While I have no great love for Windoze, in your case (and without
additional information), I'd actually recommend upgrading your O/S
(assuming you're using Win98 or Win98SE or WinME). I've just installed
WinXP Home Edition on one of my LAN computers, and it was the smoothest
install I've ever experienced -- and it recognized every piece of
equipment in the computer or attached thereto and installed them all
flawlessly, with drivers that wereeven newer than any I had (and I had
some pretty unusual stuff, too).
It's the option I'm investigating now. At the MS site, you can read a
series of articles that PC Magazine wrote on XP. PC Mag. bears out what
you say about the ease of installing peripherals. It seems worth a try;
even if it doesn't work, I'm out $99 and can still get a USB scanner.
Did you install it over the old OS or reformat the hard drive and install
it clean? (PC suggests the later, though they admit that there's not much
difference in performance either way.) Did you have to back up all data
files before installing?
Another important issue for me is whether Word for Windows 2000 and Excel
2000 will work on XP. I already know that Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0 will
not work; it has to be 5.1.
All this for the price of $149.00 CDN for the upgrade. Mind you, the
target PC already came tricked out with lots of memory (>256 MByte
RAM). If you don't have at least 256 MByte RAM, the new O/S may puke a
bit. But these days, RAM's damn near free, and the store I got the
upgrade O/S from was actually *giving away* 128 Megs of RAM with every sale.
I've got a 550 mh PC w/128 mb of RAM. I know I'll have to buy more. I've
never installed RAM and don't even know what kind I must have. Guess I'll
buy it from Gateway (my PC manufacturer) and let them walk me through
it. While I'm at it, I might as well pack it to the max.
Seems to me that buying a whole new computer is overkill.
Yes, but I do need something that will install a SCSI or FireWire card and
something that doesn't crash as often.
Thanks, Garth. I think you've got the right idea.
John
Garth
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|