Windows 2000 over Win 98SE.

[northern]

Hello Heres my Question.


Friend has a Machine running Windows Win98SE................With issues like this:

Built in Fax software (bitware)with her Modem wont save Faxes and when it does it names them all the same as the last one so its hard to find a fax that she requires,without sifting through 100 faxes to find the one she needs.


Anyways she wants to install windows 2000 pro on top of her windows 98 SE.

1- Is this possible without losing critical files?
2- Will her old files stay in tact ?
3- Will this resolve the problem?

And if so How? Do i copy over top or create another partiotion when Windows2000 wants to...


Reason is this is a buisness setting computer with allot of files she requires on a daily basis.


PS: I should mention ive run Hijack on it and Virus Software aswell as adaware and they all come up empty so dont know if its the software thats incapable of running on Win98.

Any response would be greatly appreciated.

 

[yelo333]

1 possible, but not guaranteed
2 possible, but not guaranteed
3 slight chance, but will probably introduce more

First, you'd need a retail windows 2000 or any upgrade version of windows 2000.

The way you'd want to upgrade would be to let the installer run, and, eventually, it will ask you where to dump it, with the option to upgrade.

When you upgrade to win2k, it essentially recreates the registry, and turns it into the NT format. This is quite risky, and it's very possible things can go wrong. As I understand it, it also leaves a lot of junk around.

 

[northern]

Originally posted by: yelo333
1 possible, but not guaranteed
2 possible, but not guaranteed
3 slight chance, but will probably introduce more

First, you'd need a retail windows 2000 or any upgrade version of windows 2000.

The way you'd want to upgrade would be to let the installer run, and, eventually, it will ask you where to dump it, with the option to upgrade.

When you upgrade to win2k, it essentially recreates the registry, and turns it into the NT format. This is quite risky, and it's very possible things can go wrong. As I understand it, it also leaves a lot of junk around.

I appreciate the answer and response.

I figured as much too, i guess i have allot of Backing up to do, try to figure it out asi go i guess.

Thanks

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's possible, I've done it, but I strongly recommend against it. Reason being, it will keep application registry settings, however, many applications have slightly different .DLLs or installation options, depending on whether they are installed onto a Win9x or an NT-based system, and thus, if the system is upgrade-migrated, the installed application binaries or configurations will be wrong. Secondly, some hardware device-drivers are implemented using "WDM" drivers. The dirty little secret is, MS's claim that WDM drivers are cross-platform portable between different windows versions, is a lie. There are different "flavors" of WDM, for each version of Windows, and they are not directly compatible. So even after you upgrade, you could have serious instability issues due to Win98-era hardware drivers installed.

However, if all objections are addressed, at the very least, make sure to have a full system-image backup before doing the upgrade. That way, if it goes completely FUBAR, then you can put the system back to the way that it was.

If the system in question has multiple paritions or drives, then I would instead suggest installing the two OSes side-by-side, and install/upgrade/migrate applications from one OS installation to the other, as possible or as-needed. You could concievably share data-file directories between them as well. I did that with my Netscape/Mozilla mail spools, for example.

That would also allow the user to sort of "ease into" the transition. However, if they have multiple line-of-business apps installed/running, they don't want to have to re-boot to switch between them all the time either. One possible solution would be to install and run VMWare inside of W2K, and then run the Win98 installation, as-is, with current apps + data, inside that VM. Thus allowing access to the older installed apps during the migration process, without having to reboot. That of course adds cost to to migration equation too.

 

[northern]

Knock on wood.


Guess what im doing, Fixing what aint broke right now.

Tried the over top install and thankfully i madea complete backup because something went Poof, i think i pressed enter one two many times, because shes a freesh install with Nada on there anywhere and running smoothly.

Now the challenging part trying to get everything transfered over from the original backup.

Simply Accounting
Todd
Faxes
Letters
Files
Yada Yada yada.

This is going to be a long night..

Again thanks for the response and time on this topic but im afriad i went too far and just made a boo boo...............lol