upgrading from windows 98

tysteel wrote:
Hello everyone,

I have an old computer I'd like to upgrade from Windows 98.
Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of applications and add-ons no
longer support 98, so I'm interested in upgrading the computer OS,
rather than just throwing it away.

The computer is a Hewlett Packard Pavilion, and it has 46MB ram. It
was purchased back in 1998, but surprisingly it still runs great.

What could I upgrade it to.....what OS package should I seek out?
I've read the requirements of XP, and it's required that you need to
at least have 64 MB ram minimum?

Is there any current OS system out there that should be able to
install with my computer's specifications?

thanks



Realistically you need an absolute minimum of 256 megs of RAM for XP
and a 400 mhz cpu to run XP...
though even double those specs and that's just barely enough to run it
decently.

Damn Small Linux will run on that machine,
though you should still bump the RAM up to 64 megs.

Otherwise, just stick with win98...it's still a usable OS

On Mar 13, 12:00*pm, "Don Phillipson" wrote:
"tysteel" wrote in message

...

I have an old computer I'd like to upgrade from Windows 98.
Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of applications and add-ons no
longer support 98, so I'm interested in upgrading the computer OS,
rather than just throwing it away.

The computer is a Hewlett Packard Pavilion, and it has 46MB ram. *It
was purchased back in 1998, but surprisingly it still runs great.

What could I upgrade it to.....what OS package should I seek out?
I've read the requirements of XP, and it's required that you need to
at least have 64 MB ram minimum?

1. *Go to the HP web site and find out how much RAM your particular
model can use. * WinXP requires at least 128 Mb for efficiency,
preferably 512 Mb. *RAM chips are now cheap.
2. *What hardware (e.g. printers) or software (e.g. music editing)
would be enabled by another OS because Win98 does not support them?
3. *You may or may not bound to Windows: *several Linux interfaces are
familiar to Windows users.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Thank you all for the responses.

I'd like to hook up this computer to satellite internet service (we
have no broadband service out here in the local area), but satellite
providers (hughes and wildblue) require systems above Windows 98.

You at least need to have windows 98SE for hughes satellite internet,
and with wildblue you will need windows 2000 or higher.

I only have the windows98 (not SE), so i was looking for upgrade to
another OS instead of buying another computer.

On Mar 13, 12:00*pm, "Don Phillipson" wrote:
"tysteel" wrote in message

...

I have an old computer I'd like to upgrade from Windows 98.
Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of applications and add-ons no
longer support 98, so I'm interested in upgrading the computer OS,
rather than just throwing it away.

The computer is a Hewlett Packard Pavilion, and it has 46MB ram. *It
was purchased back in 1998, but surprisingly it still runs great.

What could I upgrade it to.....what OS package should I seek out?
I've read the requirements of XP, and it's required that you need to
at least have 64 MB ram minimum?

1. *Go to the HP web site and find out how much RAM your particular
model can use. * WinXP requires at least 128 Mb for efficiency,
preferably 512 Mb. *RAM chips are now cheap.
2. *What hardware (e.g. printers) or software (e.g. music editing)
would be enabled by another OS because Win98 does not support them?
3. *You may or may not bound to Windows: *several Linux interfaces are
familiar to Windows users.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Thank you all for the responses.

I'd like to hook up this computer to satellite internet service (we
have no broadband service out here in the local area), but satellite
providers (hughes and wildblue) require systems above Windows 98.

You at least need to have windows 98SE for hughes satellite internet,
and with wildblue you will need windows 2000 or higher.

I only have the windows98 (not SE), so i was looking for upgrade to
another OS instead of buying another computer.

While XP claims to run in 64 Meg, it really requires more like 128 Meg to
run itself well, without any applications. If you want to run something in
addiiton to XP, you need 256 Meg, and even that will only permit a few
applications a a time to be run, without extensive use of virtual memory.
Virtual memory is a file on the hard drive, so it is much slow than RAM,
painfully slower.

If you can not upgrade your RAM significantly, do not waste time with XP,
and certainly not Vista.

You probably could run any of several older LINUX operating systems. As a
test, download a free LINUX distribution from http://www.livecdlist.com/ and
burn it to a CD suing an option like burn-from-image (not simply drag &
drop). Then, see whether it can boot your computer form the CD. "live" CDs
run the operating system and applications directly form the CD, without
installing anything on the hard drive, so they are safe to test drive. I
persoanlly like KNOPPIX, and version 4 might run on your hardware. If you
like the feel of LINUX, most live CDs have an option to install on the hard
drive, often in addition to Windows. Or, you could look into installable
LINUX distributions.

But, if your desire to upgrade is to run windows applications, LINUX will
not help much. However, there are many (free) LINUX applications to do
common things, like email, internet, burn CDs, word processing, etc. Most
LINUX distributions come with some of these.

However, your best course of action might be to buy a bottom-of-the-line PC
from Dell or similar. A modern PC costing as little as $350 will out
perform your current PC. Note that Dell and a few other manufacturers still
offer XP:
http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs .
Note that XP has an advantage over Vista in that XP can run well on much
smaller/slower hardware, which means cheaper hardware.


"tysteel" wrote in message
...
Hello everyone,

I have an old computer I'd like to upgrade from Windows 98.
Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of applications and add-ons no
longer support 98, so I'm interested in upgrading the computer OS,
rather than just throwing it away.

The computer is a Hewlett Packard Pavilion, and it has 46MB ram. It
was purchased back in 1998, but surprisingly it still runs great.

What could I upgrade it to.....what OS package should I seek out?
I've read the requirements of XP, and it's required that you need to
at least have 64 MB ram minimum?

Is there any current OS system out there that should be able to
install with my computer's specifications?

thanks

While XP claims to run in 64 Meg, it really requires more like 128 Meg to
run itself well, without any applications. If you want to run something in
addiiton to XP, you need 256 Meg, and even that will only permit a few
applications a a time to be run, without extensive use of virtual memory.
Virtual memory is a file on the hard drive, so it is much slow than RAM,
painfully slower.

If you can not upgrade your RAM significantly, do not waste time with XP,
and certainly not Vista.

You probably could run any of several older LINUX operating systems. As a
test, download a free LINUX distribution from http://www.livecdlist.com/ and
burn it to a CD suing an option like burn-from-image (not simply drag &
drop). Then, see whether it can boot your computer form the CD. "live" CDs
run the operating system and applications directly form the CD, without
installing anything on the hard drive, so they are safe to test drive. I
persoanlly like KNOPPIX, and version 4 might run on your hardware. If you
like the feel of LINUX, most live CDs have an option to install on the hard
drive, often in addition to Windows. Or, you could look into installable
LINUX distributions.

But, if your desire to upgrade is to run windows applications, LINUX will
not help much. However, there are many (free) LINUX applications to do
common things, like email, internet, burn CDs, word processing, etc. Most
LINUX distributions come with some of these.

However, your best course of action might be to buy a bottom-of-the-line PC
from Dell or similar. A modern PC costing as little as $350 will out
perform your current PC. Note that Dell and a few other manufacturers still
offer XP:
http://www.dell.com/content/products...=19&l=en&s=dhs .
Note that XP has an advantage over Vista in that XP can run well on much
smaller/slower hardware, which means cheaper hardware.


"tysteel" wrote in message
...
Hello everyone,

I have an old computer I'd like to upgrade from Windows 98.
Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of applications and add-ons no
longer support 98, so I'm interested in upgrading the computer OS,
rather than just throwing it away.

The computer is a Hewlett Packard Pavilion, and it has 46MB ram. It
was purchased back in 1998, but surprisingly it still runs great.

What could I upgrade it to.....what OS package should I seek out?
I've read the requirements of XP, and it's required that you need to
at least have 64 MB ram minimum?

Is there any current OS system out there that should be able to
install with my computer's specifications?

thanks

wrote:

Win2K should do the job.

Win 2K is only marginally better than NT. I would not consider 2K to be
an "upgrade" from win-98.

About the only thing that's good about 2K is that it doesn't require
online product key validation by Microsoft, which means you should have
no trouble downloading it from a torrent.

Many businesses still use 2K.

And many businesses also have IT people that have performed wizardry in
order to make their 2K desktop systems workable.

For someone who has no knowledge of NT-based OS's, 2K is a bad starting
point. An XP-sp2 CD is the only sane starting point for an NT newbie.

You can install 2k to either a Fat32 or NTFS format. If you still
want to use Dos, use the Fat32 format. Thats what I have on my
laptop.

XP will also install on a FAT32 drive. I've done it, on a 250gb drive
formatted as a single FAT32 partition.

But the issue in this case is moot. The OP's hardware is completely
underpowered for 2K or XP. And even for Win98 it's pretty bad. All
win-98 systems should have 512mb of ram and be running on a P3-800 mhz
system minimum. 512mb is bare minumum for XP, 1 gb is more usable, and
a P4 celeron 2.5 ghz or better CPU.

PS. Vista is NOT an operating system !!!!! I'm not sure what it
is, but it's NOT an operating system..........

Vista is an abortion, some kind of monster.

wrote:

Win2K should do the job.

Win 2K is only marginally better than NT. I would not consider 2K to be
an "upgrade" from win-98.

About the only thing that's good about 2K is that it doesn't require
online product key validation by Microsoft, which means you should have
no trouble downloading it from a torrent.

Many businesses still use 2K.

And many businesses also have IT people that have performed wizardry in
order to make their 2K desktop systems workable.

For someone who has no knowledge of NT-based OS's, 2K is a bad starting
point. An XP-sp2 CD is the only sane starting point for an NT newbie.

You can install 2k to either a Fat32 or NTFS format. If you still
want to use Dos, use the Fat32 format. Thats what I have on my
laptop.

XP will also install on a FAT32 drive. I've done it, on a 250gb drive
formatted as a single FAT32 partition.

But the issue in this case is moot. The OP's hardware is completely
underpowered for 2K or XP. And even for Win98 it's pretty bad. All
win-98 systems should have 512mb of ram and be running on a P3-800 mhz
system minimum. 512mb is bare minumum for XP, 1 gb is more usable, and
a P4 celeron 2.5 ghz or better CPU.

PS. Vista is NOT an operating system !!!!! I'm not sure what it
is, but it's NOT an operating system..........

Vista is an abortion, some kind of monster.

tysteel wrote:

I'd like to hook up this computer to satellite internet service (we
have no broadband service out here in the local area), but satellite
providers (hughes and wildblue) require systems above Windows 98.

I only have the windows98 (not SE), so i was looking for upgrade to
another OS instead of buying another computer.

Because you're looking into satellite internet service, you will be
required to have a telephone connection to the ISP and your computer
will need to communicate over a low bandwidth modem connection.
Accessing the internet is a 2-way street. When you send data to the
net, it will be via the low-speed telephone connection. When you
receive data from the net, it will be from the satellite connection.

You might have to run custom or propriatary software that will drive
your modem connection to the ISP. That might be why one of them
requires you have win-2k. It should be easy enough to obtain that
software first and try to install it on your machine before you sign up
with them.

tysteel wrote:

I'd like to hook up this computer to satellite internet service (we
have no broadband service out here in the local area), but satellite
providers (hughes and wildblue) require systems above Windows 98.

I only have the windows98 (not SE), so i was looking for upgrade to
another OS instead of buying another computer.

Because you're looking into satellite internet service, you will be
required to have a telephone connection to the ISP and your computer
will need to communicate over a low bandwidth modem connection.
Accessing the internet is a 2-way street. When you send data to the
net, it will be via the low-speed telephone connection. When you
receive data from the net, it will be from the satellite connection.

You might have to run custom or propriatary software that will drive
your modem connection to the ISP. That might be why one of them
requires you have win-2k. It should be easy enough to obtain that
software first and try to install it on your machine before you sign up
with them.

On Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:56:34 -0700 (PDT), tysteel wrote:

Thank you all for the responses.

I'd like to hook up this computer to satellite internet service (we
have no broadband service out here in the local area), but satellite
providers (hughes and wildblue) require systems above Windows 98.

You at least need to have windows 98SE for hughes satellite internet,
and with wildblue you will need windows 2000 or higher.

I only have the windows98 (not SE), so i was looking for upgrade to
another OS instead of buying another computer.

The minimum pain and adjustment would be to locate a copy of 98SE and go with
Hughes.