Upgrading an impossibly old system to Windows 8 - hunsuckermilitaidele1997

The insaneness began as much insanity does, with a nominally acuminate idea: Upgrade a Windows XP system to Windows 8 and write about the experience. And so my mouth started moving, even before my imprudent brain realized what it was saying. "I have an aged Pentium 4 system at home, complete with an AGP graphics wit and 2GB of Read/write memor. IT's running tons of software. Mayhap we should install Windows 8 along that, and see if everything sticks together!"

In realness, performing a Windows 8 upgrade on an old Windows XP machine is not a good idea. But the drill allowed me to search the boundaries of what's possible—and to read just about important lessons about the Windows 8 setup process along the way.

And like a sho I can share what I've conditioned with you.

'Old' International Relations and Security Network't quite the phrase for a system like this

Okey, I know: It's an ugly case. But I built this machine when I was younger and more prone to admire tawdry garishness. The good news is that you can't order one of these enclosures anymore. You can pay good money for custom case painting, but this charitable of psychedelic silk-screening seems to be unavailable in 2012. That's plausibly a good matter.

Disregardless, what lives inside the case is more newsworthy. I reinforced the system in 2004, shortly after the Northwood variant of the Pentium 4 shipped. The components within are more than just elderly–they're positively geriatric by modern font PC standards. To wit:

3.4GHz Pentium 4 Central processor (socket 478!)
Abit IC7-G motherboard with Intel 875P chipset
Two 1GB DDR-400 DRAM modules (2GB total)
Radeon HD 9800XT AGP graphics card with 512MB frame buff
320GB Occidental Digital whispered drive (IDE)
Two 250GB West-central Digital hard drives in Maraud 1 way
Sony DVD recorder (16X)
2 Asus 52X Compact disc read-only memory burners
520W Vantec power ply

Note that Abit is now out of business. Vantec still makes low-cost peripherals, merely it is no longer in the major power-supplying business organization. As I'll detail shortly, this organization is a little problematic when it comes to Windows 8.

Abit IC7-G. Abit is no thirster in line of work.

The Radeon 9800XT one time offered the to of graphics performance.

Windows 8 setup: first run

In its original put forward, this P4-based system ran the 32-bit translation of Windows XP–and the last meter I used the PC was several years agone equally a license server for 3ds Max 8. I uninstalled the license server and a few other applications, in the main to make the system lowly enough to back up to the secondary 250GB Maraud array. Then I ran Windows 8 frame-up from a DVD.

I first tried and true 64-bit Windows 8, but was informed that sole a clean, fresh install would be performed. So I resigned myself to installment 32-bit Windows 8. Plane so, the Windows 8 setup preserved no of my applications—only data files! Well, that was a rude awakening.

Windows 8 apparatus runs a compatibility checker the first time IT's excited. The only incompatibility I encountered was the RAID array. I sighed, rebooted the system into the Intel RAID BIOS and deleted the RAID set out. Then I had to repartition and reformat the dyad of 250GB drives, and then run another paradigm backup.

Formerly that prep work was done, I fired up the Windows 8 setup in earnest. Everything progressed as it should, until the first reboot. What appeared along the screen was a 0x0000005 error, followed by "Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to re-start."

Naturally, restarting did nothing but re-create the same error.

Diving into a Google explore, I observed that Windows 8 requires Information Execution Bar (DEP), a feature of CPUs and motherboards that helps prevent malware operating theater poorly designed applications from jetting program code out of parts of computer storage specifically allocated for information. The motherboard BIOS, particularly, must offer a DEP setting, which has to follow enabled.

That's when I knew I was ill-starred.

The Abit IC7-G is a motherboard built aside a inoperative company, and it was already running the last available BIOS update. I verified the lack of a DEP setting. So it seemed every bit though this little project had come to a premature end.

Pillage your parts bin in a pinch

So I remembered the ikon backup. Every last was not lost.

I distinct to try to replicate the system as closely as possible, only with enough ironware updates to enable Windows 8 to run. I rummaged through my mass of parts and uncovered an Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard and an Intel Pentium D 965.

The Pentium D is built along an updated version of Intel's Netburst architecture, the same architecture used to produce the original Pentium 4. Dissimilar the P4, however, the Pentium D is a two-fold-core CPU—though information technology's really ii reprint CPU cores combined in a single package. The Pentium D shipped in an LGA775 package, and these are still pronto on tap.

The Asus motherboard is built on a P965 chipset. which is various generations newer than the 875P used in the Abit board. In practical terms, that meant the 320GB IDE boot drive used in my hand-down P4 organization wouldn't work. The optical drives necessary the lone IDE connector on the P5B.

The two Occidental Integer 250GB drives were SATA, however, so I swapped in a 320GB Seagate SATA drive. The Seagate drive is faster than the novel, just I knew it wouldn't take up a major impact. In a similar vein, I used two 1GB DDR2 modules, since DDR1 wouldn't work with the P5B. My final equipment change up to his neck the graphics calling card: I replaced the AGP 9800XT with a Radeon HD 6450, a very crushed-end card that required no tycoo connection.

After making all of these changes, I checkered the system BIOS and, certainly, DEP was now an option. Thusly I turned it on. And then I cured the original Windows XP segmentation. Aft a reboot, I updated the chipset drivers so installed sunrise graphics drivers.

At this point, Windows XP began generating memory errors. These weren't due to a hardware incompatibility, just to a bug in which a Microsoft service would crash repeatedly. That told Pine Tree State that I was running Windows XP Service Coterie 2, which had some problems when Data Execution Prevention was upset on.

IT's ne'er oblanceolate, is it? I updated to XP Service Pack 3. The errors continued, merely little ofttimes.

Windows 8 redux

Holding my fingers crossed, I popped in the Windows 8 Videodisc and walked through the setup litigate. This prison term, IT all went smoothly. The system rebooted a couple of times, and soon I was running a very hot, very noisy Windows 8 system. A quick run of the Windows Experience Index generated a whopping 4.4 score, with a CPU score of 5.5. Modern CPUs tend to easy lay tabu at around 7.0 to 7.8. Silence, that 5.5 rating was better than I had expected.

I was in reality pleased past my scheme's Windows Experience scotch of 4.4.

To be legible, the hardware build that I started with wasn't the hardware build that I at last used for Windows 8. The nontextual matter card swap introduced a particularly significant change. Symmetrical though the Radeon HD 6450 is an entry-level, under-cease graphics card, it's DirectX 11.1 capable, which instantly successful my system more responsive in Windows 8.

Silent, even discounting the GPU, the system seemed much responsive when running Windows 8. The 2GB of memory and the easy hard drives certainly made things drag, and the old CPU didn't help, but the whole affair hung together much better than I thought IT would.

Bottom personal line of credit: not a great idea

Few Windows XP users are potential to make the jump to Windows 8 by upgrading an existing XP system. Still, I learned some things from this crazy puny project:

An in-set back upgrade of Windows 8 over Windows XP isn't really an upgrade. Information technology's really a clean install that saves all of your user files, just kills your applications.
Disdain blowing away your software, you can't do an in-place upgrade with 64-piece Windows 8, even if the CPU is 64-bit capable.
For Windows 8 to exercise, the organization must support data execution of instrument tribute, and DEP must be enabled.
Windows 8 rump actually head for the hills happening 2GB of Random access memory!

In the end, it's probably worth the exploit to punt up your data and perform a clean install of Windows 8 if you'Ra so leaning. If you're running hardware that's more current—perchance a Heart 2 Space—Windows 8 is sure as shooting a viable path. But if you're running a 32-scra OS, I recommend backing up and instalmen a 64-bit OS instead. That way, you'll be able to install more usable memory. And while Windows 8 may non glucinium a big memory hog, modern applications often are.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/461376/upgrading-an-impossibly-old-system-to-windows-8.html

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