Windows 98 upgrade

Bill R. Baker · From: Clinton, MS USA

I need to upgrade Windows 98 to 2000. If you have done this where did you get the best deal? My internet provider Earthlink will offer free virus scan for Windows 2000 but not compatible with 98. Thanks for your response. Bill

Wiz Feinberg · From: Mid-Michigan, USA

Bill;
Purchase a Windows 2000 SP4 CD and plop it into the CD tray, while you are in Windows 98. The CD should autostart and ask if you want to upgrade. Say yes, telling it to install into the same Windows directory, and to save the old files in case you need to back out. Be sure to run anti virus and anti spyware scans first.

You will also have the option of converting the file system from FAT32 to NTFS. If you choose to convert to NTFS there is no sense in backing up the replaced files, since Windows 98 will no longer be able to run or be reinstalled on an NTFS volume. You might want to keep the file system as FAT32 until you are sure that the upgrade is working in a stable fashion. Windows 2000 has a file system conversion utility that will change it to NTFS later on, if you want to do that.

You need to be aware that some or all of your hardware devices will require new driver files to work under Windows 2000, and some DOS based programs will not work as they used to. You may need to upgrade some programs as well.

There is also the option of installing both OSs in Dual Boot mode, where you install Windows 2000 into a different directory, named WINNT, and keep your Windows 98 system active. The problems that usually arise afterwards result from both systems sharing the Program Files directory/sub-directories. When you update a program so it will run under W2k it may no longer run under W98. The solution to this is to first create a new partition in the free space on the disk, or buy another hard drive and install W2k onto it, as a standalone OS. The C drive will have the bootloader files for both OSs, and is where you must choose which OS to boot into.

I have successfully performed the upgrade, and setup dual booting on several computers and found all the necessary new drivers online.

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Bob "Wiz" Feinberg
Moderator of the SGF Computers Forum
Visit my Wiztunes Steel Guitar website at: http://www.wiztunes.com/
or my computer troubleshooting website: Wizcrafts Computer Services,
or my Webmaster Services webpage.
Learn about current computer virus and security threats here.

[This message was edited by Wiz Feinberg on 19 February 2006 at 11:50 AM.]

Bill R. Baker · From: Clinton, MS USA

Thanks Wiz. You have helped me reach the conclusion that I need to go tomorrow in seach of a new computer. Bill

erik · Posted 19 Feb 2006 6:21 pm

Bill, I run Win98. I JUST finished scanning my pc at symantec for free. It is clean of viruses (17,691 files) and is very secure. My only open port is ping, and according to them, safe from all known trojan horse programs. Windows info is open but what they showed me is bogus junk i typed in myself. I don't want to start a war but don't go nuts over all the hacker hype.

PS: If you're in to file sharing then you should have protection. Otherwise, run free, don't let "the man" keep you down.

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-johnson

[This message was edited by erik on 19 February 2006 at 06:26 PM.]

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