[ehbowen]

The secretary's computer at our church is a 98SE machine; has never been upgraded. I'm trying to do what I can to at least get it networked and on line. My first attempt with a secondhand network card failed; the card didn't pass the driver diagnostic utility ("Lookback fail"). I picked up a new card and plan to work on getting the machine on line first, then trying to upgrade it. I've never upgraded a Windows machine before (I was dragged away from my Amigas kicking and screaming), and I want to find out if there are any potential land mines.

This was apparently a decent machine back in the day. I'm away from it right now, but IIRC the specs are 233 MHz CPU, 384MB RAM, and 20 GB hard drive with 9 GB free. I just finished installing my old HP Officejet 5510 on it with no issues. My current plan of attack is to get the network up and running (pastor has XP machine; I just got his DSL service up today), upgrade to Windows 2000 so I can get current antivirus and Firefox/Thunderbird software, then see about using Ghost 10 to copy the hard drive over to an 80 gig or so drive. Hopefully this will keep our secretary going for another two or three years at which time I hope we can afford a new computer.

Why not XP? Well, I think I can pick up a NOS 2000 upgrade package cheap, and money is definitely a consideration. True, we might be able to pick up a new low-end desktop tower for not much more than this will cost, but then we would almost certainly be looking at having to buy all new software to use it. Most of our present software, especially WordPerfect 9, should run under Windows 2000—I think.

Anyone have any hard-won nuggets of wisdom they'd like to share?

[fuzexi]

Yes, if money is an issue then why not go Linux?
There's a bit of a learning curve but you can get all the software you need for free, plus you don't even need antivirus. Linux is a lot more accessible than it was a few years ago, so you don't need to be a geek to use it. In fact my wife has been using it for almost a year, as it came with her 'eee pc'.
Apparently Linux Mint is an easy version to use, although Ubuntu is quite popular too.

[Davec]

Wordperfect 9 runs fine on XP.

[bbearren]

The big issue I see is the 233 MHz CPU, 384MB RAM. 2000 will run, but slowly. RAM for that machine would be fairly cheap, and you could go up to the total supported by the motherboard, but it might be difficult to find a faster compatible CPU to upgrade.

Perhaps one of the congregation has an unused or little used newer PC they would be willing to donate.

[flavallee]

Are you positive about the processor speed in that old computer? I've never seen a computer with a 233 MHz processor speed that supports 384 MB of RAM.

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[ehbowen]

I just doublechecked the processor today and my memory was faulty; it is actually a 500 MHz Pentium III.

[ehbowen]

No good deed goes unpunished department: Now that I have our secretary's computer on line and running well, they are asking if I can do the same with another computer for our children's minister. It has similar specs; Windows 98, 192 MB RAM, 500 MHz processor (don't remember what type), and I didn't check the hard drive capacity. It needs an OS upgrade; it was a donation and it didn't come with the original Windows 98 disk. When I try to install the networking drivers with the OS disk from the other Win98 computer it won't accept the disk.

Since my OP I have ordered an 80 gig hard drive, an upgrade copy of Windows 2000, and Norton Ghost 10.0, all intended for the secretary's computer. From the comments so far I am wondering if perhaps I should divert these items to the children's ministry computer and try to take the secretary's computer, which has slightly better specs and is more heavily used, up another notch to Windows XP and a somewhat bigger hard drive. Your thoughts on the matter are welcome.

ETA: There are a number of different "flavors" of Windows XP; if I did that upgrade on the secretary's computer, which version of XP would be recommended?

[flavallee]

I've run Windows XP Home Edition SP3 in a HP Pavilion 8565C desktop with an Intel Pentium III 500 MHz processor and 384 MB of PC100 SDRAM. With the startup load kept to a minimum and most of the visual affects turned off, it ran fine for basic computing.

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