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  1. Member
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    Just a quick question to see if people think it is worth upgrading my system from ME to XP. I have been fairly happy with ME, but it is starting to give me a few problems with it needing rebooting, especially after encoding etc, and freezing a bit. I am not a big fan of changing for the sake of changing, but going on comments on this site, a lot of people are happy with XP. Just cahsing a few comments on people's experiences.
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  2. Its like the change from black and white TV to colour TV.

    XP is more stable, quicker and easier to use than ME. I am actually suprised to hear that ME has given you very few problems. Every installation I have done of it has later had problems.
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  3. Member racer-x's Avatar
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    Go for it! Me is a piece of crap. Even 98se would be an improvement over ME. Ive been using XP pro for a while now. It's pretty good. It comes with a lot of drivers, you might not need any for your hardware. It's more stable than 98,ME and W2k as far as I'm concerned. The only thing I don't like about it is the default interface. But if you switch back to clasic windows theme, It ain't too bad.

    Make sure you do a clean install. Format with NTFS and you'll be fine.
    Got my retirement plans all set. Looks like I only have to work another 5 years after I die........
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  4. Originally Posted by racer-x
    It's more stable than 98,ME and W2k
    you might be going a little too far with saying its more stable than w2k..

    w2k is as solid, if not more solid than xp.
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    If you got a few extra bucks go XP Pro for sure, most of my machines run 24/7 and DO NOT crash. Clean install and PRO the only way to go!!

    Dd
    ME ME
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  6. Originally Posted by jeex
    Originally Posted by racer-x
    It's more stable than 98,ME and W2k
    you might be going a little too far with saying its more stable than w2k..

    w2k is as solid, if not more solid than xp.
    2k takes longer to start up for me than XP, Me, or 98se probably because the latter two only need enough RAM to run the blue screen.
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  7. i agree, XP is much better and much less buggy than ME, its well worth the money to upgrade m8!

    i keep my system running 24-7 and i dont think it has EVER crashed on me, if a prog does crash then it usually recogises this quickly & gets rid of it, accasionally it slows down and gets a little confused but most importantly it soon recovers and everything is fine!!!

    also, with XP you are gonna get lots of nice security updates, patches etc as it is new!
    1)Why Not Overclock a little?! speed 4 free!!!!
    2) If your question has anything to do with copying PS2/PC/XBox games, find a more appropriate website
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    XP is miles ahead of ME in terms of stability, you can leave it on for days, probably months without a crash, your lucky if you can go a day with ME without getting 1 BSOD or having to restart.

    Now for the downside of XP.... slower games (framerate), unless you have the power to run them such as at least a 1.5ghz cpu, 512mb and a decent gfx card, then you should be fine, but you'll still notice its slower than ME for games.

    This is based on 'personal experience', as you'll find out for yourself when and if you do get XP you'll also experience it yourself.

    2K runs games quicker (but still slower than 98/ME) and is just as reliable/stable/compatible as XP, if not more so, im not saying get 2K over XP, im just giving you the lowdown based on my own experiences in using each operating system

    All in all you cant go wrong upgrading from ME, it'll be the best thing you ever did.
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  9. north is right, xp will slow down your pc a little, but looking at your pc specs you wont have any problems!

    however, if you get hold of some kind of XP tweak tool (lots of types around, TweakXp is one but i dunno if it is any good!) then this would speed games up a bit ec, making it perform almost as well for games as win 98!!!!

    so, basically, get xp and tweak it a little, that way u get a REAL stable OS with VERY little performance decrease for games!!!!!
    1)Why Not Overclock a little?! speed 4 free!!!!
    2) If your question has anything to do with copying PS2/PC/XBox games, find a more appropriate website
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    Or he can dual boot ME/XP and have the best of both worlds with backwards compatability and speed for games
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  11. i thought of that but figured if he wasn't sure of the pros & cons of the various OS then it may be byond his skill level (no offence man!)

    Also, if he was gonna do dual boot he may as well do it with 98 % Xp, not Me cos it sucks, but tweaking XP is the best thing to do!!

    the best tweaking tool is

    xq-xsetup

    but its so very flexable that u may want to start out with things a bit simpler, so u dont mess things up! U canget lots of tweaking software free with pc mags!
    1)Why Not Overclock a little?! speed 4 free!!!!
    2) If your question has anything to do with copying PS2/PC/XBox games, find a more appropriate website
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  12. Member VideoTechMan's Avatar
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    Yeah ME sucks to hell.....i had it on my laptop when i bought it almost 2 years ago and its nothing but bug city and endless crashes and lockups. I would go with XP (although 2K is just as good) for stability and networking capibilities.

    VTM
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  13. Chris S ChrisX's Avatar
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    WinMe was a horrible OS and I still got the installation disk I no longer need. I now use Win2000 and this OS is just as good as WinXP.

    WinXP and Win2000 is so far much, much better than WinME. Best to upgrade it now. Don't get the Home Edition and best to get the pro.

    I recommend a HD clean re-format for WinXP installation if you use the complete WinXP disk.

    However, beware of compatiblity issues of some programs and drivers. You can search for new drivers and applications to download for compatibility of WinXP and I warn not everything works with this OS.

    If compatibitity is a worry for you, why not dual boot as WinME with WinXP.
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  14. Member
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    Originally Posted by jeex
    Originally Posted by racer-x
    It's more stable than 98,ME and W2k
    you might be going a little too far with saying its more stable than w2k..

    w2k is as solid, if not more solid than xp.
    No, he is correct. I have been running WinXP Pro since the street release day (vendors got free copies) and I have to say that I only have 2 problems with it.

    1. the Newsreader I beta test keeps giving me the Blue Screen of Death with "Bad Pool Caller" errors.

    2. I have a Winnov Videum 1000+ card and the drivers for XP suck, I ocassionally get the Blue Screen of Death caused by "wnvkaud.sys".

    It is not WinXP that is faulty, but a piece of software and a 3rd party driver. Before I got the Winnov card, WinXP was up and running for 8 months and no lockups.
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    Thanks for all your information/experiences you have shared with me. I think I will have to make the move from ME to XP shortly, might just have to wait until it is on special or something
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  16. Member
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    Originally Posted by hoyboy
    Thanks for all your information/experiences you have shared with me. I think I will have to make the move from ME to XP shortly, might just have to wait until it is on special or something
    Windows and special are 2 words I have never heard in a sentence before. Only time Microsoft puts its OS on special is the first week it is on the market.
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  17. Chris S ChrisX's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by willy_annand
    Originally Posted by hoyboy
    Thanks for all your information/experiences you have shared with me. I think I will have to make the move from ME to XP shortly, might just have to wait until it is on special or something
    Windows and special are 2 words I have never heard in a sentence before. Only time Microsoft puts its OS on special is the first week it is on the market.
    On special means just that, a discount or a price reduction. This is what he was saying and some retailers from time to time have a sale to reduce prices on a range of goods. I've seen one example: A 3 Day Weekend sale on everything - 20% off.

    Harvey Norman in Australia offer "specials" from time to time on computer software. This is an example of one, a special price reduction of Norton's Anti-Virus 2003. This retailer normally do this when a version is near outdated needed to clear before the next year's version of 2004 is out.

    I hope you know and understand what SPECIAL means at the shop!
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  18. Member
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    Originally Posted by Chriscjgs
    On special means just that, a discount or a price reduction. This is what he was saying and some retailers from time to time have a sale to reduce prices on a range of goods. I've seen one example: A 3 Day Weekend sale on everything - 20% off.
    Oh I know what on special is, up until recently I managed a Computer retail store just north of Toronto.

    I am just saying that with WindowsXp, the retailer makes less than $10.00 on the Home unit and about $15.00 on Pro. No retailer I know will discount the operating system.

    Programs, yes, if a new version is due out, we clear out the old stock, games definately. But the OS, with the given track record from M$, we even kept Win98 in stock during the release of WinME and WinXP. WinME had so many problems and WinXP has great hardware demands. "Buy a new system or a copy of Win98.
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  19. Chris S ChrisX's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by hoyboy
    Thanks for all your information/experiences you have shared with me. I think I will have to make the move from ME to XP shortly, might just have to wait until it is on special or something
    I want to make a suggestion if WinXP as too expensive: get or order Win2000. It is far much cheaper and you don't have to worry about product activation.

    Win2000 is just as stable as WinXP and just as good. I do find Win2000 as ideal and much better than WinME and you can still purchase it today.

    Anyway, keep on eye on any special price reduction if you want to go on to WinXP.
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  20. contrarian rallynavvie's Avatar
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    While Win2000 is a stable OS (it's on the server and critical PCs at work) you're going to start running into compatability issues with newer programs meant to run on XP. If you're going to use apps that have been around forver than 2000 is good enough. If you plan on getting with the times and running the latest software than XP is the way to go.

    FYI you can get the full install disk on WinXP Pro for ~$150 if you buy a piece of hardware with it from certain online computer stores. When I built my current PC I bought WinXP Pro for that much with an order for a LiteOn 166 DVD-ROM for $35. I think that's how much the damn upgrade cost anyway.
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  21. Member
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    Originally Posted by rallynavvie
    While Win2000 is a stable OS (it's on the server and critical PCs at work) you're going to start running into compatability issues with newer programs meant to run on XP.
    Name some programs......?

    As far as i know all new aps/games are supported by Win2000/WinXP.

    Windows 2000 was a buisiness o/s at the start, but has now become so popular by home users as a gaming system that it cant be ignored by the makers of games/applications as they would be cutting out a large percentage of the market by doing so, i cant remember comming accross any new app//game that dosent now work with windows 2k.

    If by any chance you want backwards compatibility with really old stuff you could get lucky by doing this......

    Click START BUTTON then RUN and copy this line into it

    regsvr32 %systemroot%\apppatch\slayerui.dll

    then create a shortcut to the game/app and click right mouse button on it, goto compatability mode and set it to whatever you so desire, its not foolproof, some things may work that had probs before and some things wont, WinXP also has a similar thing in it because of its INCOMPATABILITY with some things too.

    I think (not certain) that the new Windows Loghorn (or whatever its called) is based on 2K.... im sure someone will pop in to correct me if im wrong
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  22. Banned
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    hoyboy

    make sure you update your ram to at least 256mb (512 or more is optimal and that what u should probaly do)

    you will love all the thing that xp does and that you're going to do more things than u thought possible

    XP is ram intensive. they why some people say it is slower, but if u have enough ram that isn't so

    and you will probaly use xp as your last operating system,

    because greedy microsoft won't be selling longhorn,

    they will be leasing it
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  23. Member
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    Windows XP vs Windows Me is comparible to a Machine Gun (XP) vs. a stick (Me)
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  24. Member
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    Those of you who quote slower game performance and slower boot times have something wrong. My system boots cold in 28 seconds, and restarts in 22. My framerates for games (MOH, BF1942, AO) are higher than I ever saw with my 2000 Pro or 98SE versions on this machine. Granted I have a gig of ram pushing my system...
    As for compatability, have never had a driver problem with my system or any of the systems I have built (512 total systems, ~200 upgrades of hardware and software to XP). The drivers are out there, you just have to look.
    All that being said, 2000 is a great operating system, is less demanding of hardware and with all the service packs is a very solid OS. 98SE is still probably my favorite OS, so incredibly tweakable!! ME is crap, pure and simple. It never ran right on any machine I installed it on, and always was replaced by 98SE prior to XP's release.
    So go with either 2000 or XP, any version will do unless you plan on running a network with more than 6 systems on it. In that case go with the Pro version of XP.
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    for everybody with long boot up times

    download bootvis

    http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/platform/performance/fastboot/BootVis.mspx
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  26. Banned
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    if you get the XP pro sp1 cd

    it is not as resource hogging as regular XP cd

    it has most of the xp resoucre hogging screensavers and themes turn off by default

    you can turn them on if you want (i wouldn't though)
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  27. Member
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    Check the system requirements, if your hardware can handle it, make the move.

    ME was actually a piece of crap OS, Microsoft only had it on the market for less than a year and they don't even want to talk about it

    XP is by far the better OS.

    I would suggest minimum a 1GHz CPU, with 512MB for video capture.
    --
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  28. I like WinXP over WinME, but XP still has its problems dealing with some situations. For example, yesterday I installed Norton Internet Security while I still had McAfee normal virus scanner.

    BAD IDEA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Its taken me a day to get my computer operational again because Norton froze upon installation, had to restart, and when I did, McAfee froze EVERY time I tried to log-in to XP. It took a while to get over it but here I am after uninstalling both, still dazed at my experience. THAT won't happen again .

    Oh well.....
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  29. Chris S ChrisX's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by g_shocker182
    I like WinXP over WinME, but XP still has its problems dealing with some situations. For example, yesterday I installed Norton Internet Security while I still had McAfee normal virus scanner.

    BAD IDEA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    The NIS and McAfee is a bad combination in any OS. I did have bad experiences with NIS 2001 and NAV 2001 in WinXP SP1 and done damage in the system. I no longer use WinMe and this OS works well with NIS2001 and NAV2001.

    The WinXP computer crashed so many times and the Internet and network settings were damaged. I was forced to re-format the HD and revert to Win2000 to resolve conflicts.

    I am still using the old version which did have compatibility issues with WinXP SP1 and just about time to upgrade to later version soon.

    My advice on using Norton's Firewall and Norton's anti-virus software is to use the latest version and don't use Microsoft's firewall which is included in the OS WinXP. A conflict is likely to occur and best to switch off Microsoft's firewall when using either NIS and NAV or both.

    I no longer got any problem with any computer now except for an aging Win98 that is going soon.

    I think Win2000 and Win XP is the best OS with P4. A Celeron CPU is a poor third place. I did experience a computer on 128 megs of RAM isn't enough to perform well using WinXP and I do agree with the RAM issue as best at 512 megs or more including for video.
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  30. Member
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    WinXp over ME hands down.
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