Hi all,
I am currently running Windows ME on my Pentium III 650 MHz with 640 MB of RAM. I am pretty satisfied with it but, as Windows XP came out, I start thinking to upgrade. I know that some of you, like Graham UK and Sander Thalen, have already made the "giant step" and am asking: is it worth the while? Are there any problems with old programs, especially the ones that we, as amateur musicians, run more often?
Thanks for your replies.
Andrea

Andrea.....The only thing I am missing after installing Windows XP is the Softsynth Drivers from Roland VSC88 and Yamaha XG50. A few other programs not working and will not install namely Yamaha XGWorks, Norton Antivirus 2000 & 2001. There are a few other issues that persuade me to say if your existing Operating System Win98,SE,ME and PC is running well and unless your intention is to make Bill Gates even richer, then stay with what you have and do not update to WinXP. It looks prettier but you can easily live without it.

Best wishes Graham UK

Dreamer, I think Graham UK is a very clever
man/woman. Trust him/her.

Krix, the SOV (Swedish Old Viking)

Hi Andrea.
I could not up grade to Xp because my old and good notator Encore is not compatible .
As Encore is very important to me(I make all Kbs parts for my students),I must to go on ME.
My other machine(Pentium III/700/256ram)runs very nice with XP professional.

Andrea:

If you really can't resist the new features of XP OS, but you would like to keep your music (and possibly other) applications functional, my sugestion is to split your hard disk in two partitions. This is, of course, easier if your hard is a reasonably sized one. In one of them you install your brand new OS, and all the applications which already have apropriate drivers, and in your old Win 98/Millenium partition, you install all your music stuff. Later, as new drivers /new versions of some programs are developed for the new OS, you may "move" then to your new "XP partition".
An example of a (comercial) easy-to-use program that resizes/splits your hard disk in different partitions is "Partition Magic", but there are other free utilities that perform the same job (with less flexibility).

E-mail me if my "dialect" sounds strange or if you need further detail.

JP Matias.

Graham, Krix, Chico, Matias,
thank you for your kind replies.
You have convinced me to stay with my not too old Windows ME.
The only reason to upgrade to XP was a greater stability, but you have confirmed that this feature has a price to pay.
Thank you again,
Andrea