-----Original Message-----
1) Upgrading to IE6 on a Win98 machine will probably end
up in a lot of
trouble. Many people had problems after installing
IE6. IE6 was clearly
not written for Windows 98.

Absolute crap--I have no problems whatsoever with IE6 &
WIN98!

2) Upgrading to Windows XP on a sub ghz machine, it can
be too slow. It'll
probably work on a Pentium 3 processor, but don't install
XP on anything
lower than that.

3) Ok. So now what? Does that mean our aging computers
are stuck with
Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 5 ? NO!

I must blow away Microsoft's little secret. The version
of windows you want
is Windows 2000. Windows XP is basically just Windows
2000, but with all
that cute graphical bloat added (among other useless
bloat). Windows XP's
bloat just adds to the memory requirements, and processor
load. Windows XP
was clearly written for multi-ghz machines.

Windows 2000 is 99 percent compatible with Windows XP.
Windows 2000 is
actually about 10 percent faster than Windows 98. So, it
translates to
this. You can take that old 120 mhz machine, and
install Windows 2000 on
it, and it'll run a bit faster, and it will be compatible
with Windows XP.
And you'll be able to install Internet Explorer 6 without
problems.

Ebay is a great place to get almost any Windows version.
You should be able
to easily get a copy of Windows 2000 from Ebay easily.

Windows 2000 will run with as little as 64mb of ram, but
at least 128mb is
recomended for additional work space.

Some very important factors when installing Windows
2000. Because 2000 is
the same as XP, 2000 also has the same security flaws out-
of-box. Remember
all those viruses that infected XP machines from just
being connected to the
internet? Well, 2000 has the same problem out-of-box.
VERY IMPORTANT: When
installing, Do not expose the computer to the open
internet. If you do,
it'll get infected in minutes. For now, you can just
disconnect the
computer from the internet.

Ok, when you're finished installing Windows 2000, you
will need to visit
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to fix the security
flaws. Because you
can't expose the freshly-installed Windows to the
internet, you will need a
firewall or router. If you are on a broadband connection
you probably
already have a router. Make sure your router is setup to
route incoming
connections AWAY from your IP address. If you do not
have a router, then a
software firewall will work. You will need to find the
software firewall on
a cd-rom, or perhaps off of a local LAN connection. I
like Tiny Personal
Firewall, for example. Once Installed, block incoming
connections, or at
least block ports 135-139 and 445, is where the viruses
come in.

Ok, now that you setup your router or firewall, you can
now safely
re-connect your computer back to the internet. Direct
Internet Explorer to
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com . In the list of
Security patches, there
will be one named "Service Pack 4" The total download
will be more than 45
megs, so a broadband connection is a must if you want to
get it done
quickly. After SP4 is done installing, reboot the
computer. Now go back to
Windows Update, and there will be some more patches.
Install all the ones
that are "Security Update". Reboot computer, come back
to Windows Update
and repeat until the Security Update patches are gone.
It usually will take
at least a few times. That's it. Now from here the
computer is patched
over, and the security flaws will be gone.

*** Sometimes you'll get lucky, if you got a later
version on 2000, SP4 will
already be included. That means that fewer patches will
have to be
downloaded.

From here, you may install Internet Explorer 6 if you
want. It works
wonderfully with Windows 2000. It is available from
Windows Update. But
please go back to Windows Update after installing, there
have been several
security patches for IE6 since it was released. There
are also Direct X
9.0b (for games) and Media Player 9 . If you thought
the previous version
of Media Player was slow, Media Player 9 is faster than
the previous since
Microsoft did a wonderfull job on it this time. As
always, go back to
Windows Update to for the patches since both Media Player
9 and DirectX 9
both have security patches for them since they were
released.

Why all that fuss?? Just order the Windows Update Security
CD it's free and you don't need to go anywhere near the
internet to install: http://tinyurl.com/4bezh


All in all Windows 2000 far less prone to the "blue
screen of death" and
other crashes, vs Win98 since it is so stable. It is
about 10 percent
faster, and there's a neat little video performance boost
also.


This is a little about Windows ME. What is Windows
ME? WinME is
basically just Windows 98 redressed and some additional
features added. It
does not address "blue screen of death", crashes. It may
be even worse than
Win98. It is not compatible with Windows XP. If you
want to upgrade to
Windows 2000, treat it as Win98.


That's all for this FAQ. If you have any questions
about this, or anything
else about Windows 2000, like "How do I remove the logon
screen?", or "How
do I close ports 135-139 and 445?", or anything else,
please email me at
. You may post your reply
here, if you'd like.

Be prepared for virus and spam laden email after posting
your email address in a public newsgroup