Sorting PC

[Ewan]

I am off to Uni soon and I am sorting out an old PC for Uni, I don't need it to be anything special but here's the current specs and what I plan to add / change

Processor: Cyrix 8 x 86 250MHz processor
OS: Win 98 SE
Storage: 2GB + 4GB
RAM: 128mb
15in CRT monitor.
32x CD-Drive
NIC Card

I plan to:

Buy a 40gb or 80gb (Only £5 difference between the 2) harddrive and stick Windows 98 SE on it (The comp will never be able to handle anything more)

My brother has a spare 64mb stick of RAM lying around, he'll give me that.

Buy some cheap speakers + a mouse (The current Keyboard is fine)

Take out one of the CD-R drives in this PC and stick it in mine.

I'm not going to bother doing anything to the motherboard / processor as this will cost too much, take up too much time and isn't neccesary.


A couple of questions:

When I put in the new hard drive, with no other hard drives, will I need a startup disk to be able to install Win98 from the CD as there will be no drivers to read the CD Drive.

Can Windows 98 handle Office 2000 or will I need Office 97?

Any suggestions for further things I may need to add / change? Keep in mind, I only have a week to do this and I don't want to spend much money.


Here's also a list of software I'm going to need to get hold of:

Relevant Drivers - Download
Winamp - Download
WinZip - Download
Office - CD
Continuum - Download
Acrobat Reader - Download
Roxio / Nero (CD Burning software) - Got a CD lying around
MSN - Download
System Mechanic - Download (Or maybe just stick the setup.exe onto a CDR)
AVG - Download
Ad-Aware - Download
Kazaa Lite - Download
Bit Torrent (Shadow's) - Download

Any suggestions for other software I may want/need will be helpful (I will edit this post to add to that list if anything comes to mind)

Thanks
~Ewan

[Due]

videocard driver update

[Rab]

Since i've just got to uni, this is what I advise:

1 - Don't do anything until you get there.
2 - Once you're there, figure out if they have a good network / support people.
3 - Only if you think your PC doesnt do the things you need it to do, consider step 4.
4 - Do not fuck about with parts in your pc, replace it altogether. Comet sell decent base units for 300 quid.

[Ewan]

Ok, well, I'm going to sort stuff now, I don't want to have to mess around with stuff once I am at Uni.

I don't want to spend £300 on a base unit, for 50 quid, I can get all I really need

The PC I am "fucking" about with has been fucked about with quite a bit already

Although, there's a used PC shop down the road from here, so I may check that out.

[Ewan]

Well, just so you know, I've bought and put in a new hard drive and installed Windows 98 SE onto it. I had a few hiccups but all seems well now.

Just doing critical updates and stuff before moving on to installing everything.

(This is the PC I am typing this on)

I am currently cherishing having no icons in the system tray.