After reviewing several posts, my problem is probably simple for most of you on this site. We are a small business (5 desktops) that run NT4 and are connected to an NT4 Server. We are in the process of upgrading and have been told upgrading to xp pro is the way to go. My question is, does anyone know of a way to do this? We've had quotes from 3,000 to 14,000 for the entire system. One of the 5 is a Vaio notebook running xp home, but needs to be switched over to xp pro as well. Our server is Compaq (Presario I think) and the other four desktops are Presarios. One option mentioned was to just buy new cpu's with xp pro installed already and a new server, as that might be cheaper than upgrading all the machines. Obviously, we have a very limited budget. We do mostly Microsoft Office work, so we have no need for any systems offering more complex computing options.

I look forward to any and all comments, thoughts and suggestions.

Thank you in advance.

Kate

You didn't say which country you were in so this may affect prices/currency.

Win XP does need greater resources that NT4 workstation. Ideally I would say at least a Celeron cpu ove 1ghz and 256mb RAM although it will run with 128mb RAM(I have it running on Celeron 566 + 192mb RAM OK). Possibly you could get another server running W2K3 and re-use your old one as a backup server.

So I would look at the specification for the systems that you have to see if they will run XP.

Also you didn't mention an Internet connection.

If the current PCs are of a lowish spec it may be cost effective to purchase new ones with XP Pro already installed. I have seen advertisements fo quite decent PCs that are fine for business work coming in at less than £400 (excluding 17.5% tax in the UK). So for around £2,500 you could do it.

You next worry is the server. MS are dropping support for NT4 server too so you will need to consider upgrading that to Server 2000 or Server 2003 as it has now been released. Some people will say avoid Server 2003 as it is new but it should be fine for a simple file & printer sharing system as yours. Again whether your current server is powerful enough for Server 2003 is another story. With only 5 users you could get away with 512mb RAM and a Pentium III processor of at leats 500mhz.

Let is know what the specs of you systems are.

Sorry but the sentence - 'Possibly you could get another server running W2K3 and re-use your old one as a backup server' appears to have got inserted in the wrong place. It should have been towards the end!

Kate:

Our office is the same size as yours. We run a mixed bag of OS’s (98SE, NT4 and XP Pro) We use NT4 Workstation as a file server. We share DSL through a router. We do not share applications.

The XP Pro (full version) replaced another NT4, on a 550MHz Pentium III, with 1Gig of memory. We installed the XP Pro clean, repartitioning and re-formatting the hard drive beforehand, which is an option when you run the XP installation. After the OS was installed and registered, we immediately visited the Microsoft Update site for all the patches and applied them.

Next, we installed Norton Antivirus, visited their site for all the updates and applied them. Zone Alarm (a firewall) was installed next, and finally all the apps were installed. We restarted the machine after every install, whether the system required it or not.

After 6 months of use, the upgraded machine (which happens to be mine) appears to run the apps and generally function about the same speed as it did with NT4. The biggest difference is stability (virtually no blue screens crashes) appearance (its nicer to look at) and greater compatibility with a broader range of hardware and software than NT4.

We continue to use the other OS’s even though they may no longer be officially supported because they serve our needs. Microsoft provides patches and updates for them, and the applications work satisfactorily. We keep our Antivirus and Firewall utilities current and use good passwords.

For us, the greatest motivator to replace the hardware (a get a new OS in the process) is need. Things such as USB ports, media card readers, DVD players and wireless capability. There are situations, however, when an application upgrade may force you to upgrade the OS (otherwise it won’t install) and the new OS has its own hardware requirements.

I suggest you map-out your software and peripheral hardware needs for the next year (a crystal ball will help) then determine if and how these needs drive the necessity to upgrade both hardware and OS’s on your current machines. Almost every software and hardware item specifies minimum requirements. Ask your users if they are happy with the performance of their PCs. Make them get specific on their likes and dislikes, then separate the real-world stuff from the rest.

Full OEM version of XP Pro was available from www.viosoftware.com for $140 last time I checked. If you do not need paper manuals this can save you money over the retail boxed version, otherwise they are exactly the same.

Good Luck.