Thank you for your response. (By the way---I am not trying to install a Clean start at this point, as I have several students who have 'papers' and such saved stuff on here, as I do a few things, and I'm trying not to lose them. I seem to think that there will be wwaaayyyy too much for me to try to save 'by hand'. I do have most of the programs that we use on original CD's, and also available to download, so a Clean Install would probably work, if it weren't for the 'papers'--saved stuff of theirs--and a few things of mine that I'm trying not to lose. I would lose all of that, correct, if I did a Clean Install, correct??) Before I received it last night, I read on Microsoft's site that if it the install program stopped responding, to try to wait 10-15 mins to see if it would start up again. I tried this---within the regular set-up of my comp, via 98SE....not via a boot from the CD-----and it did indeed start responding again after about just 5-7 mins of stopping responding. Since the program wasn't reaching the Microsoft update site (as someone else who is trying to help discovered, too, after putting 98SE on a test comp of his and then trying to update to XP on an Install CD, via the 98SE, not the boot from cd style), I had disconnected my cable internet. After the Dynamic Update couldn't reach the website, I clicked the 'go on ahead and install' section. (I had done that before, too.....but, after it stopped responding, of course, I exited the program, rather than trying to wait 10-20 mins, as Microsoft site suggested.) However, when the install tonight got to analyzing the computer, (it started out telling me that it would take 83 mins approx for the install------or thereabouts), it stopped telling me that at about 78 mins., though the program wasn't hanging up, at least not to the point that it said that when I did Cntrl, Alt, Del to check. The small multicolored squares at the bottom right of the program's screen, too, never stopped moving across and across--showing the program was still responding. The Intro to XP never stopped running either----the screens that tell you all about what's going to be available both on and with XP. After about an hour, though, being "stuck" at 78 mins and about 2/3 of the way thru analyzing the comp, though it still showed the program as 'responding', I then gave up, by Cntl, Alt, Del and ending the Update process. It asked if I wanted to do that, I said yes, and then it told me it would spend time 'un-doing' what it'd done already, it did, and then the program closed as asked. I restarted the comp, then tried the entire thing again------this time hooking it up to the internet again, though it can't reach that site anyway. I went thru just what you mentioned, saying no to the Dynamic Update after the first try, and it went on again as I just described-----hitting the same hang-up for about 5-6 mins, then responding again. Once again, it stopped at about 2/3 of the analyzing of the comp, at about 78 mins left in the installation--it said, and even though I left it on and watched it for about another hour, whilst the program never stopped responding-----Intro screens still moved, the bottom-right squares still moved across and across, and Cntl, Alt, Del never indicated the program wasn't responding.......I then went to bed,leaving it on all night, occasionally looking at it when I awoke a few times--to find it doing the same ol' responding (supposedly), and as of this morning when I got up, it still hadn't moved any further on its graph of analyzing the comp, nor of the 78 mins time left.
I did read at Microsoft that I could put the FAT32 into that NTSB, but, of course, that was suggested to be done after I found the XP program to be working with the comp for a few days AFTER the installation of it, because one can't change that back. I was hoping that perhaps that might help the comp not run in the sluggish manner that both you and Jim suggest it to probably doing once it's installed.
I just can't seem to get it installed. LOL~ I guess I'll try to get ahold of Microsoft and see what they say about the installation of it right now. I still don't understand why my comp specs seem to be enough for what is suggested to have a min. of for XP, and why some don't seem to think that will be good enough......though, don't get me wrong, ....I trust that.....I just don't get it. ha~ I did find at Microsoft last night that I wouldn't have enough on my comp, at this point, to do Vista.
BTW, would adding an external hard drive add enough comp specs to do Vista? I know that several have suggested a new comp, but those are considerably more in cost as to what I could afford to do right now. ;-0
Thanks for your help here....and for sticking around for me until I get this...ha~ I greatly appreciate your time.