Topic awaiting preservation: Upgrading with Windows Me (Page 1 of 1)

My father-in-law wants to upgrade his system. He'll buy a new motherboard, CPU and, if needed, some RAM. My question is: if he changes these two or three main components of his hardware but he keeps the hard disk, that's just one, will WinMe give him any trouble, like demanding new registration or some on-line registration like WinXP would probably do?
I know nothing about WinMe, that's why I'm asking. I'm a Win98, Win2k and WinXP guy only.

viol: No ME is hassle free from that viewpoint. If there is the option I would recommend going for a different flavour of Windows though (things like memory usage are poor) but it is better than 98 (just).

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

If the windows ME version you have has been combined with the original systems software it might get a little akward like in some HP machines where all the hardware is welded to the motherboard. I assume your gonna have a new video/soundcard/modem and stuff, or the ME/Systen software combo might try to look for and install all the old drivers for these components. If the ME Installation is an independent full copy then you should have no troubles... except having to do ALL the windows updates/patches from scratch again.

Like Xpirex said, if it's a branded system (HP, Compaq, Dell, etc.) you may have some troubles, however, if the ME installation was standalone and the mobo doesn't have any proprietary quirks you should be fine.

Real world example:
I built my computer in 1999. I put a clean copy of Win98SE on it. In 2002, I replaced the motherboard with no problems. It was a simple swap job, and all I had to do was install the drivers that came with the mobo.

Emperor: my father-in-law wants minimum change, he just wants a better hardware, since he's happy with the software. He is that kind of guy that doesn't really understand too much when dealing with upgrades and installations of Windows and applications and the like. I used to do all this work for him when I was in Brazil.

Xpirex - no, just new motherboard and CPU - since the new motherboard will still use old SDRAM, I advised him to reuse his old sticks and buy 128 MB more. There may be a need to buy a new sound card and new graphics board if the motherboard we are going to buy have none built-in because his current one seems to have. He wants a very cheap upgrade, that's why I am thinking on buying an AK32A MB Athlon KT266A with DDR & SDRAM slots (that I know nothing about it), and an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ base processor that can be bought for just $130 here in Cambridge. I have to visit the store - Microcenter - and ask the guys there if this motherboard has any built-in feature. I hate built-in feature, my own MB has none, but since he wants to go cheap, that's the way to go, I think. One problem is that he doesn't know whether his current MB has built-in graphics card or not.

silence: It's not a branded system. And it's a WinMe full install. So I guess that, based on your replies, he'll have no problems. He is here in the USA temporarily to visit us and he wants to buy some new hardware to upgrade his AMD K6-II 550MHz old system. I am his "technician", usually, but since he'll go back and I won't, he'll have to find someone to do the swap for him, because he knows nothing about hardware and stuff.

I'm very suprised to see...what should I call it..'reasonable' support? for ME. Most of the threads I recall didn't have much good to say about it at all. But maybe that's just my selective memory at work because my experience with ME was a complete, utter and endless disaster until upgrading to win2k. I don't even want the disk near my puter for fear of contamination. =)



[This message has been edited by NoJive (edited 08-08-2003).]

Yeh, my brother had ME once on a HP generic (with everything built into the motherboard) and I was round his house every single week recovering his machine from every conceivable and inconceivable disaster. ME is by far he most unstable and problematic OS I have had the pleasure of meeting. I installed XP Pro on his computer about 6 months ago and it has not even had a hiccup since.

Viol: You would be wise to get a motherboard with nothing built in (i.e.: video card/sound card/modem, etc.). If you have the system disk for that older machine with all the drivers and stuff you can just drag the components over to the new motherboard, plug them in.. install ME and then add your drivers as necessary.

I have already told my father-in-law that I'd like to change his WinME and replace it with WinXP but I have two "things" to consider: his machine is not powerful enough for WinXP and he's happy with WinMe. So, why change? But now that he's going to make an upgrade, WinXP may be the better option if I were there in Brazil to help him to do the upgrade. You know, he's that kind of old guy that doesn't like and doesn't want to change what, in his opinion, is good enough for his needs.