WindowsXP Shell/Kernel?

[SmokinBarrel]

I was wondering if anyone new how to check to see which shell version you're running on your computer? ie win98 or winXP Pro, etc...

The reason I ask, I heard that with the upgrade version, you're really running off the Windows 98 shell, or kernel versus if you buy a WindowsXP Pro full version? Thus, if you're running off Win98 shell/kernel/registry, then it's more unstable than the full version. This makes sense, because I seem to have alot of problems with my system(s) over time. Thus, I'm thinking of purchasing a full version of WinXP Pro.

 

[riser]

I'm not sure how the kerneling works with the upgrade but I do know that whenever you do an upgrade instead of a full install, you will encounter problems.

It's always advised against upgrading in almost all circumstances; a few reasons exist.

If you can afford WinXP full and back your stuff up, go for it. You'll be better off.

 

[pscowboy]

The Upgrade version was the only option for many of my business clients.

Way too much stuff existing on their 98's. Some of which, did not have the capability to start fresh; the other stuff would have taken 8-10 very tedious hours to redo.

Have to prep the drives first with a 4k realignment tool before doing the upgrade. Five minutes to set up. Let it run overnight.

When the XP upgrade-install is done, you are running the XP kernel, but in FAT32 instead of NTFS.

After I stabilized some minor (non-crash-type) glitches, I converted them all to NTFS with convert.exe. All of them are fine.

The "C" drives are a little trickier; but they get done on the next boot.

 

[SmokinBarrel]

I did a fresh install with the upgrade....verify with my win98 diskette. I'll check to see if my harddrive is NTFS...I'm sure it is - if I remember right.

Anyway, I just had several people tell me that the upgrade stinks, and you should purchase a full version for stability. Of course, I don't have $300 to drop on getting the full version. Might as well wait for Vista.

 

[pscowboy]

The upgrade doesn't stink. I've done hundreds. It's XP discounted, that's all.

The people who had trouble probably never researched the prep procedures.

 

[SmokinBarrel]

What's a 4k realignment tool?

 

[sturm]

The xp upgrade is the same as the normal "full" version. The only differance is that the upgrade checks for a previous version of windows during the install. Like posted in here earlier all you do is put in a windows 98 or windows me disk to verify.
Now if you dont have a pervious version disk then yes you would need to get the "full" version.

 

[pscowboy]

Check this article for how the 4k tool works.

http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm