OT: Windows 2000 Pro to XP Pro upgrade without having to reinstall applications?

[The Natural Philosopher]

And all the inbuilt diseases in it too.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well I wouldn't care to GURANTEE that a total linux upgrade to a new RELEASE wont crap on something.

BUT at least the programs are all free to download all over gain.

[whisky-dave]

Of course the first should be anti-virus software.

Yes a very good idea and if you've a few old USB sticks even better. As a mac user I can put the OS installer on a stick and install from there, so much faster than from DVD.

[polygonum]

"When you use the Convert.exe utility to convert a FAT partition to NTFS, Windows always uses the original FAT cluster size as the NTFS cluster size for cluster sizes up to 4 KB. If the FAT cluster size is greater than 4 KB, then the clusters are converted down to 4 KB in NTFS. This is because the FAT structures are aligned on cluster boundaries. Therefore, any larger cluster size would not allow for the conversion to function. Note also when formatting a partition under Windows NT 3.5,

3.51, and 4.0 Setup, the partition is first formatted to FAT and then converted to NTFS, so the cluster size will also always be as described earlier when a partition is formatted in Setup."

[whisky-dave]

I'm a Mac user, but someone that works on PCs and has put W8 on a 5 year old laptop and finding it runs better under W8 than W7 once you remove the tiles features and get it back to more like clasic windows install this.

As a windows user aren't you expected to have and feel more panes ;-)

[The Other Mike]

You could quite easily spend a day and a dozen reboots on installing updates for XP before you even get round to reinstalling apps. Why not jump to W7 as you can run many W2k/XP apps in W7 compatability mode, alternatively run a W2k virtual machine under W7 or linux on modern very fast hardware.

PC's that will run W7 are dirt cheap and keeping your original PC can mitigate against the chance of f*cking up the migration. A KVM switch can mean you can keep working with your exisitng keyboard, screen and mouse while migrating across.

It is advantageous to keep 'data' on redundant external storage, keeping the main hard drive for the OS and apps.

Above all recognise that migration using existing hardware is always a bodge. New installs are in my experience always quicker. SSD's can also speed up an end of the line surplus PC that is two or three years old.

The biggest issue I find at upgrade time is the number of expansion slots for dedicated hardware, hence why I still have some PC's running W2K with ISA slots and XP with PCI slots, both with parallel and RS232 serial ports - I even have a laptop from 1997 that gets used once or twice a month (Win 95 running a dos app that needs a real serial port)

Of course I find there is no need to upgrade the keyboard used at the desktop - a 25 year old IBM from a PS/2 that went to the dump 20 years ago.

[polygonum]

There is a "software KVM" on MS' site somewhere that allows you to use multiple PCs as if they were . Mouse pointer slides across like multi-monitor set up.

[MM]

...it's Linux!

(I gave up on Linux after Ubuntu v8, having tried countless distros before that. Linux never seemed to grow up to be a professional OS, but an OS for geeks.)

MM

[Adrian]

Ubuntu doesn't have version numbers. It has release dates. The current version, 13.04, was released April 2013. Next is 13.10 in October.

So the one you're judging by was released five years and around ten versions ago...

That's really quite a long while in the evolution of Linux as a desktop OS.

[Eric]

You really have it in for Microsoft don't you.

[whisky-dave]

probaley has good reasons, but I don't see it as a dig at windows or MS it' s more a fact of life you have to deal with especailly from ebay or other s ites that appear to offer a genuine products.

FAKE WINDOWS 7 ULTIMATES ON EBAY

[Jethro_uk]

Yes, but for me, upgrading 10.04->12.04 (which is an LTS release) completely borked my system. In the end I had to wipe and install Debian (which I am very happy with). But I don't rely too much on the GUI, so XFCE is good enough for me.

[MM]

Well, I worked with Ubuntu as a try-out OS from about version 6 to version 8 (they had bloody childish animal names for the different issues, IIRC), then along came version 10 and it was different. Just different, All the work I'd put into getting a suite of apps working (getting MIDI to work was a friggin' nightmare), I had to do again. So, I wiped the disk and said "never again".

MM

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah well I held off (apart from servers, where I built one first around

1998) until essentially around 2010, which would ave been a bit later than that you tried.

My windows 98 was dying the death.

And rather than plonking down cash, I decided that in all likelhiood a lunx setup on a new machine was worh playing with. :Leaving the win 98 machine stiill tunning 'in case'

Eventually I discovered I wasn't using the win 98 machine any more except for three programs. Then I discovered VMware/virtual box and managed to install an old copy of XP in that, and te three programs I neeeded. Which was a good thing, because the 98 box got rained on, and that was the end of it.

Thts waa OK, but late last year I upgraded to a test MInt install. That was so MUCH better that I ditched the old debian installation. Copying the old Virtual XP machine across to the new installation. Windows, and its now TWO programs only, came across unscathed.

I never went beyond XP. Linux mint is streets more usable. I have an XP installation for the couple of windows programs I cant do without. Everything including the windows installation is automatically backed up onto a debian based server.

If I need XP, it boots from a saved image in less than 10 seconds. Up to and including the programs and files that were open. Its just another window apon another virtual screen. If I had more RAM., Id lesave it riunning all teh time, but since shutting tit down gives me half my RAM back and only takes 10 seconds, I don't.

I have a fully functional word browser and mail program

I have a decent scanner and printer.

I have a graphics program that will process my photos.

I have a TV dongle that allows me to watch and record TV..onto the networked server, which feeds the smart TV downstairs as well.

I have a Quark/ Creative suite style page editor (scribus)that allows me to generate documents typographically, though usually SWMBO does that on quark and the Macintosh.

I have a nicer analogue of Execl/Word/Powerpoint in Libre office,

I have currently eight workspaces that entirely replace my screen with a different one, so I can do multiple jobs just by switching between screens. Windows sits in one of them

I have a weather miniapp pinned to the top to let me see at a glance what the weather is like at the nearest RAF station that actually publishes that data.

It is rock solid.

I never need to edit the registry. Or fight the firewall. I neither have one on the desktop nor need one.

The disk never needs de fragging.

I have no CPU clogging virus scanner, because 99% of viruses don't work on Linux, and of the ones that do, they cant f*ck with the operating system because I run as a user with limited privilieges.

I can use my digital camera in raw mode, because someone just wrote a plugin to GIMP that reads it flawlessly. The camera looks just like a USB drive, so accessing its pictures is really easy.

I comes with a free C compiler. And many free languages like PERL, Python and PHP. If I want to write my own desktop apps, I can.

I can set up tasks like routine system backups or system checks, or even reminding me which rubbish bin I need top leave out this week, easily and tailor them to my needs.

I cant run Rhino CAD or Corel draw on it, so I run them in the XP. The two programs I still cant do without. Yes the screen update is a shade slower, but its well fast enough. It takes longer to load them into XP than it does to boot XP from a saved state.

Its far and away a better environment for me than OS-X on a mac, or XP on a PVC. I have not bothered to even look at Windows Vista/7/8.

I only reboot it after serious kernel upgrades, It has only hung on me once when accesssing a mounted file system somewhere in London., when I lost the Internet. I MIGHT have been able to restore it woithut rebooting, but it needed one anytway. A good idea to fsck the file systems every couple of months.

It cost me NOTHING. Beyond the bare bones hardware.

It is without exception the most stable and usable desktop I have EVER used.

Yes, I did go hunting around for the 'best' programs to do what I needed, and trying them all out took time as did getting the appearance 'just the way I wanted it' with the task bars and menu panels where I wanted them with what I wanted on them. But at least I COULD do that. I cant answer fort later windows, but XP is simply 'the way XP is' . Even OS-X is not nearly as customisable. OK that may make it easier for complete dorks to get it running, but we are, one hopes, not complete dorks, and when you spend as much time as I do in front of a computer, it pays itself back in making it easy to do what you routinely need to do.

If you want a toy, stick to windows. Otherwise if you want a stable environment you can WORK with, get Linux. Even upgades - almsit daily there are SOME - are simply a matter of clicking on the update icon when it detects them, saying 'yes' and then getting on and doing something else while it updates itself.

No need to reboot.

These days its comfortably AHEAD of at least XP, and OS-X. I've never seen anything I needed on peoples WIN vista/7/8 setups. But I've seen a lot of stuff missing. The only downside is lack of commercial third party applications.

For those, there is windows stripped to the bone sandboxed to the hilt running in a virtual box. Where its a devil of a sight safer.

The only conceivable reason I could ever want to run windows native on the hardware, is to play games.

It's also true that Microsoft is now working with hardware manufacturers to make it difficult if not impossible to actually load linux onto some machines. If the machine wont run linux, I simply wont buy it.

Its always been more reliable and stable than windowos. These days its even more usable. With MINT its even dare I say it more user friendly to set up.

It just isn't quite so easy for total dorks, because it doesn't come preinstalled.

well how many times have you had to reinstall windows? I've NEVER had to reinstall linux, unless I was moving from one distro to another.

I gave up on windows, because it wasn't an OS for professional users, just for dorks. Luckily they are now all fondling slabs, which come with preinstalled linux (android) or preinstalled Macintosh crap.

The desktop workstation future and the server belongs to Linux really.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I would expect that upgrading major versions would be enough of a change to be essentially a complete reinstall, yes.

I did that with debian to mint. Let's faceit the debian was about three releases behind with all the apps anyway, so reinstalling them would have to happen one way or another.

My data of course is all held on the server. Just a patch of fstab and there it was, in its usual place..oh and a patch of thunderbird to tell it where the mail was . Up came the last fifteen years of email. Must have taken all of a minute.

The point is that with broadband, installation is painless anyway. User synaptic on a raw install, click on all the programs you used to have, hit theh go button and leave it to chug away

By far and away the greatest time is spent customising the desktop to take advantage of all the new features that were the reason you upgraded in the first place.

My server is till running debian lenny. I cant be arsed to upgarade that. It runs just fine. As and when the hardware packs up..well then I will build a bigger better one and stick something newer on it.

[Eric]

ebay or other sites that appear to offer a genuine products.

That video is over 2 years old.

Have you actually bothered to look at the current sales of Dell Win 7 Pro on ebay? There's plenty of positive feedback - con artists would soon be sussed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, that wasnt aimed at microsoft, that was aimed at 'cheap software off the net'.

I had a friend who would torrent loads of 'cracked' software off the net, including Windows. His machine was unstable and always full of malware.

I won't say I have never installed cracked software but by golly, I am careful. And usually it gets totally removed when I finally buy the product.

A lot of stugff in ebay is stolen, orcopied, and the codes dont work, or they are cracked codes, and the installers have been patched to add the malware. THEY don't care. money back, but your PC now belongs to them.

Because you ran the install script, didn't you?

[stuart noble]

I know sweet fa about all this except that many printers and scanners that worked on XP don't on Win7. Ebay is littered with perfectly good scanners that fetch next to nothing. Updated drivers often don't work. Can get expensive if you need to replace both, so I keep the xp/Win7 dual boot going

[Peter Percival]

I surely meant "hasn't the oomph".

[Jethro_uk]

They still do ... currently we're on (checks) Raring Ringtail, and the next (13.10) release is Saucy Salamander ...