work space (memory), it "swaps" out to "virtual" memory; using the hard drive. (c:\pagefile.sys) The hard drive is considerably slower, and will be pretty busy if you're low on memory.

If you have 128 with XP, you'll definately see an improvement by upgrading. XP itself may not care, but any program you run will demand more space.
 
It looks very finicky during the install. They have some special XP installation instructions at http://www.delorme.com/support/installxp.asp
Mike, that did the trick. I followed that link, printed the directions and Street Atlas installed flawlessly.

I also learned how to access the system configuration utility (through msconfig.) With older Windows versions, you could get to it through the system information accessory program, and I would use it to disable those annoying little pop-up reminders that want me to register their program after I've just re-installed it on the same computer for the fourth time.

Thanks, Mike.
 
Back
Top