Can I reasonably expect a performance gain with XP? 1

[Sashanan]

Friends have been telling me that my computer, with its specifications, will perform better under XP than under my current OS, 98 SE. I've heard things about better memory management but I'd really rather know from somebody with the experience if, on the following setup, I should expect XP to give me smoother performance than 98 SE does on this setup:

Pentium 3 667 Mhz;
384 mb memory.

What I was told was that Windows 98 SE doesn't take full advantage of this degree of memory and that XP does, but everybody who told me so was vague on the details.

Also, if I did want to switch, how much space should I expect to need for XP? I've currently got my hard disk divided in a system partition that just about holds 98 SE and my swap file and a data partition with everything else, what should I expect to have to increase my system partition size to?



"Much that I bound, I could not free. Much that I freed returned to me."
(Lee Wilson Dodd)

 

[Sashanan]

With some selective deleting I managed to free up 8 gb for the system partition though it leaves me with very little spare room for further data. But I think I can make do until I can get the burner fixed. (Which is a different story entirely with a one year warranty and a shop that's gone bankrupt halfway.)

Partition Magic did its thing so I should now be all set for the XP installation. I'll let you guys know how it goes.


"Much that I bound, I could not free. Much that I freed returned to me."
(Lee Wilson Dodd)

 

[mastavic]

It looks like even my old computer could meet the minimum requirements of Windows XP. The computer I'm talking about is currently running Windows 95 with 320MB of RAM and a 333mhz processor. Should I upgrade so my system can be more stable? I'm better with Windows XP than any other Windows anyway...

If I do decide to install Windows XP, how can I do a completely clean format of my hard drive? It was bought in 1998 and is made by Compaq, so I'm a bit afraid that it won't let me do a clean format by just doing the regular formatting way.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

 

[GreatSeaSpider]

so long as you can boot from your cd drive, the windows xp installer can format the disk for you before installing xp.

XP is more stable than 98 yes, but it also has its bugs too

anything else you want to know??

Pete

 

[mastavic]

I really am getting tired of Windows 95, so I want to upgrade to Windows XP. Is my computer decent enough for the upgrade? Like I said earlier, I have Windows 95 on a Compaq computer with 320MB of RAM, a 333mhz processor, and only a little more than 7 gigs of hard drive space. Is this enough?

Thanks.

 

[GreatSeaSpider]

you have enough ram, and your processor should just cope, but i'd be worried about your hard drive space. 7 gigs is pushing it a little! It will require you to keep a close eye on your drive and clean it of clutter very frequently. You could always go on to 98, its not xp but it's definately an improvement on 95

So yes it will probably work, but only just!

Pete

 

[xproforme]

Upgrading to a more modern PC makes a lot of sense as todays systems are a lot cheaper then trying to run XP on an older system. Most PC makers no longer support older harware and one could end up buying a new system anyways. Besides, PC's are pretty inexpensive compared to the old systems initial cost when they were new. I bought a new PC from some no name company for under $230 with a 1100 meg Duron processor with 128 megs RAM, Ethernet card, 4x graphics acelerator, 48x CDROM, and a bunch of other bells and whisles. The included OS was Lindows, but Walmart online sold a full version of XP Pro for $198 so I installed that instead. My main reason for upgrading to XP was to edit digital video. Buying a new system really makes a lot of good sense.