I had a computer once which did upgrade after upgrade. I went from Win 3.11 clear through XP, continually transferring the system to a new drive every time I
got a new system. Eventually, I hit on a basic truth.
The system died and I reinstalled... and I discovered it took less than half the time it used to for the PC to boot up. I had so much crud in the registry from
legacy installs and upgrades that the system was bogged down with useless extraneous code.
Windows XP should be run from a fresh install the first time you use it. If you're upgrading an existing setup, I recommend picking up a couple new hard
drives and starting fresh with those. You can pick up some external drive enclosures to put your old hard drives in. Then you can connect them to the USB ports
and use them as external drives. That preserves your file structure and personal data. And it lets you have an XP build that's clean out of the box. It
does mean you have to reinstall the applications software, which will take you the better part of the afternoon. But
it also clears out the stuff that's been collecting in the corners all this time that you didn't know about.
For safety's sake, before doing any of this, I always back up critical personal data to something like a DVD rom, since I'm a big fan of optical
storage as a backup to eraseable magnetic media. But that's as much personal bias as anything.
An alternative if you're leery about getting that in-depth with a system that works and does all your work just fine is to pick up another box. And even on
a budget, you can usually pick up a cheap system in the local refurb computer store that's actually more powerful than what you have right now for a
fraction of a new system. For a system like that, you're not looking for state of the art. Just something that equals what you already have but will run
XP. Then you can network the two machines and transfer data over as you see fit.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
got a new system. Eventually, I hit on a basic truth.
The system died and I reinstalled... and I discovered it took less than half the time it used to for the PC to boot up. I had so much crud in the registry from
legacy installs and upgrades that the system was bogged down with useless extraneous code.
Windows XP should be run from a fresh install the first time you use it. If you're upgrading an existing setup, I recommend picking up a couple new hard
drives and starting fresh with those. You can pick up some external drive enclosures to put your old hard drives in. Then you can connect them to the USB ports
and use them as external drives. That preserves your file structure and personal data. And it lets you have an XP build that's clean out of the box. It
does mean you have to reinstall the applications software, which will take you the better part of the afternoon. But
it also clears out the stuff that's been collecting in the corners all this time that you didn't know about.
For safety's sake, before doing any of this, I always back up critical personal data to something like a DVD rom, since I'm a big fan of optical
storage as a backup to eraseable magnetic media. But that's as much personal bias as anything.
An alternative if you're leery about getting that in-depth with a system that works and does all your work just fine is to pick up another box. And even on
a budget, you can usually pick up a cheap system in the local refurb computer store that's actually more powerful than what you have right now for a
fraction of a new system. For a system like that, you're not looking for state of the art. Just something that equals what you already have but will run
XP. Then you can network the two machines and transfer data over as you see fit.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.