How will this system handle WinXP?

[Tarmac]

I'm thinking about putting WinXP on my parents' computer.  It's an old HP system with a Pentium3 450mhz and 224 mb of pc100 memory under the hood.  Currently uses win98, first edition.  

My general reasons for the upgrade are stability (over win98), hopefully a bit of a speed increase, and increased driver compatability (mainly for flash USB drives).  

Computer is generally used only for email, word processing, and internet.  

Microsoft system requirements say this should be ok; anyone have any advice/experience on how it will run in real life?

[zmeg]

If it has enough hard drive space it will work fine, it needs at least 4 gigs. Don't expect any noticeable speed increse though except mabey starting programs.

[Roscoroo]

its gonna be a dog lying on the porch w xp in it ..

with xp your gonna be adding 13-15 more things to the start up menu and running in the background ...

just a simple msconfig and cleaning up there start up menu /task bar will make a large improvement  ,also tone down the temp files  and clean out any unessesary stuff will make it run alot faster

[Pfunk]

as cheap as pc100 is more memory wouldnt hurt it.



I put XP on my g/f parents computer it has the same specs, it works but dont expect to open multiple windows.  I upped the memory to 384MB and it made a huge difference.

[Tarmac]

Cool, thanks all.  I'll throw another 128 or 256 of RAM in this thing and go ahead with it.

[Vulcan]

FWIW I've had XP running on a Pentium 166. As long as you have hard drive space and RAM its usually an improvement over 98 (except maybe for gaming).

[qts]

Got a 256 MB 400 MHz Celeron running Windows 2000 here with no problems.  Memory's the issue, not CPU speed. Sue it's not as fast as my P3-1000 or P4-2400, but it's my everyday machine.