Computer questions about Vista,

[RayP.]

We did exactly that, jumped from Win98 to Vista SP1, the 64-bit "home premium" edition. New hardware, obviously, the old Win98 machine couldn't load & run Vista under any conditions.

We have had no problems with it other than the learning curve of figuring out how things are done differently between the two OS's.

We copied everything from the old hard drive to DVD & then created a "Win98 DVD folder" on the new hard drive & copied the DVD's down & have direct access to everything that was on the old machine.

Dumped McAfee (came with the machine) & have Norton 2007 running. Again, no problem with that combination.

Internet access is slow but then we're running 56kb dial-up so it's gonna be.

No huge fan of MicroSquish but, thus far, Vista has been OK.

That's part of my main problem,no disk burner on this old lap top,can write to the small floppy disks,this pc is a early win 98,I only paid $399 for the new lap top,2gb ram x 160gb hard drive Vista SP1,can't see putting all kinds of money in to it when I could probably return it and get a diff. one. Or maybe find some place to export the files to from the old pc and then import them into the new pc.

RayP.

[mdoerner]

You could run DSL (Damn Small Linux) on your old laptop. It's only 49 Meg and if you can boot off your USB port you don't even have to mess with the hard drive. FWIW.

Mike Doerner

[Quarks]

That's part of my main problem,no disk burner on this old lap top,can write to the small floppy disks,this pc is a early win 98,I only paid $399 for the new lap top,2gb ram x 160gb hard drive Vista SP1,can't see putting all kinds of money in to it when I could probably return it and get a diff. one. Or maybe find some place to export the files to from the old pc and then import them into the new pc.

RayP.

Sorry, I had forgotten that most Win98's didn't have a DVD burner. We bought an external burner & plugged in to the machine, I was just so used to having it that I didn't recall that our setup was unusual......

[Jim K]

FWIW, the Washington Post computer columnist predicted on Sunday that Microsoft is soon going to pull the plug on Vista and put out what will be an updated and corrected version under a new name, maybe Windows 7. The Vista name now has such a bad odor that they don't want to even keep the name. I added a big hard drive to my old box and loaded XP Pro, so I can come up on either Win 98 or XP. Works OK, but my old printer driver isn't recognized by XP and my new printer isn't seen by 98. So I have two printers.

Jim

[RayP.]

FWIW, the Washington Post computer columnist predicted on Sunday that Microsoft is soon going to pull the plug on Vista and put out what will be an updated and corrected version under a new name, maybe Windows 7. The Vista name now has such a bad odor that they don't want to even keep the name. I added a big hard drive to my old box and loaded XP Pro, so I can come up on either Win 98 or XP. Works OK, but my old printer driver isn't recognized by XP and my new printer isn't seen by 98. So I have two printers.

Jim

Local software consulting firm ran a 7 part series in our local paper on how to make Vista look/work like XP,makes sense but awful involved to do so,people who use "Hot Mail"(think Ty Moore does{did})are dead in the water with Vista,heard people complain that there's a lot of conflicts between programs/OPS's.

RayP.

[groucho]

Sir. I made the jump some years ago to Vista and haven't regretted it in any way. shape or form. Yes, there is a learning curve but much easier in the long run to operate. From what my IT's say, Vista will be phased out late this summer. I'm sure MS will have a orientation between XP and Vista. Respectfully, G.

[RayP.]

Wouldn't mind Vista at all if I could get my files transfered from Win98(plain old 98)to this new Vista PC.,thats the one thing that is turning me off on Vista.
RayP.

[0311Shooter]

Now I don't know how important those files are but there are still options available, if you want to go to the trouble, and cost.

Couple years ago when I bought my Laptop, I wanted to be able to move files from PC to PC for backup purposes. I bought a program called PCLinq2. Came with a USB special cable and CD. Of course since Flash Drives got humongus, it is no longer necessary.

Just brought it back up to look at the manual and it says it works with WIN98 SE. But one must have a CD Drive on both PC's to load the software on both PC's. Once loaded, it brings up a screen that looks like Windows Explorer showing both computers. One then merely grabs a file or group of files, throws them over to the next computer.

Anything is possible, if you have the time and money.

[RayP.]

I've read of those transfer cables(2 diff. types),this old 98 lap top has a read only disc drive,I have an external floppy drive I could write to but Vista has no floppy drive reader,I'll keep trying various things.
RayP.

[CnRcollector]

Ray,

I recommend that you find a PC Tech who will remove the HDD from your old computer, put it in their "shop" system, and transfer your files to a CD. Any decent experienced tech could do it in an hour or two, depending on the amount of data to be transferred. Shop work should be cheaper for you than on-site work. Just give them a complete list of what you want so they don't have to ask you about every one of the 100K or so files on the average HDD.

I have done this many of times, and would do it for you now if not in SC and you in IN!

Chuck (old PC support/repair guy)