WDSCi has been out for years. I think it is safe to say you wouldn't be
an 'early' adopter. Probably better to say you'd be in the minority as
it seems the majority of developers have yet to take the plunge.
As to adding RAM, there are tools to help you determine what can be
done. Two excellent ones are the memory finder at
http://www.kingston.com/ and the memory advisor at
http://www.crucial.com/. If your environment is such that dust or grime
accumulates inside the PCs, cleaning them out every six months or so
should be a regular preventive measure. I've seen PCs in a distribution
warehouse that failed because of the accumulated stuff. I'd vacuum out
the PC (including both above & below the motherboard) and it'd be fine
again until the accumulation got bad (we're talking a half inch of soot
here). And to think we breath that same air.
Why would a network admin be upgrading PCs? That's a desk side support
person's job.
Sure, migrating settings from PC to PC is an annoyance. So don't. If
you're going to stay XP, add the drivers for their new PC to the
machine, Ghost it to a network (or USB or DVD-RW) drive, Ghost it back
to the new machine. Done.
If you don't want to keep their XP install and want the 'fresh' load on
the new PC, again there are tools. Microsoft provides a transfer wizard
(see
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457074.aspx).
When I personally migrate, I don't worry too much about deep
customizations; I can recreate what I need. I copy the main stuff over
and then I take advantage of the ever-increasing hard drive space and
copy the entire old machine's HD to an 'OldPC' directory on the new box.
That way any stray files I want but missed I can easily get.
midrange.com
