RD, TZ, Alan, et.al., need OS advice

[Tune Machine]

Hello to all-- I've been off the forums for awhile (got married & instantaneously acquired two children & relocated). I have SONAR running on (don't laugh too hard) Windows ME and have to admit am getting tired of the lack of stability (dropouts especially when recording MIDI in big projects or using lots of plug-ins). Want to upgrade to 2000 pro or XP. A buddy of mine is offering me a copy of XP free (licensed) or I can get 2000 for probably around 100 clams. Given my system, which would you recommend, as some people on these forums seem to feel XP is more buggy with older systems such as mine. Here are my stats (also, please recommend any tweaks):
Dell Dimension 4100, 866 Mhz. Pentium III
526 Mg RAM
Original 20 GB HD + Western Digital 40 GB HD for audio files.
Delta 1010 audio interface. Set Wave at 2 ms per buffer. How many ASIO samples per buffer do you recommend?
SONAR is set w/ I/O buffers @ 260.

By the way, I am assuming that I'll be erasing the 20 GB system drive and starting from scratch on it when I upgrade, yes?

I am just one of those unlucky bastards who bought my computer when ME was the hot new thing that shipped on all new Dells.

Thanks guys,
Craig

[TimZ]

Hi Craig

Here's what I would do. Get the free copy of XP and install that on a separate partition to see if it works fine with your system. I bet it will http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif You can get Partition Magic really cheap off Ebay. Get that and make a 5 to 6 Gig partition on your 20 Gig drive, and install XP there. You can use the remaining 15 gigs for all your general data files. Use your 40 gig for your audio files.

If you find that XP doesn't work, no big loss (since it was free) and then get Win 2K and try that. I personally had better luck with XP than 2K.

Sound like a plan http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

TZ

[This message has been edited by TimZ (edited 04-22-2003).]

[Alan]

Tims right.If your getting XP for free go with that.Both OS's are NT and either will be fine.I use 2K because that's what I bought before XP came out and see no reason to upgrade.Also it's leaner and I can remove the Explorer with IEradicator.Other than that,you can make XP fairly lean.

[Tune Machine]

Thanks guys. Will get XP on a partition and let you know how it goes.