STILL haven't built new :\

  • Thread starter Thread starter pheasant16
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pheasant16

The more I look at components, the less interest I have in building new.

Old still has plenty of memory, storage and CPU reserve for what I do.
Issue is running Win XP. Just got an email stating vendor will no longer
support XP after 1Feb for a program I use frequently.

If I would buy a new hard drive or small solid state drive,load Win 7 on
it, and change current drive C to W or something would I be asking for
more huge problems than a tinkerer could solve?

Current system has a 2TB hard drive partitioned into C 80GB and E and F
evenly split between the remaining space. E stores music and files, F
is still empty.

Another internal drive I is current drive files are put in.

2 external HDD G and H are full of video.

This box works so well, have put this off for well over a year, but now
appears I have no choice.

Thanks for any ideas you want to share.

Mark
 
The more I look at components, the less interest I have in building new.

Old still has plenty of memory, storage and CPU reserve for what I do.
Issue is running Win XP. Just got an email stating vendor will no longer
support XP after 1Feb for a program I use frequently.

If I would buy a new hard drive or small solid state drive,load Win 7 on
it, and change current drive C to W or something would I be asking for
more huge problems than a tinkerer could solve?
Click to expand...

I don't qualify myself, not especially. I just like running and
building computers. Had your problem with that vendor and installed
another SSD to be able to run both XP and W7.

I figure it was only fair that the vendor really deserved it -- W7 all
alone and nothing but them to run on it.

I partitioned a relatively small reserve for W7's resources to boot
and keep all the rest as deemed most efficient for storage utilization
I use.

Naturally and mostly XP. Mostly.
 
pheasant16 said:
The more I look at components, the less interest I have in building new.

Old still has plenty of memory, storage and CPU reserve for what I do.
Issue is running Win XP. Just got an email stating vendor will no longer
support XP after 1Feb for a program I use frequently.

If I would buy a new hard drive or small solid state drive,load Win 7 on
it, and change current drive C to W or something would I be asking for
more huge problems than a tinkerer could solve?

Current system has a 2TB hard drive partitioned into C 80GB and E and F
evenly split between the remaining space. E stores music and files, F
is still empty.

Another internal drive I is current drive files are put in.

2 external HDD G and H are full of video.

This box works so well, have put this off for well over a year, but now
appears I have no choice.

Thanks for any ideas you want to share.

Mark
Click to expand...

Have you purchased a Win7 license ? And
do you have the installer DVD in hand ?

The reason I ask, is there are limits to how long an
older OS will be offered for sale. I certainly wouldn't
buy Windows 7 from Ebay, because I could never be sure
what I'm buying (it could be a box full of rocks).

*******

Microsoft makes Upgrade Advisor software for their OSes.
The Upgrade Advisor runs ahead of installation, and
warns you of missing CPU instruction set entries,
and of programs which are not compatible with the new
OS. For example, Windows 8 needs something better than
a P4 processor, due to missing CPU instruction types.
Only a very late model P4 would work, and not too many
people have those. I have a couple machines here with
early P4 processors, and Win8 won't install on those.

Windows 7 uses a DirectX 9 video card, with a minimum
of 128MB of graphics memory. This is used to "composite"
or overlay program windows, and have the hardware worry
about which window is visible. So it's a way to use
some GPU hardware support for Aero. That would be
another thing the Advisor program will check for.

By downloading the Advisor program now, you can determine
whether Windows 7 or Windows 8 is a viable alternative.

Vista SP2 is also a pretty decent OS, as many of the
original issues were cleaned up. I've tested that in
a VM here, and it seems to be OK. But you're not likely
to be able to find new installer disks with Vista SP2 on
them.

*******

The Windows 7 upgrade advisor free download page:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=20

Upgrade advisors tend to only run on the previous OS.
They are tied to .NET, and sometimes the version of .NET
needed, isn't available for an old OS. For example, if
you had a Win98 machine, the Win7 Upgrade Advisor will
not run on there. The Windows 8 Advisor, might run on
a Windows 7 machine. Pretty stupid, but if you get an
unexpected runtime error, that might explain why. Nobody
gets hurt by this - you just download the Upgrade
Advisor and see what happens. If it errors out,
you've only wasted ten minutes of your life :-(

Paul
 
pheasant16 said:
The more I look at components, the less interest I have in building new.

Old still has plenty of memory, storage and CPU reserve for what I do.
Issue is running Win XP. Just got an email stating vendor will no longer
support XP after 1Feb for a program I use frequently.
Click to expand...

Does "not support" really mean to you "unusable"?
Does "not support" really mean "they won't install"?
Is this for personal or business use?

I use 40tude Dialog to post here. It was abandoned back in 2005. I use
SamSpade abandoned back in 2002. I use the HxD hex editor that hasn't
been updated since April 2009. I would still be using Windows XP but I
got an OEM license of Windows 7 for free with the broken computer on
which it was installed.

Old or unsupported doesn't mean unusable or won't install. If their
newer version(s) won't install on Windows XP, do those newer version
actually have anything you want AND will use? Or is it just glitter to
lure you into buying a newer version?
If I would buy a new hard drive or small solid state drive,load Win 7 on
it, and change current drive C to W or something would I be asking for
more huge problems than a tinkerer could solve?
Click to expand...

While there are software solutions to multi-boot (not Microsoft's stupid
dual boot) to different operating systems installed in different hard
disk partitions, you might find it easier to use a hardware solution:
install a removable HDD bay and swap HDDs to change to different OSes.
Then you don't have to worry about one OS even seeing the other OS and
possibly changing drive letters or polluting the other OS's partition.

Look for hot-swap caddies or drive bays. Newegg has several of them.
If you swap a lot, you'll want to pay a higher price for a quality bay
and cage.
 
Had your problem with that vendor and installed
another SSD to be able to run both XP and W7.
Click to expand...

That wasn't properly phrased to avoid ambiguity.

I, as well, use Microsoft Online Services, now a prerequisite to when
any prior version of said services connects instrumentally to
Microsoft, that services be then so identified and disqualified
-regardless of prior fees rendered for contractual services remaining-
for unequivocally void and inoperable until the contractee, in further
compliance to Microsoft, assume all such responsibility to personally
obtain and purchase Microsoft's updates, whereupon a residual of
monies contractually tendered will be accountable to renew access from
prior services.

I should think I may presume to write that, here under the moniker of
Flasherly;- last time I tried it, elsewhere, Microsoft (a subsidiary
thereof unnamed and operating within international bounds, (sic)
another country) blocked my services. I had to jump through hoops to
obtain a coded access password to privately contact Microsoft's
subsidiary customer support and reinstate services. It was horrible
of me, I know;- it viscerally so literal, as if I had no recourse
other than to suck Microsoft off.
 
While there are software solutions to multi-boot (not Microsoft's stupid
dual boot) to different operating systems installed in different hard
disk partitions, you might find it easier to use a hardware solution:
install a removable HDD bay and swap HDDs to change to different OSes.
Then you don't have to worry about one OS even seeing the other OS and
possibly changing drive letters or polluting the other OS's partition.

Look for hot-swap caddies or drive bays. Newegg has several of them.
If you swap a lot, you'll want to pay a higher price for a quality bay
and cage.
Click to expand...

That's moving the ladder to screw in the lightbulb, concerning all
possible OS's available, when I've 4, 5, 6 versions of *nix ready to
boot (via a semi-complex, somewhat focused/limited arbitrator) on a
32G flashdrive. Certainly not my first choice for a Windows
environment (I'm biased towards Windows), even if I've one of those
flashdisk arbitration set points for an ISO of the Windows 7 install;-
a coincidently vastly superior install, time wise, over optical media.

Given time, and with Windows 10 presently being handed out on street
corners for it's favorite flavor of Microsoft's ice-cream topping,
there'll perhaps be, sooner or later, a similar W7 "mini-build" to
correspond to such as HIREN's mini-XP included with several flashstick
boot distributions.

Software, really, over the years has all but settled fairly well for
stability over a course of pertinent issues involving reinventing the
perfect rat trap;- it's the browsers that concern me, with everybody
stepping all over everybody else's toes, to eclipse one another with
metadata collection, a NSA Centre for routing all WWW traffic, on the
forefront of an imperative push to establishing an industrial-grade
solution to 'your granddad's computer,' eclipsed by some sort of phone
or handheld subscription device.

No doubt, there's certain latent marketing incentives for reselling
old software, as it were, like television reruns, over an effective
60-percentile share already established within the technologically
impoverished Third World.
 
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