My computer is running Windows NT4 (SP6) which was installed when the computer was assembled in early 2000. The computer has a hard disk capacity of 13 GB which has been partitioned into two drives, the C:\ drive for the system drives and function files and the D:\ drive that hosts all personal files. I have attempted to install a D-Link USB 2.0 USB adapter card (DUB-A2) but when installing the drivers a message appears saying “This package does not contain the driver for this OS”. The package advises that the contents are suitable for Windows XP, 2000, ME and 98SE. In your estimation, how close is the NT4 (SP6) OS to being a suitable host for this USB driver software? Second, I would like to upgrade the computer from Windows NT4 to Windows XP Home Edition SP2. Is it possible to further partition the hard drive and then install Windows XP on a different partition and transfer the files between systems?

Dealing with your first question about installing drivers for the USB card on your computer, this is unlikely to work since Windows NT4 is a vastly different product from the other Windows versions listed which the card drivers support. Windows NT was released in 1996, roughly a year after Windows 95. As you can see on the product package, the minimum required operating system is Windows 98 Second Edition. Therefore, the NT system is a long way from being close to any of those products. As such, I doubt that you will get the drivers working on Windows NT. That said, I am glad to see that you are considering an upgrade to Windows XP. The NT4 operating system which is running on your computer is very old, and presents a great security risk (since updates, including critical security updates, ceased long-ago for NT4 given the age of the software). You are discussing installing Windows XP on a different partition on your computer. This is actually your only option, short of formatting the entire computer and exclusively installing Windows XP from scratch, as there is no upgrade path from NT4 to Windows XP Home Edition. However, you are in somewhat of a conundrum as you cannot non-destructively repartition your computer hard drive without using third-party programs, most of which would not work with NT4. I imagine that a computer technician could do this for you, but this would cost a fair bit of money. Should you wish to do this yourself, your only real option is a clean reinstallation of Windows XP. Assuming that all your personal data is stored on drive D you should in theory be able to simply wipe and install Windows XP on drive C without affecting your personal data on the other drive. However, if you wish to try this procedure I still strongly suggest that you have a backup of all data you wish to keep, just in case things go wrong and data is lost.

However, if you do install Windows XP on the computer you need to be aware of performance issues. You have a very old computer and from the description you have provided Windows XP is likely to run poorly on the computer. Additionally, if you go to the expense of employing someone to repartition the computer and install Windows XP you have almost reached the same cost-point as purchasing an entirely new computer. I would suggest that instead of attempting to install Windows XP on this old computer, you investigate purchasing a new computer with Windows XP or Windows Vista preinstalled. Online computer stores such as Dell (www.dell.com.au) allow you to immediately view and price various models of computers, and the cost of base-model machines is very competitive at around $800 – 900. This will be a much better investment than trying to load new software onto an old computer, and suffering the diminishing performance that will result.