Installing Win XP over Win ME

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Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

Just a quick question, is my Win ME computer capable of having Win XP installed over the ME that's on here? Bearing in mind this ME machine only has 256MB RAM and a 6GB hard drive, would that be enough to run XP?

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 12:20 pm

Scam Patroller wrote:

would that be enough to run XP?

Not if you want to run something else as well. Like MS paint.

Honestly, running XP on such a machine won't be fun.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

It probably depends whether you want to tear your hair out waiting for the machine to respond to you. With 256MB I would stick to ME.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

You should, SP.

Min sys requirements for XP Home:

Quote:

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.*

Super VGA (800 � 600) or higher resolution video adapter and monitor

CD-ROM or DVD drive

Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

I only have 256 meg- XP runs fine.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 571

I think installing XP would be fine, though that is awfully tight on the HD space (to install the latest service packs and everything takes 3GB I think)

If you don't want to mess with hardware, you could consider an external hard drive, they are just plug and play... boot windows xp off the internal hard drive and store everything else on the external HD.

Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:50 pm

Knowing SP, he'll do it anyway.

@SP: just be carefull. As far as I know, all data you have stored in "my files" and other such directories will be deleted.

Rule of thumb for all Window$ versions >win3.11: don't use "my files" for your data!

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:01 am

As poorly as XP will run with such low HD space and RAM, it'll still be a massive improvement over ME - which crashes if you so much as look at it.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:10 am

In addition to upgrading your operating system, they have these remarkable new patches you can install, which increase your processor speed by a huge percentage.

they're called new computers.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:28 am

Frodo wrote:

it'll still be a massive improvement over ME - which crashes if you so much as look at it.

2 cans and a string would be a massive improvement over ME sometimes. Sorry Embarassed

I might get my butt flamed for this, but I ran Win98SE on my previous tower (emachine-566MHZ-256 sdram) and it worked just fine as far as stability and lack of issues. Given the specs provided, perhaps Win98 would be a better option here?

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:09 am

I'm using a ZX81 spectrum with eight hundred gig of hard disc space, fifteen-thousand terabytes of RAM and a built in coffee/automatic arse wiping machine and I still have trouble loading my space invaders cassette.

Any teckies out there have some advice?

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:16 am

SlayerFaith wrote:

I might get my butt flamed for this, but I ran Win98SE on my previous tower

Never. I ran Win98 on my home PC until 1,5 years ago until I was forced to get a new tower with XP crap preinstalled. Having said that I was absolutely happy with my Mac II ci for about 10 years!

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:16 am

@SF - I also used to run Win98SE after testing ME and finding that the new O.S. performed significantly worse than the old one. [Reminds me of Vista versus XP.] 98SE was very stable and used a tiny amount of resources. ME was a bad joke that should never have been released.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:45 am

I've run every version of Windows up to XP on my system and IMO 98SE and 2k were the best versions brought out. I'd still be on 2k now if it wasn't for the fact my new mobo didn't like it. I managed to crash ME twice just installing it. It's an even worse piece of software than Microsoft BOB Shocked

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:57 am

What is window ME?
Sorry if I sound very dumb but im a life long mac user and only used XP about 6 months ago.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:57 am

Millennium Edition

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:09 am

Actually "ME" is an abbreviation of a very long German phrase, that roughly translated means

"Man staring through glass-screen onto an hourglass"

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:35 am

Where would we be without SP's tech support questions????

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

I always though it was Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:03 am

ME - Luxury!
My work place has 'things' which run Windows 95 with 16Mb of RAM.
@SP - You need to divert one of those 40 computers that your Co. is shipping out soon. I'm told they're HOT!

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:23 pm

@slowfreddie

Nu-uh, I had such a machine, and it was faster and more reliable than my 128mb ME machine. If it works, don't try to fix it. If it's ME, throw it out of the window.

Removed full quote- TS

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

I don't know why people always knock ME, it has served me very well for the last 3 years, virtually no problems with it, and those problems that did arise were probably of my own making by messing about in the system registry.

ME has never let me down and it has been used constantly all day long to cause lad agony, I only asked about XP as someone offered me an XP CD, they also have half a dozen 64 meg memory sticks and 128MB SD RAM thing if I want it.

From what is said above, XP might only just manage to work alright with my limited HD space, I have 4 GB left on this machine at the moment, might give XP a try on here, not sure yet.

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 2:32 pm

Obviously you never tried my ME computer before we installed XP...

Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:22 pm

@SP,
I have an old (spare) desktop PC of similar specs to yours (mine is a P3 450). It ran XP with 128 MB of RAM (painfully slowly, and with a fair bit of disk cache activity). It improved significantly when the memory was upped to 256 MB. Still was too slow for my liking.

I recently installed Ubuntu on the same machine and I reckon it might be worth a look. The downside is that it takes a bit more learning to use effectively.

hth

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