She could use Windows 2000 and Office 2000. It may not run as fast as she
would like as Windows 2000 really likes a lot of memory! She will have to
wipe the drive and install Windows 2000 using the full install, not an
upgrade. Has she considered a new computer? They are very reasonably priced
these days.

Installing Windows 2000
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/indexwin2k.htm

Before she removes Windows ME, I would suggest that she download Belarc
Advisor, run it and print what it finds.  This should tell her what her
video card make is and other computer parts like sound card, etc. She may
have to go to the manufacturer's web sites and download drivers.
http://www.belarc.com

A clean install is when there is no existing OS (operating system) on the
computer when the install is made. She can use a boot disk and format the
drive and then install Windows 2000. She probably will want some help with
this if she has never done anything like this before.  It isn't hard, but
even though I have done clean installs a lot of times, sometimes I need
help! (I am strictly hands on for this process and will not attempt to write
instructions) There are a lot of web sites that tell you how, but most are
'techy'. She can Google for one and when she finds one she can understand,
print out the instructions.
And FYI, Ad-aware and Spybot should both always be used as one will
invariably find things the other doesn't. I use both, but they don't run in
the background, no way could they interfere with scandisk!

(I know what you mean by thinking 9 gig sounds big, my computer that had
Windows 95 had 2 gig and it was a lot! Now I have 2 drives 40 gig each and
that is not much by today's standards. My son got a new computer in December
and it came with 120 gig drive.)

Martha Bagwell
http://www.marthas-web.com



----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2004 5:37 PM
Subject: Re: [PCSOFT] Office 2,000 requirements


Martha,
Sorry, I wasn't clear.  She wants to install Windows 2000 and Office
2000.  She doesn't want to upgrade the WinME.  But, maybe her system
isn't big enough for Win2000 AND Office 2000?

We've checked what's running in the background and that's not the
problem.  There are a lot of programs on the computer, (which she wants
to get rid of too - she bought this computer used and it came with
them), but they are not running, so shouldn't affect the speed.

She had Spybot, but uninstalled it because she said it was interfering
with Scandisk.  I don't see how, but she didn't think it was doing her
any good anyway, because Ad-aware found things Spybot didn't but not
vice versa.  I'd had it work the other way around as well and told her
so, but I'll mention it again.

We've checked what's running in the background and in Startup and it
doesn't appear to be either of those things.

9 gigs doesn't seem small to me.  My last computers hard drive was only
250 megs!!  :-)  I've had my current computer over 4 years and it's only
13 gigs, but I still have 10 gigs free!  I don't do DVDs or much music,
big graphic games etc.  And I have Win 98SE.  I hear WinXP takes a lot
more space.  But you think Win2000 would run on hers?  How about with
Office 2000?  Should she use one of those programs to erase the hard
drive, after she backs up her data etc.?  Is that what you mean by a
clean install?
Carol Hanson

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