XP OEM? or Upgrade? Which One???

[Gregor1C]

Hi,

Today someone dropped off a computer for me to clean and upgrade to Windows XP. That would normally not be a problem. And I have worked on this machine before, but I am not sure, which Windows XP disk I should order. OEM? or Upgrade?

You see last year when this computer was brought in, it had some driver and registey problems so I did a clean install of Windows 98. But I could not use the owners own disk. Although they did bring it in, in the original jewel case with the certificate and key code, the disk itself had been left too close to a protable heater and it had melted on one side. So I just copied my Windows 98 CD onto their hard drive and did my clean install from there using their key codes. This also allowed them to add their own hardware. Like the scanner they bought last month.

Now that has been said, I am not sure if I can use a copy of the Windows XP upgrade disk. You see I am not at all consern about my ability to install it now with my Windows 98 CD. But these folks are moving out of the area in September, and I do not want to buy an upgrade disk unless I am sure they can use the copy of Windows 98 on their hard drive to vailidate the XP installation. Just in case they should have to do a reinstall at some later date.

I could just get an OEM disk and solve that concern, but that would also make many more hours of work for me to reistall all of their other programs as well.

I do not know how this would be any different then the computers that come new without the Windows 98 disk as everything was loaded on the hard drive by the maker. But I am not sure and so I am looking for someone who may have had experience with this concern in the past to steer me right.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[woodie1]

My OEM XP-Pro disk gives me the option of upgrading when it detects my 98SE installation. no need to copy everything over.

 

[sxr7171]

As far as I know you wouldn't be violating any licinsing laws if you copied your Win98 instal Disc and gave it to them, since they are using their own license. So I would probably give them a Win98 copy and order the upgrade (if it is cheaper). Otherwise if the OEM version is cheaper, I would order the OEM version. It gives both of you more options.

 

[Gregor1C]

Thanks to both of you for responding.

First off if I got the OEM version, I would not be getting a pro version. I wonder if that will make a differance? I see the "win9xupg" folder on my pro disk, but I am a little concerned that the standard OEM version will have Windows standard error code of the past; that you get every time you put an OEM disk in a mschine with a different OS.

 

[Gregor1C]

Hey if anyone has a standard OEM home version of Windows XP, could you look on your CD and see if it has the "win9xupg" folder. Thanks!!!

 

[Macro2]

When you load the UPGRADE version of XP home can you just stick in the old 98 CD and do a clean install?

Thanks, Mac

 

[Gregor1C]

That's the problem!

You see after I load Windows XP and then they move out of state, they will not have access to my Windows 98 CD to do a reinstall if they need to.

That is why I am interested to learn if the home version has the upgrade file included, like the pro version does.

 

[Macro2]

Just give them a copy of your 98 disk. As long as they have a CD Key license it should be legal.

 

[Gregor1C]

I have, I copied it to there D:/ drive. I know you intended for me to burn them one, but having it on the hard drive should be the same thing. I just do not know for sure if it will work.

Thanks for responding.

 

[bozo1]

Originally posted by: Gregor1C
I have, I copied it to there D:/ drive. I know you intended for me to burn them one, but having it on the hard drive should be the same thing. I just do not know for sure if it will work.

Not really the same thing. What if their hard drive dies? Data gets scrambled? Virus munched?

 

[c0rv1d43]

Yeah, what bozo1 said. Also if you're really worried about the quality of that system for their use you shouldn't be doing an install-over of WinXP on top of Win98. The system will be better by yards if you do a clean install, hard work or not.

- Collin

 

[Gregor1C]

I thought I would let you all know what I found out today, talking with another computer tech. Windows XP OEM version has both the upgrade file and the clean install file on the CD. So once you upgrade, it will NOT ask you for the Windows 98 CD again.

And yes, the hard drive could crash, but it is a new 120 Gig Maxtor and the Windows 98 file is on the D:/ partion so you could F-disk C:/ and still use it.

I also agree that a clean install was the best method for Windows 9x, but I have also read that XP runs just fine after using the upgrade option. Have you seen some concerns about using the upgrade function, or are you just following the old rules? This is not a hard core gaming machine I am working on.

 

[c0rv1d43]

Originally posted by: Gregor1C
I also agree that a clean install was the best method for Windows 9x, but I have also read that XP runs just fine after using the upgrade option. Have you seen some concerns about using the upgrade function, or are you just following the old rules? This is not a hard core gaming machine I am working on.

No, I'm not just following old rules. Two guys down the street tried to take their entire office from Win98SE to WinXP Pro this way, with semi-disastrous results. The Windows XP upgrade installation over Win9X actually does an incredibly good job of scanning the old registry and incorporating the settings the system needs in the new OS installation. That's part of the problem. Unless the Win9X installation is really fresh and untainted by bad software and device installations and the usual little corruptions the result will be a pretty flakey system. Not to mention that the device drivers under the old OS often simply do not upgrade properly to the new device drivers provided by the OS or by using driver media. I don't know why. But many devices that functioned perfectly under Win98SE behaved terribly after the WinXP upgrade installation and subsequent driver updates. Those same devices (using the same drivers!) worked perfectly under WinXP after the system disks were wiped and fresh installations of WinXP were installed! In their population of office machines (54 of them, if I remember correctly) the upgrade install-over worked best on two standalone, non-Internet-connected machines which had never had any patches or upgrades applied! So, from my perspective, the upgrade seems to work best when it's done on a machine that hasn't been used much -- which kind of makes it useless. I mean, if not much effort has been expended in configuring the machine and adding software, then why not do a clean install anyway?

BTW, when the two brothers decided to go back to square one with all of those machines, they just decided to go ahead and do clean installs on the two machines on which the upgrade installation worked, too. As it turns out, they still behaved better after a clean installation, particularly the one machine that experienced a couple of odd problems with its scanner.

In WinXP it's all about drivers. If your drivers work, the system is golden. The worst that most regular software (the kind that doesn't install pseudo-drivers) can do is to crash itself. But if your driver complement isn't good, then nothing on the danged system will work reliably. I've seen older systems, like my 500 MHz PIII notebook, that acted like they'd had extensive hardware upgrades when they were moved from previous Windows versions to WinXP (clean install). And I've seen much faster, more recent hardware that acted as though it had been modeled out of the stuff you find on the ground in stockyards after upgrade installations to this OS. Nothing brings WinXP to its knees faster than device driver issues.

In the end we all have to go by our personal experiences. Even people who do a LOT of work installing OSes have an inadequate statistical base (in scientific terms) on which to base their observations about the efficacy of various installation practices, but there's one thing that has to be said about the clean installation -- it's simpler (if more time-consuming) so there are fewer places for Murphy to raise his head.

Either way you proceed, I hope it works well for you.

- Collin

 

[Gregor1C]

Collins,

Thank you for your time and comments. The OEM full version disk is on it's way. I am leaning toward a clean install of the OS after reading your posting. Do you agree that using "deltree" should work fine or are you saying to f-disk the drive?... they may have data they want to keep???

Anyway, I have completely installed Windows 98 many times in my sleep,... but as for Windows XP?... Well,... I have mainly put it on New Hardware so far.

Do you know if I can cut and past the short cuts in the Start Menu out of Windows 98 for use in Windows XP? I know some may not run without a reinstall, but others should work fine.

 

[c0rv1d43]

The OEM full version disk is on it's way. I am leaning toward a clean install of the OS after reading your posting. Do you agree that using "deltree" should work fine or are you saying to f-disk the drive?... they may have data they want to keep???

By clean install I mean booting from the WinXP CD-ROM and using the WinXP setup program to completely delete the current partitions, then set up the OS just as you would on new hardware. Letting WinXP do its own partitioning (and not using any previous version of fdisk or other partitioning tools) is best IMO because it lets the OS set the partition boundaries up for proper NTFS formatting with 4 kilobyte clusters. If you're going to use NTFS this is definitely the best way to do it. Come to think of it, that's another good reason for doing a clean install when installing WinXP. Unless the people using the system are so tied to their old ways of doing things that they refuse to learn about the new file system and the proper recovery techniques for safeguarding data and the OS, NTFS is VERY much better than FAT32. If you do an upgrade-over installation and want to use NTFS you're forced to do a CONVERT. And a CONVERT performed on a FAT32 partition that was formatted using Win9X or WinME will almost certainly wind up with 512 byte clusters. NOT good.

But doing it this way means that ALL of the software and data will be blown away. So, you have to have all your ducks in a row. You have to have all the proper installation software for their apps. You have to have WinXP-compatible drivers for all of their devices, or their devices have to be listed in the HCL. And you have to save their data to external media. But, frankly, you should do that even if you're doing an install-over. You never know when something will go awry during an OS installation. It's not likely to happen, but a file system failure can blow away all of their data. No matter what type of major configuration change one is contemplating on a system, the data should be backed up FIRST to external media. Period.

If you want to install to the current FAT32 partition then you can Deltree the old Windows and Program Files directory structures and proceed that way. You'll still have to re-install all software. Cutting and pasting shortcuts just isn't where it's at, except for a few very simple utilities and apps that don't require any registry entries. Almost all software that used an installation routine needs registry entries in the currently installed OS. That means you've got to have the software installation media and go through the entire configuration process. If you're not willing to do that, then you'll have to do the install-over.

Now let's go back to that "new hardware" comment you made. You have checked out all of their hardware (including peripherals) to be sure that it's supported in WinXP, right? Most common fairly recent hardware is supported, but you don't want to see just how bad this OS can be when you've installed it on unsupported hardware. You should also have checked their software to be sure that it will all run under WinXP. In particular, you've got to watch utilities like system tools and cd writing software. If you install an unsupported software package or device under WinXP and wind up with a bad kernel-mode driver, your system is hosed.

I've got WinXP running well on a number of pretty old (by today's standards) hardware, but it isn't safe to assume anything. Be sure you do the research ahead of time. Otherwise, the system could turn into a pile of steaming do-do, and you might be reinstalling the old OS and apps again.

- Collin