[Ham-Computers] need Windoze software upgrade info

[Rick Adams]

	Phil wrote:

> Question:  Will Windoze ME still run all my DOS programs, or 
> do I need to seek a copy of Win98 2nd ed ? 

	Windows ME will still run dos programs--it's Microsoft's
"upgrade path" for those who need that capability. XP, on the other
hand, is a true 32b os that is effectively an upgrade to Windows 2000
(XT), not Windows 98 (although the "home" version is a very stripped one
for a W2K upgrade!).

> If I get Windows 
> ME will it run on the above computer?

	Marginally. Windows ME is a real kludge (it really served as a
"temporary" upgrade for Microsoft until XP came out). Unless you have
very high speed hardware with plenty of RAM, it runs much slower than
98se.

>  I am gradually phasing 
> out all my DOS programs (only 3 left in use).  I am really 
> looking to upgrade to a faster machine, perhaps something in 
> the 500-600 MHz range. (As there is absolutely no budget here 
> for an upgrade, it'd have to be a future radio swap).

	Suggestion: Upgrade to Windows SE now on your current machine
(it's far more dependable and faster than Windows ME and you _know_ all
your current software will run on it)--then when you upgrade your
machine go the extra mile and do so to a Windows XP Pro machine instead.


	Right now I run XP Pro on one machine (a P4 1500 with 640MB RAM)
and Windows 2000 on another (Dual Pentium III Xeon chips & 512MB RAM)
and, with the exception of a few poorly designed programs (and who wants
to run programs that don't use system resources correctly anyway?)
everything I have runs beautifully (I use the W2K machine for my
shack--and it runs ChromaPix, MixW 2, and most other ham software w/o
problem--the exceptions being Logic 5 and TRX-Manager, the former of
which has linkage problems and the latter of which doesn't like my
graphics card). With that kind of setup, it's perfectly possible to run
several programs simultaneously (i.e., Web Cluster, MixW, a log, email,
a web browser, etc.) with no loss of speed or concern that a crash by
one will bring the others (or the system) down, since the W2K/XP family
are true multitasking programs). Under ME, otoh, it's pretty easy to
crash the entire system (far easier than with 98se) with just one
misbehaved program.

	Hope it helps.

	73 de ke8hh, Rick