Upgrade Windows ME to Windows XP Home

[azande]

Absolutely no idea but one will endeavour to find out

Edit: If you don't know what you are going on about, do you at least know what you are on?

[David Franklin]

I'm not a software developer, just a user, but I'm assuming (and correct me if I'm wrong) that compatibility is an issue indipendent of the OS.

You're wrong! The OS is typically the biggest compatibility issue (for major application programmers, at any rate. Perl et. al. is somewhat more OS agnostic). Of course, the OS can be written to be compatible with older versions, but once a new OS version is on release, it's not really acceptable to tell customers "well, it works on Panther, so it should work on Tiger" - we have to have tested it. And we have to have all versions available to deal with support issues.

I actually don't believe in benchmark tests to support one microprocessor or the other,

No, and to be fair, a lot of Mac users choose it for the UI etc. But it's hard to ignore that Apple insisted PowerPC was far faster than Intel against the experience of nearly everyone I know (a few applications, such as Photoshop excepted), until they decided to switch, after which Intel was suddenly faster than PPC! (Yes, Microsoft lie too - but we knew that...)

[azande]

I just read your answer and what I posted, and I didn't explain myself in the right way. What I meant is that no matter what OS you are developing for, you still have compatibility issues. You still need to test your software for a new version, be it Windows, Unix, Linux, OS X etc.

[David Franklin]

I just read your answer and what I posted, and I didn't explain myself in the right way. What I meant is that no matter what OS you are developing for, you still have compatibility issues. You still need to test your software for a new version, be it Windows, Unix, Linux, OS X etc.

True, though you can usually get away with relatively little testing for a minor version change - other than a couple of network security issues, I don't think we had any problems with SP1 or SP2. Whereas OS9/OS X/Jaguar/Panther/Tiger/Carbon/Quartz/Cocoa has required considerable work. To be fair, the relative stability of Windows is as much a reflection on MS's late delivery of Longhorn/Vista than anything else, but rapid changes in the OS aren't generally good news for developers.

To get back to "having to upgrade" - the point is, developers do have to. But they also can't afford to support lots of different OS versions, so from what I hear, surprisingly big vendors will be telling customers - "You'll have to upgrade to at least Panther if you want to use the next version of our software".

Although the situation is even worse with MS Office. It's what some people call "upgrade cancer": one company gets new PCs with a new bundled version of office, and all the people they do business with ends up having to upgrade so they can read files from them! (So the upgrade does indeed spread like a cancer).

[El Salsero Gringo]

True, though you can usually get away with relatively little testing for a minor version change - other than a couple of network security issues, I don't think we had any problems with SP1 or SP2. Whereas OS9/OS X/Jaguar/Panther/Tiger/Carbon/Quartz/Cocoa has required considerable work. To be fair, the relative stability of Windows is as much a reflection on MS's late delivery of Longhorn/Vista than anything else, but rapid changes in the OS aren't generally good news for developers.

To get back to "having to upgrade" - the point is, developers do have to. But they also can't afford to support lots of different OS versions, so from what I hear, surprisingly big vendors will be telling customers - "You'll have to upgrade to at least Panther if you want to use the next version of our software".

Although the situation is even worse with MS Office. It's what some people call "upgrade cancer": one company gets new PCs with a new bundled version of office, and all the people they do business with ends up having to upgrade so they can read files from them! (So the upgrade does indeed spread like a cancer).

Can you imagine?

"I can't seem to lead you anymore - I'm dancing Ceroc 2000, service pack 3. Haven't you upgraded yet?"

"No, my franchisee says Ceroc 2000 isn't stable enough - he's still running Ceroc 98."

"Ceroc 98? But that's no longer supported!"

"Tell me about it, I was trying to dance with a Ceroc 2005 beginner the other day. She'd never heard of the Wurlitzer...."

[David Franklin]

"I can't seem to lead you anymore - I'm dancing Ceroc 2000, service pack 3. Haven't you upgraded yet?"

"Tell me about it, I was trying to dance with a Ceroc 2005 beginner the other day. She'd never heard of the Wurlitzer...."[/

Too true... But at least there's still a broad level of compatibility between the Ceroc versions. I was trying to establish a connection with a Leroc2000 dancer, and it was a right nightmare, I can tell you. I tried a normal start-up using a semi-circle, but we had all kinds of problems with the initial hand shaking, and the two systems are different foot-endian, so we had all kinds of problems establishing a common protocol! Then half way through the dance, she started complaining that I wasn't sending the correct signals, and when I tried using my hand to indicate the beat, she kept telling me my connection was bouncing...

[robd]

Eeek! On this scale, I am still dancing Ceroc 3.1 for Workgroups.

And what's the dancing equivalent of the BSOD?

Can you imagine?

"I can't seem to lead you anymore - I'm dancing Ceroc 2000, service pack 3. Haven't you upgraded yet?"

"No, my franchisee says Ceroc 2000 isn't stable enough - he's still running Ceroc 98."

"Ceroc 98? But that's no longer supported!"

"Tell me about it, I was trying to dance with a Ceroc 2005 beginner the other day. She'd never heard of the Wurlitzer...."

[Dreadful Scathe]

Of course, the issue doesn't arise with Apple, 'cos it's not like you can go and change your motherboard for the latest special from MSI, can you?

PC's are the most popular computer because they are so modular. Microsoft have for years forced PC suppliers to only ship Microsoft products through licencing penalties - if you cant compete you cant stay in business. They made Internet Explorer the most popular browser by making that part of the OS and Windows Media Player, now its anti-spyware tools - all of these help make them more money through development and support.

XP and its horrible activation system tries to control what you do with your computer, as does the nasty warning you get when you try and use a driver not checked by microsoft. If armed guards for every copy of windows was cost effective, they'd do that too and shoot you if you tried to do anything slightly supsicious.

ok, i took that too far

But at least there's still a broad level of compatibility...

[Clive Long]

Upgrade of ME to XP home went like a dream

256Mb loaded.

Machine now does not freeze. Internet access not via the ghastly MSN viewer



One happy cousin.

Thanks people.


Clive