Microsoft to no longer support Windows 98- should I upgrade?

[alva]

Win3.1 an OS ??

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Agathon
You might as well upgrade since Windows "Longhorn" is anywhere from 3-5 years away.

/me chuckles softly at the mention of "Longhorn"

Originally posted by Agathon
Windows 3.1 and 2000 are the only acceptable OSes MS has ever shipped.

DOS is better than 3.x...

If you are looking at the "home" line, 98SE is the best and should be the end of line.

But you forgot Xenix, which is a version of Unix that MS shipped long long time ago.

[Agathon]

I really don't follow MS anymore.

I'm happy with OS 10.3 - it's stable and has never caused me a single problem.

Win 3.1 had a bad UI, but it worked and I never had any trouble with it. 2000 is the only other MS GIU-OS that I could say the same of.

[Enigma_Nova]

My P42400 With 512MBDDR and Win2000 Pwnzj001!!1

[Q Classic]

upgrade to dos 6.22. unfortunately, since that's damn hard to find, try www.freedos.com

xp pro is nice. i like it more than 2k.

you could always try gentoo linux, or redhat fedora or mandrake, if you want it to actually work right away.

[Rogan Josh]

I would like to upgrade too, but I have very little idea how to go about it. Can someone help me?

First of all, I would like somemore RAM. I have a Dell Dimension 8100 (1.5GHz pentium, 256MB DDR RAM (unfortunately I think this is in two slots, but I am not sure), 40GB hard drive, GeForce 2) , which is about 3 yeras old - can I just buy any RAM and stick it in, or do I have to figure out what RAM it takes? I also want a new graphics card - does it make sense to buy a top of the line one, or should I get a semi-old one?

I would also like to upgrade to XP. I have ME right now but it is really needing a reinstall. But XP seems really expensive on the High Street. Is there anywhere I can order it over the web cheaper?

Once I do install/reinstall, what do I need to do? Presumably I don't just install on top - I want to wipe my drive completely to get rid of all the junk. But do I have to make a start-up disk or something? Otherwise my CD reader won't work - right?

And what would you recommend for firewall, viruschecker ect, bearing in mind that I am on a limited budget.

Could anyone give me a step-by-step guide to doing this, or point me to one on the web?

[Q Classic]

i too have a dell 8100. if you buy more ram, it has to be 800mhz rdram, and you have to buy the memory in pairs.

as for graphics cards, you can get a top of the line one if you want--we've got an agp 4x port, meaning that it works with anything, really, that's recent.

as for installing xp, there's an option in the dell bios which lets you set boot order. make sure that cdrom si higher in priority than the hard disk. conversely, you could also press f12 when you have the dell screen, and choose cdrom.

[Q Classic]

what i've done with my dell 8100:

came with 1.7ghz, 256mb ram, 60gb hd, 1 cdrw.

i added a second cdrw and an 80gb hd... those were easy as pie, shouldn't be too hard for you either.

as for ram, i had to order two sticks, which set me back more than i'd budgeted for it (2x256 = 512) for an end total of 768mb, and if i remember right, you'll have to move the power supply to get to the ram sockets. the latch is right next to the green vent for the cpu, and it hinges out.

i haven't changed my graphics card, but i might do that sometime soon. that's just a matter of popping out your old one and plugging in the new one--it *should* work with no problems.


as for firewall, i suggest kerio or zonealarm. more people use zonealarm, but i've also heard reports that it doesn't like being uninstalled.

for av, there's grisoft avg. they're good and free.

if you need more help, just pm me.

[Rogan Josh]

Thanks Q. It will be a little while, since I want to do it after Christmas. I'll PM you if (when?) anything goes wrong.

But why do I need to buy the memory in pairs? Couldn't I just stick in an extra 512 on one chip? (stick? what's a stick?)

[Q Classic]

it's the ass-backwards way rdram works.

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/d850emv2/tti001.htm

that said, i suggest using industry standard samsung for it.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
i too have a dell 8100. if you buy more ram, it has to be 800mhz rdram, and you have to buy the memory in pairs.

Yuk.

Debian is good too.

[Kaak]

Rogan: RDram works kinda like dual channel memory, that's why it has to be installed in pairs...

[Q Classic]

thing is, when the 8100s were the flagship model for dell, rdram was the best type of ram you could get for p4s.

[Q Classic]

debian's not as friendly to n00bs.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
thing is, when the 8100s were the flagship model for dell, rdram was the best type of ram you could get for p4s.

You could tell RDRAM stinked (still stinks), couldn't you? Even Intel supported it for less than 1 year.