Fresh install of XP Pro - what disk to purchase ?

[FredWagner]

I've got an older Thinkpad (500Mhz, 384MB RAM) that I really don't want to part with. It's been running Win2K for 9 years, and now some kind of trojan has snuck by my F-Prot, and won't leave. F-Prot caught and killed the same trojan on my Vista-64 machine. I'd like to install XP Pro on the Thinkpad - will pay for a legal install - the closest thing I could find was an XP Pro Install disk on CDW.com but the details said it was for a tablet PC. The price is right - $19.95 - but I'm wondering if it would work on a vanilla machine without a touch-screen. I want to do a full install, reformat the drive, so an upgrade isn't the solution. Any suggestions for a legal XP install disk, or should I just give up and put Ubuntu Linux on it with Wine ?

Fred Wagner

 

[ArizonaGeek]

It may or may not work it really depends on your hardware and available drivers from IBM/Lenovo. You're almost better off just going on Ebay and trying to find a full install copy of XP, either home or pro. Of course just be aware of scammers selling pirated copies, make sure they have plenty of good feedback. That's about the only way you're going to get a copy these days. Good luck!

Cheers,
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[goombawaho]

I would do a thumbs down on that idea. XP is more power hungry for hardware horsepower than 2000. Your laptop will run pretty darn slowly on XP as opposed to the 2000.

Don't spend your money in order to suffer the slowness.

 

[fisheromacse]

i will strongly second goomba!

i have upgraded a few laptops of that era to XP from 2K and the result was not beneficial to the end user.

 

[cdogg]

XP was actually a lot better than 2000 when it came to boot times, and that difference really showed even on slower hardware. I remember putting XP on my Pentium III 800MHz moving away from 2000. Boot times were twice as fast, and I'm comparing a fresh install of 2000 to a fresh install of XP.

However, the default visual effects that are enabled in XP are more graphic intensive than 2000. If you disable some of those effects (or all), then you can get XP to be less demanding and closer to the same requirements as 2000. After all, Windows 2000 is NT version 5.0 and XP is NT version 5.1 (very similar in many ways).

~cdogg
"All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[byakuya]

First of all you need to check that you can get all of the drivers necessary, ten your best bet is to simply do as Arizonageek says nd get a full copy of win xp.
make sure you disable all of the visual effects and you should be good to go.

 

[FredWagner]

Thanks for the good advice ! the Win2K has gotten really slow as it has acquired patches and service packs over time, and now it's really slow with some kind of malware. I want to start over with a fresh install, and since win2K isn't being updated anymore, nor is IE6, if I can get a disk for XP with SP3 rolled in already, it might be decent.
It's picked up some malware that has my F-Prot disabled. My newer machine with Vista-64 and the same F-prot edition (but 64 bit) was able to trap and disable the same malware. I'm tempted to just buy a newer laptop, but this one has served so well, I hate to junk good hardware for a software problem!

Fred Wagner

 

[goombawaho]

I would strongly disagree with cdogg that a fresh install of 2000 is going to run SLOWER than a fresh install of XP on the same hardware.

Trust me, I've upgraded machines (back in the day) from 2000 to XP and the result was slower performance and slower boot times. I strongly advise you to send that laptop to its retirement.

Read this OP and CDOGG:

http://www.perpetualtechnologysolutions.com/strategicsolutions/whitepapers/Microsoft_XP_vs_2000.pdf

 

[edfair]

I've basically done the same rebuild on one in the house. The basic 2K, can't remember the level, added the latest patch I had on CD, and threw on Firefox v2.

Not the fastest of machines, but usable.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[linney]

On the 2000 machine try running -

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Try it from Safe Mode.



A list of "prevented from running files" can sometimes be located around this location.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\

Image File Execution Options - How to Hijack a Program

http://ezinearticles.com/?Image-File-Execution-Options---How-to-Hijack-a-Program&id=4088225

 

[FredWagner]

Thank you ALL for your wise counsel. I'll see if I can get rid of the malware, and also prep the spouse for another new PC purchase. One awkward item - the install/control software for my Router and my NAS box both require a 32 bit machine - won't install on 64 bit. So the new laptop, whatever it runs, will have to be 32 bit. If I can keep (hide!) the old laptop, it might be fun to run Linux on it and learn how that works....

Fred Wagner

 

[cdogg]

==> I would strongly disagree with cdogg that a fresh install of 2000 is going to run SLOWER than a fresh install of XP on the same hardware.

Ah, but you left out an important part. I said relating to "boot times" which is absolutely true. Now when XP first came out, there were a lot of systems out there that barely met the minimum requirements for XP. If you had a 300MHz processor with only 128MB of RAM, your boot time would actually be slower upgrading to XP as opposed to staying with 2000.

I don't know exactly at what point up the scale that all changed, but it made a world of difference to me on the 800MHz "Coppermine" Pentium III with 384MB of RAM that I used to own. Boot times were twice as fast and the overall experience was much more stable and reliable. That should really come as no surprise as you read the reviews and whitepapers available at the time XP was released:

Reviews/Discussions:

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/showthread.php?t=145397

http://www.firingsquad.com/games/winxp/report.asp

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp.asp

Whitepapers:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/fastboot/default.mspx

http://helpdesk.princeton.edu/kb/display.plx?ID=9672

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx

http://www.osronline.com/DDKx/appendix/enhancements5_0qhx.htm

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc302206.aspx

goombawaho,
I'm not discounting the experience you had back in the day. For one reason or another, your experience did not agree with the critics. That's fine. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'd hate to start a lengthy debate about this in Fred's thread. Maybe we should start a new one and continue a friendly debate? Who says this has to be a question-and-answer-only forum anyway?

~cdogg
"All generalizations are false, including this one." - Mark Twain
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[goombawaho]

I'll agree to discontinue. One final thought - define "boot time" vs. time to get to where you can actually use the computer. It's all just a pretty desktop if you can't click on something and have it actually respond. That is my definition - the latter.

 

[rclarke250]

The requirements for a vanilla install for the original xp were a lot less than running xp sp3. at least for memory, 384Mb might be fine for the original xp, but sp3 needs 1Gb, it will work with 512MB but I have seen those machines benefit greatly from a bump in memory. The problem with a 10 year old laptop, is it will be hard to find that memory, unless you want to roll the dice on fleabay.

 

[FredWagner]

tnanks to all ! I'm leaning more and more to replacing the 500Mhz Thinkpad with something new running 32-bit Win7.
Any suggestions on what do DO (other than put it in the e-waste bin) with the Thinkpad ? Chrome OS ? Linux ? It had a new LiIon battery, new CMOS battery, and NIC in the last year.... I could probably add memory to 512MB, maybe 1GB -two 512MB modules.... if I do that, the next failure would be the backlight - Murphy's law.

Fred Wagner

 

[fisheromacse]

for your old laptop, try Ubuntu or some other flavor of linux if you do not want to reinstall win2k.

i currently maintain several IBM iSeries laptops with P3 processors and withthe RAM maxed and they run rather well until i put Symantec on them, then SymantecAV alone wanted over 256MB of RAM all the time. They ran MUCH better under Win2K and if we did not have to use XP for some group policy items, they would still have Win2K.

 

[JimInKS]

I've had pretty good luck with these refurb Lenovo T60 notebooks. You might want to give them a look:

http://biz.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6011617&CatId=17

Only downsize is XP only has 4 years of support left. These would run windows 7 fine though.

 

[goombawaho]

Poor Fred. Keep it running Windows 2000 or experiment with some form of linux.

I have to disagree (again) that XP vs XP SP3 have different memory requirements or recommendations. If anything, SP3 was supposed to be more efficient with memory usage.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc507836.aspx

Check out these "informal" benchmark tests of SP2 vs. SP3

http://www.nullamatix.com/windows-xp-sp3-service-pack-3-improves-performance/

 

[FredWagner]

Fisheromacse - agreed on the SAV and 256MB RAM gulp - I had some scanstations running XP just fine with until SAV was pushed out.
JiminKS - I'm definitely considering a refurb Thinkpad - I bought this one in the spring of 2000 - one of the first with a DVD-reader, and still one of few with an LED above the screen that can illuminate the keyboard in a dark room. I found a listing on CDW.com for a XP Pro with SP3 upgrade CD - listed as WAH, Student, School. for $5.99 I might give it a go. I'll try the MalwareBytes Anti-Malware this weekend and see what happens. The only alternative browser that works on my Thinkpad is Opera - FireFox and Chrome don't like Win2k. I've got to upgrade, OS if I can, or OS and hardware too. This weekend is also CWSS, and that's my logging computer! I'll just leave it off the internet for logging ham contacts.

Fred Wagner