We have XP on our main computer, and Vista on the laptop.
I suppose it is time to upgrade our operating system. It seems quite expensive and confusing (for a non-techo person).
What would people recommend? Is there a website that explains these things, and where is the best place to purchase an operating system.
Thanks
Brindabellas said:
We have XP on our main computer, and Vista on the laptop.I suppose it is time to upgrade our operating system. It seems quite expensive and confusing (for a non-techo person).
What would people recommend? Is there a website that explains these things, and where is the best place to purchase an operating system.
Thanks
First consideration is, will your existing hardware be able to run win7 happily?
Take the opportunity to purchase a Solid State Drive, put Win7-64 bit on it, use your existing Hard Disk Drive as storage.
It’ll change your life….
Brindabellas said:
We have XP on our main computer, and Vista on the laptop.I suppose it is time to upgrade our operating system. It seems quite expensive and confusing (for a non-techo person).
What would people recommend? Is there a website that explains these things, and where is the best place to purchase an operating system.
Thanks
There is a downloadable windows 7 compatability checker, use that first. Then consider installing, FWIW, most things are now compatible with win7, if not , there is an ‘XP mode’ that can be used to some success.
It shouldn’t be overly expensive. You can pick up an OEM disc for Win 7 or 8 for around the $100.00 mark.
As mentioned, It’s probably more a question of your hardware. Any computer that’s been running XP from new is probably getting on a bit in age.
It’s worth looking at how upgradeable your current system is or saving up for new hardware to get the best from the new OS.
You can get three Home Premium upgrade licences for around $200 with the Family Pack. Have a look at http://www.myshopping.com.au/PR—388825_Microsoft_Windows_7_Home_Premium_Family_Pack.
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buy another computer with the new software
if your computer is as old as your OS its time to change it
wookiemeister said:
buy another computer with the new softwareif your computer is as old as your OS its time to change it
Agreed. It has been my experience that an old computer that happily ran XP will be too slow when upgraded to Windows 7.
KJW said:
wookiemeister said:
buy another computer with the new softwareif your computer is as old as your OS its time to change it
Agreed. It has been my experience that an old computer that happily ran XP will be too slow when upgraded to Windows 7.
I’m still running XP and that’s what I’ll be doing (buying a new high-spec desktop pooter), this spring. I’ll give this system a final winter :)
Bubblecar said:
KJW said:
wookiemeister said:
buy another computer with the new softwareif your computer is as old as your OS its time to change it
Agreed. It has been my experience that an old computer that happily ran XP will be too slow when upgraded to Windows 7.
I’m still running XP and that’s what I’ll be doing (buying a new high-spec desktop pooter), this spring. I’ll give this system a final winter :)
When I purchased my current computer last October, I was amazed at how inexpensive computers are in comparison to earlier computers I had bought. For the first time, I decided to go all out and purchase one that was close to “top of the range” instead of adopting my usual “second-best approach” (which optimises the performance/price ratio).
knowing that the latest and greatest will be out of date within a year theres no point much money on the “best”
unless you are actively making money with a computer theres no point buying expensive
KJW said:
Bubblecar said:
KJW said:Agreed. It has been my experience that an old computer that happily ran XP will be too slow when upgraded to Windows 7.
I’m still running XP and that’s what I’ll be doing (buying a new high-spec desktop pooter), this spring. I’ll give this system a final winter :)
When I purchased my current computer last October, I was amazed at how inexpensive computers are in comparison to earlier computers I had bought. For the first time, I decided to go all out and purchase one that was close to “top of the range” instead of adopting my usual “second-best approach” (which optimises the performance/price ratio).
They do seem to be remarkably cheap for the specifications these days.
wookiemeister said:
knowing that the latest and greatest will be out of date within a year theres no point much money on the “best”unless you are actively making money with a computer theres no point buying expensive
Why should the threat of future obsolescence stop me from getting the best performance out of a computer while I have it? My last computer lasted me seven years, so seven years of top performance at the time of purchase would be better than seven years of second best performance at the time of purchase.
Well, as one who has upgraded from Xp to Win 7 32bit in the last two months, I have had no problems whatsoever.
Admitedly I had 4gig of ram in the machine, which XP couldn’t use anyway.
KJW said:
wookiemeister said:
knowing that the latest and greatest will be out of date within a year theres no point much money on the “best”unless you are actively making money with a computer theres no point buying expensive
Why should the threat of future obsolescence stop me from getting the best performance out of a computer while I have it? My last computer lasted me seven years, so seven years of top performance at the time of purchase would be better than seven years of second best performance at the time of purchase.
KJW said:
Why should the threat of future obsolescence stop me from getting the best performance out of a computer while I have it? My last computer lasted me seven years, so seven years of top performance at the time of purchase would be better than seven years of second best performance at the time of purchase.
When I purchased the computer previous to the current one, I make the mistake (in hindsight) of choosing an IDE hard-drive instead of SATA (which the computer could use). Because the current computer has no IDE support, transferring the old files to the new computer was made a bit more difficult. If the old drive had been SATA, I could still use it in my new machine (though I still can due to the purchase of a caddy).
KJW said:
KJW said:
Why should the threat of future obsolescence stop me from getting the best performance out of a computer while I have it? My last computer lasted me seven years, so seven years of top performance at the time of purchase would be better than seven years of second best performance at the time of purchase.
When I purchased the computer previous to the current one, I make the mistake (in hindsight) of choosing an IDE hard-drive instead of SATA (which the computer could use). Because the current computer has no IDE support, transferring the old files to the new computer was made a bit more difficult. If the old drive had been SATA, I could still use it in my new machine (though I still can due to the purchase of a caddy).
Sooo, there’s no real problem then?
poikilotherm said:
Sooo, there’s no real problem then?
Damn! I was hoping on getting away with that. :-P
KJW said:
KJW said:
Why should the threat of future obsolescence stop me from getting the best performance out of a computer while I have it? My last computer lasted me seven years, so seven years of top performance at the time of purchase would be better than seven years of second best performance at the time of purchase.
When I purchased the computer previous to the current one, I make the mistake (in hindsight) of choosing an IDE hard-drive instead of SATA (which the computer could use). Because the current computer has no IDE support, transferring the old files to the new computer was made a bit more difficult. If the old drive had been SATA, I could still use it in my new machine (though I still can due to the purchase of a caddy).
I can only boot from the sata but all the drives can be accessed from Windows.
wookiemeister said:
if you’ve got the money all fine and dandy, for joe average why would you bother?
My point is that the future obsolescence argument is a red herring.
jjjust moi said:
Mine is a fairly old, in computer terms, but the motherboard has provision for two sata and two ide drives, there must be more boards similar.
But the current motherboards tend not to support IDE. They might be available, but then one is restricting one’s choice on this basis.
KJW said:
wookiemeister said:
if you’ve got the money all fine and dandy, for joe average why would you bother?
My point is that the future obsolescence argument is a red herring.
Yes, you could apply it to virtually any device. And following wookie’s advice, have to put up with mediocrity across the board when you could be enjoying the best currently on offer, at least in regard to those devices you particularly care about.
poikilotherm said:
KJW said:
KJW said:
Why should the threat of future obsolescence stop me from getting the best performance out of a computer while I have it? My last computer lasted me seven years, so seven years of top performance at the time of purchase would be better than seven years of second best performance at the time of purchase.
When I purchased the computer previous to the current one, I make the mistake (in hindsight) of choosing an IDE hard-drive instead of SATA (which the computer could use). Because the current computer has no IDE support, transferring the old files to the new computer was made a bit more difficult. If the old drive had been SATA, I could still use it in my new machine (though I still can due to the purchase of a caddy).
Sooo, there’s no real problem then?
Well, there’s extra cost and bother of having to purchase the external enclosure, plus the untidiness of having it with its own power supply instead of being neatly inside the tower. That also means slower read times, etc.
Bubblecar said:
KJW said:
wookiemeister said:
if you’ve got the money all fine and dandy, for joe average why would you bother?
My point is that the future obsolescence argument is a red herring.
Yes, you could apply it to virtually any device. And following wookie’s advice, have to put up with mediocrity across the board when you could be enjoying the best currently on offer, at least in regard to those devices you particularly care about.
Bubblecar said:
And following wookie’s advice, have to put up with mediocrity across the board when you could be enjoying the best currently on offer, at least in regard to those devices you particularly care about.
Hold up, we have it in writing that wookie was right about something. I’ll call the newspapers.
Divine Angel said:
Bubblecar said:
And following wookie’s advice, have to put up with mediocrity across the board when you could be enjoying the best currently on offer, at least in regard to those devices you particularly care about.
Hold up, we have it in writing that wookie was right about something. I’ll call the newspapers.
Um no, I’m disagreeing with him :)
Are you working on the Sabbath again, DA?
That’ll learn me for skippinh posts.
Bubblecar said:
And following wookie’s advice, have to put up with mediocrity across the board when you could be enjoying the best currently on offer, at least in regard to those devices you particularly care about.
Some people like fast cars. Some people like fast computers. At least with a fast computer, one doesn’t have the police booking you for going too fast. ;-)
KJW said:
Bubblecar said:At least with a fast computer, one doesn’t have the police booking you for going too fast. ;-)
And following wookie’s advice, have to put up with mediocrity across the board when you could be enjoying the best currently on offer, at least in regard to those devices you particularly care about.
Or the possibility of losing your million dollar private offer 300 metres from the lot(see one numnut Enzo recipient). Your chances of running down pedestrians are also heavily diminished. Being thought of as a nerd is also preferable to actually being an arrogant toss but some people still like the women that fast cars attract.
And just so you can all point and laugh at me…..my work computer runs XP and I don’t have any intentions of changing that. But then again, it’s pretty much just a word processor and forum checker, so it doesn’t really need anything else.
This computer here at home is Mr buffy’s setup…and actually, I don’t know what it is running. Where do I look? It might be Vista.
Why 7 rather than 8?
dv said:
Why 7 rather than 8?
dv said:
Why 7 rather than 8?
>Because only every second version of windows is any good. So it needs to be 7 or whatever comes after 8.
Sounds rather superstitious.
Bubblecar said:
>Because only every second version of windows is any good. So it needs to be 7 or whatever comes after 8.Sounds rather superstitious.
Every time they have updated from a good OS, is been a Bunnings up.
Bubblecar said:
>Because only every second version of windows is any good. So it needs to be 7 or whatever comes after 8.Sounds rather superstitious.
But seems to be holding true, nonetheless:
Windows 3.11 — great
Windows 95 — crap
Windows 98 — great
Windows ME — crap
Windows XP — great
Windows Vista — crap
Windows 7 — great
Windows 8 — well, my son seems to like it on his ultrabook.
The question is, will it be Window 8.1 that’s the good one, or Windows 9?
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God bless Windows 3.1
Mad Man Moon said:
Bubblecar said:
>Because only every second version of windows is any good. So it needs to be 7 or whatever comes after 8.Sounds rather superstitious.
But seems to be holding true, nonetheless:
Windows 3.11 — great
Windows 95 — crap
Windows 98 — great
Windows ME — crap
Windows XP — great
Windows Vista — crap
Windows 7 — great
Windows 8 — well, my son seems to like it on his ultrabook.The question is, will it be Window 8.1 that’s the good one, or Windows 9?
I totally agree with that. I’ve actually been pretty good at missing the crap operating systems, including Windows 3.0. That’s an advantage of being a “late adopter”.
dv said:
Why 7 rather than 8?
W 8 has a rather daft user interface. Have a look on Youtube, there will be plenty of vids to show it.
W 8.1 is going to bring back the conventional Start Menu that works rather well – Though there are free utils available right now that give you that option for plain W 8.
poikilotherm said:
There is a downloadable windows 7 compatability checker, …