win2k to winxp...making the move

[N4P]

I've been running win2k on my pc for about a year and a half now, and everything has been great. just recently, i've been getting a ton of windows errors saying "<program name>.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows. an error log is being created.", or something like that. im sure all of you have seen those errors before. and it is also running chkdsk every time i reboot, so im assuming there is something wrong with my file system (running on NTFS). I was going to do a format and start fresh on win2k again, but a couple friends have talked me into making the switch with xp pro.

anyone have any tips for me before i format and reinstall?

hardware config is as follows -

MSI 6380LE Motherboard
1.33 Athlon
512mb Generic RAM
30gig WD HDD
Asus V7700 Video (geforce2 64mb)
SB Live 5.1 Gamer
3Com NIC
Samsung DVD-ROM
3.5" Floppy

any of you OS guru's predict problems for me in my install?

thanks for any advice you can give! 🙂

 

[IcemanJer]

aw c'mon, why make the move up to WinXP?
aren't you happy with Win2K? I'm sure a decent fresh install on you machine will fix all the problems.

😀

 

[N4P]

i actually am really happy with 2k...it's always been stable (up till recently), and ive never had hardware conflicts or anything. i guess i kinda just wanna test the xp waters and see if i like it any more, and i want to make sure i dont blow up my pc in the proccess 😛

 

[IcemanJer]

well, XP is "prettier", but I don't like it as much because there are certain things that you used to be able to do fairly quickly (like managing users in advanced mode) that with XP you need to do in the Computer Management console.

But anyways, doesn't look like you'll have a problem. Especially since you're just formatting and doing a fresh start. XP probably even already have a lot of your drivers on the CD. But you should download the latest drivers for each of your components just to be sure.

 

[N4P]

ya, im not gonna worry about downloading drivers ahead of time cause im living in a dorm and have a ton of friends with pc's, so i can just download some drivers from their pc if i have to. maybe i'll just make sure to get drivers for my NIC so i can transfer files over the network if i need new drivers.

thanks for the info, Ice. i'm not very concerned about stuff like user management or anything, cause im the only one that uses my pc. 🙂 i'm more concerned about it being stable than anything else. and if im not happy, i'll just go back to 2k.

 

[SemperFi]

I have been running xp pro for 10 months now. I really like it but if I didn't need some of the features of xp I would switch back to 2000. I have had many more crashes than with 2000. Although I must say that sp1 has helped a lot.

Oh yea tweakxp.com is your friend. Lots of good stuff.

Semper Fi

 

[N4P]

thanks for the info semper.

i think im gonna give xp a shot, and see how it runs. i've heard horror stories about gettin it running, and ive also heard about people not having a bit of trouble from day 1. and, if it doesnt work...i still have my win2k cd's to go back to 😀

 

[IcemanJer]

cool, sure. yeah, I've been running WinXP for the last few months, multi-booting with Win2K and a few other operating systems.. I guess over all, XP's been behaving fairly well for me. Except for one driver issue with my ATI TV tuner card, XP basically detected and installed all the devices right off the bat, all my applications worked just fine, and gaming on it is a bit more flexible than gaming in Win2K since its "run in compatability mode" feature is more solid than Win2K's. There are different ways to do certain things between 2K and XP, but it's all a matter of getting used to it I guess. As for stability.. neither OS has crashed for me (well, 2K once, but that was because I took out some RAM while it's in hiberation mode, and when I woke it up it complained.. that's a different issue).

 

[azkiwi]

Originally posted by: N4P
i've been getting a ton of windows errors saying "<program name>.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows. an error log is being created.", or something like that. im sure all of you have seen those errors before. and it is also running chkdsk every time i reboot, so im assuming there is something wrong with my file system (running on NTFS).

Why this assumption? Maybe you have a hardware problem...in which case switching to XP isn't going to do anything for you. From my own experience I would say making a major change while trying to sort out a problem seldom makes for a happy time..

Have you run a hard drive diagnostic, ruled out temperature, voltage or memory issues?