I have Sony Vaio running Windows Me. Windows Me keeps crashing, I did the disk clean up thing, defraged, have Norton 2002 running, and Zone Alarm. Nothing helped so I bought XP Pro Upgrade. It gets to the part where preparing for installation and just hangs, won't go any further. I also tried the full install and it gave me a message that virus like activity going on in background and then the computer just shut down. Any suggestions

Pop in the xp cd and run the compatibility wizard first and then make sure your antivirus software is turned off before starting the upgrade.

When you were installing Windows XP, was Norton and Zonealarm running? Be sure to quit those programs before installing a new operating system. -Roger

Thanks for such quick replies, that is two things that I know of that I was doing wrong, not turning off zone alarm and Norton. So will try the compatibility wizard first and see what that tells me. Thank you for all your help, if my computer guy ever gets out of the hospital he is probably going to kill me. Thanks, Joe Ann

You should check with Sony's web site as well. Sony has detailed steps that MUST be followed if you do not want to VOID your warantee. Also, you will most likely find a BIOS update there, which you will most likely need before being able to upgrade.

Also, if you are having problems with Windows ME you should fix them before tryinh to upgrade. Depending on the cause of the problem in ME you will probably end up carrying this problem over to XP. Your best bet is to back up your data, update your BIOS and format and clean install Windows XP. If you cannot format and install clean, at minimum Clean Boot Windows ME before running the upgrade.

Whenever I upgrade a machine to XP I always completely remove the anti virus software first. I would remove any third party firewall software also. I also remove any other software that I know isn't compatible with XP. It's good that you defragged the drive. Do the defrag as the last thing, after removing any software. You can always put software back after the upgrade and you will save yourself lots of agg in the long run. My .02