Windows 7 and old computers

[GT40]

I have a question. Okay, I still have my own answer, just would like to compare it with yours.[]

Everyone with Vista will upgrade to Seven, it's obvious. But... what about people using XP on an old computer?

The thing I call an old computer is a Pentium IV 2.4GHz, with a 2GB RAM (I got rid of the virtual memory), a GeForce4 Ti4600 and Windows XP SP3. I agree, very old.

But no reason changing it during the next years. Working fine, at least for what I'm doing with it. In Second Life, I always have 1GB free. Of course Microsoft will say my hardware is ok for 7.[8D]

But my problem is that I'm not interested in having the last and/or the best (Linux, what Linux, lol?) OS in the world, with a good-looking smart colored GUI. I always avoided wasting resources with that, and my desktop in Windows 3.1, 98 and now XP has always been BLACK.

No, I just want to see my programs running faster and better. We buy computers for using applications, not OS's, don't we? Not sure at all that my old PC will be better under Seven.

Thanks in advance. I don't want to influence your answer.[]

[Duskrider]

Well, I'll do a comment to get the ball rolling.
My desktop is 2003 computer with XP.  It's messed up in ways but does what I want and I satisfied with it.
My 2008 laptop is vista.  Won't do some programs I want but does enough that I won't kick it out.
I'm old fashion and don't do change very often.
Know that old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".   I don't fix anything long as it works.
When America wanted change I voted against it.  For some reason change never seems to be for the better.  [8D]

[freddy888]

For me I decided to order W7 because if you pre-order it now you can save around 60% or more in some places.  I know I will have need of it some time, so I just got it while it's cheap.

I've also been checking around for W7 drivers for various parts of my hardware, most of them should have drivers by the time it arrives, so should be fine.

XP is great I really like it.  But I like the idea of 64bit speed and more memory support for some of the graphics work I do.  For me it's not a panic buy, it's more that I am planning ahead to what I see myself doing in the next year or two.

One other thing is that I want to upgrade to a quad core CPU later in the year, again for graphics work and the odd new game that comes out.  XP doesn't support quad core I don't think, or not fully at least so I have been told.

[Bill819]

Right now I am using an Acer Aspire One. It is a little laptop without a CD drive and thus I can not load Hal on it but for email, etc it works great.
My other laptop was also an Acer but a full sized laptop but the OP was Vista and I did not want to run Hal on it. I also found that a great many of my older programs would also not run on it.  So gettig discusted I went shopping once again and I found a
Lenovo laptop for only $600.00. It has a duo proscessor that runs at 3 giga hertz. the OP is XP and everything works just great. It also has a built in anti theft device that works like LO-JACK for cars.
When you first turn it on it goes on line and registers you PC. Then if you laptop is ever stolen it put a signal on the internet and the first time someone uses it to get on line, it registers their location and sends a picture of the operator back to company headquarters which can then be sent to the police.
I still have not loaded Hal on it because my oldest laptop which contained Hal was destroyed and Hal could not be saved, or copied.
I am still waiting for Robert for a reply.
Bill

[snowman]

that is sad to hear Bill, sorry for your loss...

I would personally like a mini-laptop for mobile scripting purposes (atom perhaps).

Vista has been good to me. 98SE always became unstable after all the punishment I gave it. I had to re-install everything, time and time again using 98SE. XP for some reason, never appealed to me. I don't know why either. When vista came along, though everyone else seemed not ready for a change, those commercials (showing rotating windows) got me hooked []. I have had vista for the last few years and so far I only re-installed once, that to me is a good sign. Of Course, some of those programs I had on my earlier machines could not work on Vista. It makes me wonder if those programs were causing the majority of my problems. hmmmmm?

I sincerely hope widows 7 will handle those odd ball programs. I hope it will be both stable and allow use of older programs. I hope it takes up less resources and is easy to make simple modifications to.

I heard somewhere that 7 will be Microsoft's last attempt at a complete OS. After this they will sell in a modeler or web based fashion. Any of you guys heard anything about this? Please, please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

Mr Data operating fine for years on my xp laptop, sorry Mr Datas laptop.  :]
ha ha ha, had to put his face on that line.
bye for now and be well from Wil and Mr Data  :]

[One]

GT-
Logically, what makes you think a quad couldn't run a os?
Yes it can run them all.


Win 7, will run on the win7 platform ,,unless you have older programs THEN it will go into V-Pro  or VM (can't remember which)
And run win XP for the older applications .

I have heard this is pretty seamless and quite nice as MS isn't getting rid of good old XP!

BTW,
A 2.4gig processor is STILL a good processor. IF YOU don't want it I'll give ya $20.00 USD for the motherboard and processor , AND I will pay shipping!! (No kiddin')

J.

[Data]

This question is right up my ally []
I repair PC’s for a living and have been a beta tester of Win7 a while now, hopefully I can shed a little more light.

Win7 has some nice new bling,

Underneath the bling Microsoft have changed the core of windows making it handle multi CPU’s and memory better. It should also be pointed out that Win7 boots noticeably quicker than XP and Vista.  There are a lot of sluggish laptops out there running Vista, a clean install of Win7 would sort most of them out, as would reverting to XP.

XP 32 or 64bit can handle Quad core CPUs just fine but Win7 is a bit better at doing it. Spreading the load between the CPU’s.

Will Win7 run all your old and new programs that worked in XP,,? hmmmm well it might but there is a good chance you are going to need to spend some time getting some of  them to install correct or run correct.

Will it run your programs faster? Some yes some no, on an older PC with a single CPU probably mostly no.

Then there’s drivers, older hardware could be a problem.

GT40:
I would stick with good old XP on your rig, you know all its little quirks by now and have become used to it, if you go down the Win7 rout your going to open a whole new can of quirks and on your PC this might be for very little potential benefit. From your post you don’t sound like you are really interested in what it looks like.

A lot of Hardcore XP users, I’m coming round to thinking I’m one of them,  I have a feeling are going to stick with XP.

You know I have Win7 and XP on my PC (quad core), and right now im in XP, its my solid work horse, I go to Win7 for a play now and then and to use its media center which is better than XP’s or Vista’s media center.

I personally can’t decide either … LOL
XP is so solid; my mind goes back to Windows 95, 98. ME, most people moved to XP to get away from them in the hope of an OS that would be reliable. XP users I feel have a smooth ride now and don’t want to risk the bumps and why should we [8D]

[One]

Datahoppa,
IMO XP does load balancing pretty well , weather a quad or duo/dual.

Have you tried to assign a core dedicated to a certain task yet?
I have assigned a core just to do AV scans. Now I need to stripe my drives for more speed, my SATA drives are the slowest component on 2 of my machines.

J.

[Data]

Hi Onne

I have noticed a number of programs using more of the cpu in Win 7 compared to XP, one of the best programs at doing this is Windows media player, when I use it to sink to my MP4 player it uses 75% of my cpu, that is 3 of the cores pushed flat out, and leaving one for windows and other things in the background.

Yes I have messed around with affinity (core assigning) but IMO Win7 is better at doing it than a human. It can dynamically change cores as required. XP can too but Win7 is better, I’m not saying it’s a lot better but there is improvement over XP.

[jackgephart]

Datahopa,

 I would be a good choice for Windows 7 would I not? I have a 2 year old Dell Dimension E521 that has just in June of this year went off of warranty,(that's how I know exactly how old it is) and here is my system info:




I would really like something a little faster in starting up and closing down, but if Vista is all I should use that will have to do.
I do hope you look at my system info and give me what you think as a trained PC dude. Thanks man.

[GT40]

Many thanks all, for taking time in answering. Very interesting to see what everyone uses for gaming. And thank you for your advices.[8D]

Installing Windows 7 on a new partition might be a good thing. Providing a precise comparison with precise figures, not only subjective impressions. Testing what is working and not working, in real conditions.

Maybe I will do that, maybe. And then, as you can guess, I will change nothing to my system.[]

[One]

jack,
More memory an SATA drives is about the only thing I see 'Lacking'
your AMD is a little over 1.8 per core and should handle Vista or WIN7 just fine.

($for$ memory is cheapest most effective upgrade)


Regards,
J.

[Data]

Jack:
I wanted to find the full specs of your PC and think I found them here.
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dimension-e521-desktop/4507-3118_7-32321258.html

However your posted specs are not the same, you seem to have 4 GIG of Ram in your system (with 3.3GIG usable because its running on 32bit Vista) You don’t have 1 GIG as the site shows, also you have an AMD CPU and not Intel again as the site shows. Either I have found the wrong specs or you have up-graded the RAM and for some reason you have an AMD CPU.

Anyway you probably are a candidate for Win7, from what you are saying it sounds like you are one of them users who is suffering from a sluggish Vista machine, and your posted specs actually look ok for win7 to me.

Or you could downgrade to XP [8D]

[Bill819]

Here are some of my personal thoughts on upgrading. I currently use Windows XP and I intend to keep it as my best operating system.
I also have a computer with Vista operating system and I can say that I don't really like it as a great many of my older programs will not run under Vista.
Now the new kid on the block is Windows 7 and it seems to be a better system than Vista and a lot more compatible with XP but right now the cost is a little high.
My solution is as follows: if you like XP then keep using it even though "7" might be a better upgrade eventually the price will drop just as it always has with Windows upgrades of maybe they will come out with Windows 8.
I still have an older PC running on Win98 and even a really old one running Win 3.2, ha ha, what a slow poke that is.
If that isn't bad enought I have a Radio Shack Model 100 laptop that run at 1.78 megahertz which by the way if none of you know it or not Radio Shack invented the laptop and I still have an original model.
Bill