[RESOLVED] Windows 2000 Installation & Updates

[terryZ]

i have a friend who has my hand-me-down gateway pc running windows 98. she's been having problems with it. she says that she thinks zone alarm seems to be interfering with her cable modem access. we've been discussing this over the phone since she doesn't live near me. i've suggested using sygate instead.

she has tried to reformat the drive and re-install windows 98 (using both the restoration disk from gateway and the actual windows 98 disk). but she is having problems. it's hard for me to deal with this over the phone because she's not very linear-thinking (if you know what i mean) so i'm not realy sure what the underlying problem(s) is/are. only that the computer freezes up after start-up while trying to initialize the firewall.

her brother (who now lives with her) has a computer that he built a few years ago. he had purchased a copy of windows 2000 and had installed it on his computer. his computer is currently in storage, however, but his windows 2000 cd is not - he has it in his possession. he says that he bought it at a flea market - i don't have any more details. it's probably an oem disk.

they have asked me if there would be a problem with installing windows 2000 on the "98" computer she's having problems with. they are worried that they won't be able to do any of the 2000 service pack updates since it's no longer on the computer it was bought for. my understanding is that it is not until xp that windows software becomes tied to a physical machine.

am i right in this?

would they have any problems installing 2000 and downloading it's service packs and updates?

i'm aware of the different file structures (fat32 & ntfs) between the different operating systems ... and that once you go to ntfs you can't go back to fat32, correct?

i'm asking this because i think that 2000 might experience less of the problems they are having with 98.

any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance.

[Steve R Jones]

Many OEM cd's like Dell's for example will only work on another Dell.

If the orignal pc were brought out of storage it would technically need a Not in Use cd key...

[terryZ]

forgot to mention ... the "in storage" pc does not and never had an ethernet card. it was never connected to the net. so i can't see how it was ever "registered". it isn't a dell or gateway, it was built from scratch.

[LindaHewitt]

There is another issue here, which may prohibit using the Windows 2000 OS and that is the hardware on this Gateway such as RAM, size of harddrive, etc.

Windows 2000 needs 256 MB RAM but runs a lot better with 512 MB. This older machine may only have 64 MB RAM.

Is she running Windows 98 2nd Edition. If not, this is what she should be running. W98 SE is very stable and it is probably the best solution. It also avoids the previously discussed licensing issues.

Cheers,

Linda

[Tuttle]

my understanding is that it is not until xp that windows software becomes tied to a physical machine.

That particular licensing condition wasn't enforced until XP. OEM licenses have always been bound to the machine they're first used with.

I think Linda has a good point in terms of the hardware on that old Gateway; Windows 2000 is probably a bad idea on it anyway.

[terryZ]

thanks linda & tuttle.

the pc has a 40gb drive and is running 98se. i know i added memory before giving it to her so it has at least 128mb ... but i just don't remember how much i added exactly. i'll have her check.

i wonder how the win 2000 oem could have been registered to the in-storage maching was never connected to the net? i'll have to ask if he mailed in any registration. i myself don't remember doing any such thing with pcs before the net.

anyway, i started this thread because win 98se no longer runs on this machine. it freezes up whenever she starts it. i have no way of knowing what she has done to it and she doesn't remember anything. she's tried to re-install windows and zone alarm (older version - which i think MAY be the problem) in order to get the windows updates ... but it still freezes up after a few start ups eventually.

she brought up the idea of installing 2000 instead so that she can have a working pc ... but i have no experience with 2000.

[104456]

Personally I think the question is irrelevant as whichever she installs it would appear the problem is going to continue unless the problem of the freezing is resolved first.
How did she reinstall was it a fresh install with a full format first and has she backed up drivers for the system?

[terryZ]

yes, it was a full format and fresh install. she then installed zone alarm, connected to the net and downloaded the windows updates. from then on, start up was okay for a few tries ... and then the pc froze up (which it was doing before all of this).

i suggested that it must be the old version of zone alarm and that she should try downloading sygate for those few times when the pc did not freeze.

that was when she brought up the question of going to 2000 instead.

since she cannot get online to post a thread about this, i volunteered to do it.

[LindaHewitt]

I think that the best approach is to do a fresh install without installing zone alarm, then download Sygate. Then save it to CD. Then do a fresh install of W98 SE and then install Sygate. That avoids any malware that might infect the computer while she is downloading Sygate.

Cheers,

Linda

[terryZ]

me too. i burned a copy of sygate 5.6 and mailed it to her. that way she doesn't have to go online to get it without protection.

let's cross our fingers.

thanks.

[104456]

Request re:windows 98 updates moved to Windows 98 forum

[jmwills]

Windows 2000 will run just fine on 128mb RAM.

[terryZ]

thanks, 104456.