to install, or not to install...

[witch]

I don't go purely on what the b/f says, I look things up on the net for confirmation. WinME is as buggy and unreliable as all the other windows OS's. WinME had a hurried release, got rid of DOS and has no extra features apart from a few more drivers, nothing that would have prompted me to upgrade to it when I was on win98.

Do you use WinME? If so, why? I guess it might be better on a lower resource machine.

[Hook]

I don't go purely on what the b/f says, I look things up on the net for confirmation. WinME is as buggy and unreliable as all the other windows OS's. WinME had a hurried release, got rid of DOS and has no extra features apart from a few more drivers, nothing that would have prompted me to upgrade to it when I was on win98.

Do you use WinME? If so, why? I guess it might be better on a lower resource machine.

Buggy and unreliable as all the other Windows... Hell, I agree!  I use it because it came with the computer I bought.  I did not attempt to upgrade my Win 98 computer with ME, I just left it with Win 98.  And I'm not going to attempt to upgrade my ME computer. 

The computer running WinME isn't exactly a high-spec machine (and wasn't 4 years ago when I purchased it), which is probably a good reason not to try to upgrade the OS.  But I haven't had any more problems running ME than 98 or 95 when I had machines running those.  And at least WinME runs all the software I own, something I doubt I could say with XP.

Don't upgrade to ME, it's not worth it.  But upgrading to XP might not be worth it either, which you've already had some experience with.  The next computer you buy will come with XP (or Longhorn) installed, which will at least save you the hassle of installing it yourself.  Worry about using XP then, not now.

Hook

[Ness]

and that's basically what I've decided...

although, my husband can be a bit like a dog with a bone over these things - even though we've put 98 back onto this computer, he's thinking of giving XP another bash when we hear back from ATI tech support over the driver issues...

he seems to be thinking that it will make the home network a little easier to maintain - I'm not convinced anything is worth the hassle this proved to be!

but at least for now I have my sims working again!

Ness

[witch]

but at least for now I have my sims working again!

well, that's the most important thing! 

[DrBeast]

Just a quickie: what brand is the graphics card? I'm not refering to the chipset it uses, I mean the manufacturer.

[Ness]

manufacturer: triplex.

still waiting to hear from ATI tech support - does the manufacturer make a huge difference?

Ness

[Motoki]

Some people claim the cards made by third party companies who use ATI or Nividia chips are sometimes inferior to the cards made by ATI and Nvidia themselves. The only 3rd party made video cards I've ever tried have been made by Saphire and at least for those I can say I had no problems whatsoever.

[DrBeast]

manufacturer: triplex.

still waiting to hear from ATI tech support - does the manufacturer make a huge difference?

Ness

Some people claim the cards made by third party companies who use ATI or Nividia chips are sometimes inferior to the cards made by ATI and Nvidia themselves. The only 3rd party made video cards I've ever tried have been made by Saphire and at least for those I can say I had no problems whatsoever.

Could have, if the manufacturer is a crappy one. I've never heard of Triplex, but then again I'm in Europe so some brands over here are well known but scarcely known over at the States and vice versa. Sapphire is among the the well-known manufacturers over here and highly recommended AFAIK, along with Gigabyte and MSI products, to name a few. As to your OS problem, dunno. Sometimes Windows just hates some parts of your machine. Usually a format and reinstall straightens things out. And you could keep a partition of your harddisk with Windows98 installed just in case. But the mere thought of TWO Windows OS in the same computer gives me the creeps so I'd personally digress!
Another quickie: what language version of XP are you trying to install?

EDIT: never mind my last quickie. Just saw another post of yours where you mentioned Australia...reason I asked is because some localized versions (such as the greek version I grudgingly use because my g/f refuses to install english windows on her computer!) are known to cause problems. Beats me how they do, but whenever I compare a greek version of Windows to an english one, the latter is ALWAYS more stable, faster, etc. Plus the greek translation SUCKS!