Win ME rehab?

[seti920]

Gentlemen,

I need to rehabilitate my parents' computer.

It's an HP Pavillion, P3 @900 Mhz or so, running windows ME.

As it's running WinME, things have become increasingly buggy. I'm
tasked with making things work properly.

My ideas thus far were to:

use norton ghost to back the entire drive up to my computer;


then either

a) wipe hard drive
install windows XP, try to track down and recover all the other
programs formerly installed on computer, update drivers etc,
transfer back relevant files from the backup.


b) Try re-installing WinME to the computer over current installation, without
wiping the drive.



Upside of A is that it's a longer term fix.
Upside of B, as I see it, is that I wouldn't need to teach them XP, and that
there's less chance of losing the use of relevant programs.


Questions
1. Is there an option C I should consider, short of 'buy a new computer' ?

2. I haven't had to play with windows for some time. Is my recollection correct
that b is something akin to a repair installation?

Comments, suggestions, ideas?

Thanks.

-Ben

P.S. I already have acquired a legit copy of XP should I pursue A, so there's no
cost difference.

 

[MajinWade]

I recently upgraded my parents from windows98 first edition to windowsXP, though with very significant hardware changes. You can almost make it look exactly like the old system, thus reducing learning times. If I could figure out how to change ALL thumbnails to icons, it would be pretty much set. When I say upgraded I mean with a different hard drive, so like a reformat. I was able to copy all documents and other usefull things like bookmarks and wallpaper. I even just copied Eudora 3.5 without a setup and it works fine. All other programs were either upgraded to new edition or installed.

Problems might include dealings with the My Documents folder, since it's multiple user based and forgetting something that was considered important. I set up autologon and that seems to work good. Installing completely new also gives you a chance to get rid of useless programs they don't want either.

When I asked them if they liked the old computer better, they definatly agreed that the new setup was so much better that they could not notice any bad things, and even didn't mind some of the xp quirks.

So I vote for option a. But why not upgrade to winXP witout a format?

 

[seti920]

aspects I didn't mention in original post, because IE crashed...

Install of ME is over a year old. Registry rot.

Some time in August, they got a virus, which is now cleaned up. In the process, certain system files were corrupted or deleted. So...it sorta works, and it sorta works worse than even ME usually does. Besides which, I'm home with a good, working PC, large hard drive, and crossover cable. I'm not really enthused about the prospects of an XP install over a shaky ME.

 

[EeyoreX]

I'm not really enthused about the prospects of an XP install over a shaky ME

Good. ALL installations of Windows ME are shaky (at best) if you asked me. Do a reinstall after backing up data. I wouldn't ghost, just copy data that they want saved. Almost any upgrade from 98/ME to XP is asking for future disaster. I only recommend (and perform) full installs of XP when upgrading from a 98/ME system.

\Dan

 

[drag]

Personally I would put 2000 on that machine. It's a bit easier on the resources then XP.

But that's just my personal preference.


Do you have another computer networked with it? The easiest thing to do would be to copy the files you want to save over to another computer. Or burn them to a CD.

Forget trying to save any programs or anything, just reinstall the stuff they use. Also it may be a good idea to download the major security updates to a CDROM before you install a new OS, so you don't get nailed by worms before you get a chance to install the updates from update.microsoft.com

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: drag
Personally I would put 2000 on that machine. It's a bit easier on the resources then XP.
But that's just my personal preference.

For his parents? Definately go XP, if they are comfortable with ME they should be right at home (but with an actually stable OS)

Bill