upgrading to a higher version of Windows with an older homebuilt pc

John B. Smith wrote:
I ran the Win 7 Upgrade Advisor. I take it you dump Win 7 Upgrade
right on top of an existing WinXP partition, ie UPGRADE it? In which
case I MUST upgrade to 32bit Win 7 cause I am running 32 bit XP now?

The report says to check Windows Update on Nvidea Geforce GT430 video
card I'm running now for latest drivers after Win 7 install.

But let me ask a shockingly dumb question: if I didn't UPGRADE but
simply bought a Win 7 Pro CD, Could I choose 64 bit with my existing
equipment? I had thought I was stuck with 32bit for anything I wanted
to do My existing software won't care if my machine is running a 64
bit OS?. I take it there is an advantage to using 64bit if you can?

You guys have given me so much hope that I'm now flirting with a
dual-boot idea to image restore a WinXP backup to its own partition. I
dual booted Win 3.1 and 98 for a long time but swore off that stuff
when I got XP.



On Sun, 28 Feb 2016 18:36:49 -0500, Paul wrote:

John B. Smith wrote:
I built my first (and only) pc in 2008:

MB ABIT|IP35 Pro XE P35 R
Cpu CPU INTEL|C2D E8400 3G 775 45N R
First memory MEM 2Gx2|CORS TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF R

I installed WindowsXP on it and have held onto that OS for dear life
ever since. But now quite a few things have become inconvenient with
having an obsolete OS. The latest was the news that Chrome (which I
run on top of XP, will no longer be able to get updates if it runs on
XP. I don't know how much of a problem that will be but I need Chrome.

I wonder, could I just buy a Windows 7 or perhaps Windows 10 CD and
expect it to install on this machine?

I recall a number of files from Abit came with the motherboard. Did I
have to have these installed for my WindowsXP to install/work? (and I
guess you know, Abit no longer makes motherboards)

Then there was the problem I encountered when I tried to install XP on
a notebook I'd purchased with Vista installed. Turned out it couldn't
be done, I had to live with Vista.

These doubts make me very wary of simply buying a new Windows and
trying to install it, thought I'd better put the question to the
experts (you guys)
If you buy Win7 SP1 x64, you can always upgrade to Win10 x64
for free. That would give you a chance to see if it works.
The free upgrade interval, lasts until July 29, 2016 or so.

For me, one limiting item, is video card. My HD 6450 (a cheap card),
has just gone out of support for Win10. No problem with a Win7
driver. On the NVidia side, the rot has extended to the 8800 family,
and there might not be any more Win10 driver updates for it.
So you might need a newer (cheap) video card at some point.
Take care to buy something which spans the OSes you want
covered.

When I needed a copy of Win7, I bought Win7 SP1 Professional,
as the Test Machine has more RAM than the other versions of
Win7 will allow. I can run WinXP Mode (copy of Virtual PC
as well as a legal install of WinXP) if I want. Win7 also
has stuff like Media Center (which I don't use either, as
my tuner is the wrong kind).

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...78(VS.85).aspx

Select this column,
for future x64 Chrome work -------------+
|
v
Version Limit on X86 Limit on X64

Windows 7 Ultimate 4 GB 192 GB
Windows 7 Professional 4 GB 192 GB Lots o' RAM, WinXP Mode
Windows 7 Home Premium 4 GB 16 GB (My laptop uses this)
Windows 7 Home Basic 4 GB 8 GB

If I wanted, I could upgrade the Professional license,
to Win10 Pro. The lesser Win7 licenses, might be upgradeable
to Win10 Home/Core.

I could probably have installed the expensive Win7 on this
machine (an E8400), but the Test Machine is newer and it's
the one that needed a reliable OS. I can actually get
work done in Win7, whereas with Win10, Microsoft is
always using my network interface when I don't want them
to. Or scanning my disk, or whatever.

Once you test Win10, you can decide whether it's the right
answer or not. Install Win7 first, but do a *backup* before
Win10 Upgrade messes things up. The "revert" capability in
Win10, doesn't work as well as restoring Windows 7 from
a backup you made. You've been warned...

If you install Win7 SP1 x64 and you don't want to see any
Microsoft automatic Win10 Upgrade shenanigans, use this.
Since my copy of Win7 SP1 Professional has Windows Update
turned off, I don't need this.

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/201...ly-remove.html

Win10 is a "SmartPhone OS". Win10 is a copy of Win8,
with SmartPhone slider switches to control privacy settings.
So as an OS, it tends to make the same sorts of
privacy wrecking plays, as a SmartPhone might try.

Paul

You would be Clean Installing Windows 7.

If dual booting (placing both OSes on the same
hard drive), you install the more modern OS last.
So you have WinXP now, when Win7 is installed, the
boot manager on Win7 can add an entry for WinXP.
Every time you boot, two OSes show in the menu, and
you can select WinXP (32 bit) or Win7 (64 bit).

The "bitness" only has to match if doing Upgrade Installs.
You can Upgrade Install a copy of Vista to Windows 7, using
a Windows 7 DVD. But for WinXP, you do a Clean Install
(i.e. boot the DVD), since there is no migration logic
on the Win7 disc, to migrate WinXP to Win7 (keeping all
programs). Only Vista to Win7 migration works.

In the case of Win10, this is a divergence from past
practice. The Win10 Upgrade Install, can migrate from
Win7SP1 or from Win8.1, to the new Win10. If you had
WinXP and brought in a Win10 DVD, you can only Clean
Install that. Also assuming you have some sort of
license key suited to the purpose. A purchased Win10
DVD and key is pretty expensive, and a Win7Sp1 DVD and key
might be in the same price ballpark.

I bought Win7 SP1 Professional x64 for the new computer,
because it has a 64 bit processor, it has a lot of RAM,
and that was the best fit. And that license will *not* be
upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. Instead, I'm using the
Win10 Insider edition, for giggles. Mostly, giggles. It's not
practical enough to take off the "short leash". And why
can I trust Win7 SP1 ? Because as of now, Windows Update
is turned off. It's now quiet, and well behaved.

Win10 - 30FPS screen capture cap
Win7 - 60FPS screen capture allowed
Win10 - RAMDisk runs at 1GB/sec
Win7 32 bit - RAMDisk runs at 7GB/sec on 32 bit, less on 64 bit
Win10 - reserved CPU cycles, so games run slightly slower
- would mostly be noticed for games with a "boss thread"
which runs a single core at 100%.
Win7 - all the cycles belong to you

It's the little things in life that matter. When
I discovered the 30FPS cap in Win10, I was so angry,
that's what kicked off the (unnecessary) Win7 purchase.
So now I have Win7 on the new machine. If I need to make
a movie of the screen, the way *I* want to make a movie,
I can.

Paul

On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 17:10:37 -0500, John B. Smith wrote:

| I ran the Win 7 Upgrade Advisor. I take it you dump Win 7 Upgrade
| right on top of an existing WinXP partition, ie UPGRADE it? In which
| case I MUST upgrade to 32bit Win 7 cause I am running 32 bit XP now?
|
| The report says to check Windows Update on Nvidea Geforce GT430 video
| card I'm running now for latest drivers after Win 7 install.

NVIDIA has current drivers (361.91 dated 2-15-16) for your GT430, even for Windows
10. Of course there is support for 7 as well.

http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Larc

John B. Smith wrote in part:
But let me ask a shockingly dumb question: if I didn't UPGRADE but
simply bought a Win 7 Pro CD, Could I choose 64 bit with my existing
equipment? I had thought I was stuck with 32bit for anything I wanted
to do My existing software won't care if my machine is running a 64
bit OS?. I take it there is an advantage to using 64bit if you can?


You would have to check the MS-Win7pro requirements.
Very likely, you could install and run it.

The advantage of 64bit depends entirely on the software tasks being
run. For certain medium-complexity numerical tasks that are not
disk- or memory-bandwidth bound (encryption?) 64bit has the potential
to run up to twice as fast as 32bit. For simpler (browsing) or more
complex tasks (FP numerics), 64bit might actually run slower. YYMV.

Personally, I buy hardware to run OSes, OSes to run software, and
software to do tasks. If I need 64 bit, then I will buy hardware
with a UEFI boot in the BIOS. If I need 32bit, then I will look for
a MBR [legacy] boot mode. Of course you can get transition stubs,
but I prefer one fewer step and native modes.


-- Robert

Flasherly wrote:
Btw- a European order was released yesterday from a consortium of some
45 countries. Addressed specifically at United States metadata
gathering techniques and a grievousness for processing privacy rights
when they're violated

Cool! I'm going to look it up.

I have a couple of old Core 2 Duo desktops running Win7, one 32-bit
the other 64-bit. They go okay. Since I hate Vista and Win8, and my
wife is constantly whining about Win10 at her work, I am sticking with
Win7 for the time being.

On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 04:42:29 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Since I hate Vista and Win8, and my
wife is constantly whining about Win10 at her work, I am sticking with
Win7 for the time being.

Softpedia has W10 at 12% usages, now down to 9% due to general
adversity, over a solid 50-ish% for W7. Could be MS has shot itself
momentarily in the foot.

On Fri, 04 Mar 2016 08:12:08 -0500, Flasherly
wrote:

On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 04:42:29 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Since I hate Vista and Win8, and my
wife is constantly whining about Win10 at her work, I am sticking with
Win7 for the time being.

Softpedia has W10 at 12% usages, now down to 9% due to general
adversity, over a solid 50-ish% for W7. Could be MS has shot itself
momentarily in the foot.

I tried win 10 on a separate computer, and really disliked it for
several months. As I got more familiar with it, I found it less
distasteful. I eventually installed it (upgrade installation from Win
7 Pro) on my "main" computer, and now I find it very usable.....
really no problems at all, and I really like the Storage Space
feature. The most serious complaint I had was the loss of the solitare
games, which was corrected by a simple download. I just ignore the
tiles, and do everything like I did with Win 7.

On Fri, 04 Mar 2016 21:51:38 -0600, Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:

| On Fri, 04 Mar 2016 08:12:08 -0500, Flasherly
| wrote:
|
| On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 04:42:29 -0800 (PST), wrote:
|
| Since I hate Vista and Win8, and my
| wife is constantly whining about Win10 at her work, I am sticking with
| Win7 for the time being.
|
| Softpedia has W10 at 12% usages, now down to 9% due to general
| adversity, over a solid 50-ish% for W7. Could be MS has shot itself
| momentarily in the foot.
|
| I tried win 10 on a separate computer, and really disliked it for
| several months. As I got more familiar with it, I found it less
| distasteful. I eventually installed it (upgrade installation from Win
| 7 Pro) on my "main" computer, and now I find it very usable.....
| really no problems at all, and I really like the Storage Space
| feature. The most serious complaint I had was the loss of the solitare
| games, which was corrected by a simple download. I just ignore the
| tiles, and do everything like I did with Win 7.

I'm running 10 with Classic Shell installed and don't really see much difference
except speed between it and Windows versions going back to XP. As for games, I still
have those that were included in Vista and 7. They just needed a little "doctoring"
and run great.

Larc

Well, I bit the bullet and bought a Win7Pro from NewEgg. Since my
original circa 2008 Seagate 80gig was more than half full (how did
that happen!!) I also purchased a Western Digital 500gig hard drive. I
partitioned the new 500g in half and imaged a backup of my XP onto the
first partition. Marked that one first in the booting order in BIOS
and it booted right up onto XP. I ran a week like this to see if
everything was stable. Today, Mar 19, I installed the Win7Pro onto the
2nd partition of the new 500g drive. At one point Win 7 said something
about one of my disks was 'inconsistent' and it 'repaired' it. On the
last automatic install reboot I saw the new dual boot menu with Win 7
and 'an earlier version of windows'. I didn't select and after a few
seconds it proceeded and booted into Win7. I played in there for about
5 minutes and then shut down to see, for sure, if my dual boot was
gonna let me boot back into XP.
Dead in the water at boot. Can't get into BIOS. Can't load a diskette.
It just stalls.
In desperation I disconnected my new 500g drive and powered my old
89gig up on SATA1 channel. It booted right up into my week old XP
again.
I am suspicious that my BIOS ia dumber than Win7 thinks? Perhaps Win7
has altered the master boot record on that new drive during install?
And my BIOS can't handle it?
I hooked the new 500g drive back on but made sure to select the old
80g as first in boot order and booted old XP. Now my new drive comes
up as disk 3. Partition Magic says the first partition (XP) on the
500g is still 'active'. The second partition, Win7, it says 'none'.
Both termed Primary as I partitioned them.
Motherboard handbook says BIOS is Phoenix BIOS 1998 30500 1205.
Anybody have any ideas?

Maybe I should mention that my WinXP is 32 bit and the new Win7 is 64
bit.