I have a friend that has a 1998 PC built by a friend, running on Windows 98 with 128 mb RAM and a 20 gig hard drive. it has an AMD Duron processor. His PC is completely finished because he has always gone online without any virus protection etc. and his PC is riddled with infection. He cant even really get it to turn on as it is so bad. Do you guys think this PC could cope with XP Pro? My worry is that if I put this on and it doesnt work successfully then all he has is a floppy disk with drivers on it (no OS), so I could not restore it to its current point. Basically do you think this PC is capable of running Xp Pro based on the specs I have listed? Many thanks L.Dudley

The HD is quite limited compared to today sizes, but it suffices. What is bad is the poor RAM amount as to run decently Win XP 256 MB are needed. The processor may be also questionable, but not a major issue. That machine looks to be tailored just for Win 98, however should support XP if feeded with 128 MB of RAM.

Yes it will run, but with only 128MB of RAM it will be painfully slow. You'd be better off reformatting the drive and reloading '98. Lessons learnt the hard way are not easily forgotten.

"He cant even really get it to turn on as it is so bad." If it won't turn on, it has hardware problems that need to be fixed.

First, there is no way in hell that I'd put X tra P utrd on that thing, and if he doesn't have the 98 disks, does he have a legit copy of XP? Or were you planning to use yours? I don't THINK so. I'd stick with 98 on that thing. You can get copies of 98 on ebay for about 40.00 US, and if the .cab files are actually on his hard drive, you can sometimes generate an installable copy from the files on the hard drive. I've done it, it's far easier to just get a 98 Cd Another thing you can do, is IF you have another machine, with up to date spyware/ trojanware/ virus detection software, you can temporarily slave his old hard drive into the newer machine, and scan the old one for infections.

I disagree with name (response #4) I've rebuilt many older PC's and installed XP. As long as you have at least 256MB ram, you should be fine. Win98 is SO out-dated anymore and XP has almost all the drivers needed so you're not endlessly searching for drivers and such. I'd say install XP. Make sure to fdisk and refomat and you should be fine. Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

I installed Xp pro on my 266MHZ P2 with 128MB, it worked surprisingly fine for surfing and other light stuff. Just make sure you use 16bit color, and windows classic theme. Don't load any unecessary softwares. Anti-virus software like AVG and zonealarm free version would work ok.