[semi-serious]Should I ditch my XP install?

So it goes like this. I've got four hard drives - two Seagate 320GB drives for apps and data, and two Western Digi 36GB Raptors that I've been using as OS drives. Small drives, fast boot times, you know the routine. Up until this point, I've been using XP almost exclusively because Creative had proper XP drivers for my sound card. I've put $250 into my sound system, and for the longest time, it sounded like junk on Windows 7, so I couldn't dump XP. Yes, sound really does bother me that much. Anyway, Creative finally fixed this, so I have no outstanding reasons for tying myself to XP anymore. Should I say "screw it" and trash the XP install and use that drive as an uber-fast applications drive? Things like Visual Studio that need all the power they can get..

Also, it's worth mentioning that I do have a fully licensed copy of Vista Ultimate, since it seems MS is actually gonna go through with the free Vista-to-7 upgrade plan...

What do you think? Should I do it?

Yeah, Creative usually take half a year or something but once they get it out, it's worth moving on.

Have both. So far, I have Linux, Windows 7, and Windows Vista. I think I haven't even touched Windows Vista since the start of this year, primarily using Windows 7 as my main Windows OS, but then I've ignored that and been using Sabayon Linux since it does everything I need flawlessly on my machine (even though it has a hard disk footprint the size of South America). If ever my Linux fails, at least there is Windows 7, and if Windows 7 fails, there is always Windows Vista. And if Vista fails, I have a Damn Small Linux distro CD around here somewhere...

I voted for "Keep both OS's, just in case 7 goes crazy" only because Win7 hasn't gone public yet, once it goes public my vote's "Yes - it's the future, baby!"

As long as you don't blow XP away in favor of Vista

Hmm, I also recommend Windows 2008. You won't find Creative drivers for Win2K8, for that I hate them. But it's extremely lightweight compared to Vista. Their concept is - give the basics, install what you want.

I use XP for day to day at work because I am not ready to migrate this system, and I will never do upgrades, only clean installs.

On my laptop though, I triple boot between XP, Vista, and 7, with 99% of its usage being on 7. XP was the biggest pain to install in this scenario because you have to do the F6 to load SATA drivers during install (which means I needed a USB floppy to hook up) then after windows is on, about 8 devices don't have drivers so I had to scour HPs site and around the web to get all the devices working. Vista and 7, install, no floppy needed, all drivers were either on the DVD or found on Windows Update. No fuss. Period.

So far I have had no issues, even though I am still running build 7000 (original public beta). There are lots of newer builds to be had on torrent sites, but I am not that desperate. MS will get me a new beta build when they are ready.

Are your raptors in a RAID0 config? That would certainly give you fast disk access, although it increases the chance of data loss.

Hey,

A colleague at work was telling me about the native support that Windows 7 has for vhd (virtual hard drives), you can literally boot into a virtual pc, which makes keeping old OS'es around very easy!!

Check out this article here for more details:

http://www.buit.org/2009/02/09/native-vhd-in-windows-7/

Gary

it doesn't sound exactly like a virtual PC... virtual PCs use an emulated BIOS and other hardware. That looks more to me like the only virtual part of it is the hard drive itself.

Hey,

From what I understand, haven't played with this first hand yet, but he is a very reliable source, when you create a virtual PC in Windows 7 it actually adds the virtual hard drive of that Virtual PC into Computer Management.

As a result, when you boot into the Virtual PC, you can access the hard drives of both the host PC and other virtual PC's that you have on your computer.

Have a look at the following blog posts:

http://community.bartdesmet.net/blog...d-support.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/knom/archive/2...guideline.aspx

and this video here:

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/teched...lt.aspx?vid=82

It is specific to Windows Server 2008, but from what I understand it is the same technology.

Gary

So... um... interesting turn of events... I went digging into my case to install a new fan (was idling at 50 degrees C, now under fairly considerable load at 53 degrees... looks good so far), and I decided to rearrange the SATA plugs so the drives would read how I wanted them to in the BIOS... silly me. Wiped both Raptors, since neither read properly, and reinstalled 7. I really hope this isn't a bad move...

@klienma: no, the drives aren't striped. I thought about it, for the extra speed boost, but decided that the risk of data loss wasn't worth it. Besides, having them separate does have its' advantages. Dual-booting, for example. Or in this case, I'm going to have my larger apps installed to the second Raptor, so it should keep them running faster.

i guess so since you have the small ones. I have the 150 raptors, so i can dual boot off of the same drives, just different partitions.

I built the rig about August of last year... had the hardest time getting ahold of 36 gig drives. I guess the raw speed geeks are small enough in number that the hard drive manufacturers just stop making small ones once they have the technology to make the half terabyte drives we have now...

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Originally Posted by JuggaloBrotha

once it goes public my vote's "Yes - it's the future, baby!"

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You cannot vote twice

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Originally Posted by I_Love_My_Vans

You cannot vote twice

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I know, that's why I stated it in text in my post

I would choose "Keep both OS's, just in case 7 goes crazy", though I'm not concerned about 7 going crazy too much. The real problem is application support. I don't know what apps you tend to use most, though I'm pretty sure that there will be some older apps that won't run properly on 7, but run perfectly in XP. I don't know whether 7 still has the "Compatibility" tab under the properties dialog, but from experience I can tell that the compatibility settings in XP were crap. If it's any better in 7, then perhaps I'm concerned about nothing.

All I know is that as soon as 7 comes out (please tell me that it's not out yet...) and I can afford it, I'll keep XP in any case for my older apps. I have tons of old applications which are fully licensed that wouldn't work on Vista, so I suspect that in 7 it won't work either. It's also worth mentioning that these apps do exactly what I need, so I don't neccessarily want to upgrade / patch them.

Thus far, the only issue I've had is with AIM... even after uninstalling and reinstalling, it tries to load, then just closes... no errors or anything. Oh well... I hate it anyway, so what am I complaining about?

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Originally Posted by BillGeek

It's also worth mentioning that these apps do exactly what I need, so I don't neccessarily want to upgrade / patch them.

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Dude, you need to let go of WinFile. Windows 7 already has a better* version.

*If by better you mean bloated, yeah sure.

It seems Windows 7 has the ability to natively burn .iso images... now, if only it could do something useful and actually mount them...

I agree it would be nice... You never know.. it could even be a feature in the RTM.. I wouldn't count on that though...

In any event, this free virtual drive app works well in 7 for mounting ISOs

http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

It seems Windows 7 has the ability to natively burn .iso images... now, if only it could do something useful and actually mount them...

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http://www.daemon-tools.cc/

So I just need to download a new version. I have a habit of saving any setup files that I download, and the version I had came up with a known compatibility issue error... I just installed PowerISO instead... accomplished the same thing.

For mounting ISO files (and a bunch other image files) I use daemon tools (I also use this to create them from existing disc's) but for burning them I have power iso and nero6, I usually just use nero.

CDBurnerXP. Burns ISO's no problem, and is also one of the few programs I've seen that can properly burn a gapless audio CD. Although it does tend to mess up closing the CD... but it could just be me, not setting the options up right. I typically use DaemonTools too. Solid, lightweight, does its' job and not much more. Most other applications out there could learn a thing or two.

audio CD... who uses those things ;)

Hey! Some of us actually refuse to actually stay up-to-date with technology!! :mad:

I still use WinXP on my laptop even though I installed Vista on my pc.

I still need audio CD's because I haven't replaced the stereo in my car. I have the replacement unit in my back seat, which has a USB input... just don't have a harness for it. Once I get that, installing the thing will be easy.

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Originally Posted by kregg

Hey! Some of us actually refuse to actually stay up-to-date with technology!! :mad:

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Exactly, I still have yet to buy the fridge that has a cable tv hookup and that microwave that uses broadband.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

I use XP for day to day at work because I am not ready to migrate this system, and I will never do upgrades, only clean installs.

On my laptop though, I triple boot between XP, Vista, and 7, with 99% of its usage being on 7. XP was the biggest pain to install in this scenario because you have to do the F6 to load SATA drivers during install (which means I needed a USB floppy to hook up) then after windows is on, about 8 devices don't have drivers so I had to scour HPs site and around the web to get all the devices working. Vista and 7, install, no floppy needed, all drivers were either on the DVD or found on Windows Update. No fuss. Period.

So far I have had no issues, even though I am still running build 7000 (original public beta). There are lots of newer builds to be had on torrent sites, but I am not that desperate. MS will get me a new beta build when they are ready.

Are your raptors in a RAID0 config? That would certainly give you fast disk access, although it increases the chance of data loss.

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according to my experience and some research, nearly every raid config you can set up nowadays, the chips are smart enough to stripe-read, no matter if it's raid 0, 1, or 10. I have a raid-10 and i get nearly 4x data read access even though it only writes at 2x. now THAT's fast.

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

So... um... interesting turn of events... I went digging into my case to install a new fan (was idling at 50 degrees C, now under fairly considerable load at 53 degrees... looks good so far), and I decided to rearrange the SATA plugs so the drives would read how I wanted them to in the BIOS... silly me. Wiped both Raptors, since neither read properly, and reinstalled 7. I really hope this isn't a bad move...

@klienma: no, the drives aren't striped. I thought about it, for the extra speed boost, but decided that the risk of data loss wasn't worth it. Besides, having them separate does have its' advantages. Dual-booting, for example. Or in this case, I'm going to have my larger apps installed to the second Raptor, so it should keep them running faster.

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see above. I am thinking you might have wanted to keep xp in a small partition though. I've had issues getting sound in older programs in vista. You might not have that issue with creative, but ac97 i do.

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

Thus far, the only issue I've had is with AIM... even after uninstalling and reinstalling, it tries to load, then just closes... no errors or anything. Oh well... I hate it anyway, so what am I complaining about?

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trillian?

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

I still need audio CD's because I haven't replaced the stereo in my car. I have the replacement unit in my back seat, which has a USB input... just don't have a harness for it. Once I get that, installing the thing will be easy.

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i was going to buy one of those from best-buy. Saw it in the paper, went to buy it. It had been recalled. It was advertising it worked with jump drives. Turned out it only worked with jump drives. Every singe other memory stick was a fail. They got so many returns they quit carrying it.

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Originally Posted by kregg

Hey! Some of us actually refuse to actually stay up-to-date with technology!! :mad:

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I'm an example of this. I've never had a cell phone of my own. The only ones I've ever used are on the few occassions I borrowed someone else's to use. I try to keep dependency on technology down to a minimum. Someday I'll say good bye computer but not yet. I have to evolve more before that happens.

You can never say goodbye to computers due to the sheer amount of information you can access through it as a 'medium'. Knowledge is power and all that.

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Originally Posted by mendhak

You can never say goodbye to computers due to the sheer amount of information you can access through it as a 'medium'.

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Try telling that to my parents. They refuse to touch anything that is associated with computers, with exception to the set top box in the living room.

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Originally Posted by kregg

Try telling that to my parents. They refuse to touch anything that is associated with computers, with exception to the set top box in the living room.

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that's funny. My 75 year old grandfather has actually complained to me that i haven't taught him to use one.

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

that's funny. My 75 year old grandfather has actually complained to me that i haven't taught him to use one.

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So do my parents. But as soon as I even mention about computers, they give that look like their brains have leaked out of their ears.

I was successful in training my parents and my grandparents on my dad's side of the family to use computers for more than checking email and the weather, but I was only able to surprise and impress my other grandparents (I deleted a couple of icons from their desktop because they mentioned it was hard to find things)

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Originally Posted by kregg

Dude, you need to let go of WinFile. Windows 7 already has a better* version.

*If by better you mean bloated, yeah sure.

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:eek: What kind of a crap website is that!? Changing mouse cursors? Seriously!?

Even Bill's website doesn't do that. (New feature, perhaps? :p )

I think not. :afrog:

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

according to my experience and some research, nearly every raid config you can set up nowadays, the chips are smart enough to stripe-read, no matter if it's raid 0, 1, or 10.

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I deal in software a bit more than hardware, but how would raid 1 be striped across disks when raid 1 is strictly mirroring of the data on one disk to another? Isn't striping and mirroring exactly what RAID1+0 is?




Also, relating to this thread, I saw this article and think its pretty cool:
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/bus...irtual-pc.aspx

the data is duplicated on both drives in a mirror setup. The hardware controller knows to read from alternating drives. Wiki it.

wiki seems to indicate its in the OS when supported, not the hardware, although I don't tend to believe everything (or most of anything) on wikipedia

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Provides fault tolerance from disk errors and failure of all but one of the drives. Increased read performance occurs when using a multi-threaded operating system that supports split seeks, very small performance reduction when writing

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Originally Posted by kleinma

wiki seems to indicate its in the OS when supported, not the hardware, although I don't tend to believe everything (or most of anything) on wikipedia

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that would be software raid if it's OS dependent. But even if i am wrong with that, i know personally that vista it is definitely supported.

Hey,

I have just read about another feature of Windows 7, and I think it is applicable in this thread, namely:

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You may have also seen the news about Windows XP Mode. It's a way to run your older applications through a virtual XP environment on Windows 7. I think it's going to be a great addition, and I can't wait to test it out.

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Note: Taken from the recent TechNet Newsletter.

Here is a link with more details:

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/bus...irtual-pc.aspx

Gary

I haven't had a need for it. I'm running the 64-bit build, and all my 32-bit applications work fine. The only issue I've had is my sound driver which, as previously stated, Creative has mostly fixed. Multiple games, Visual Studio, Photoshop CS3, Steam, Impulse, Winamp... all of those are using either the same source as they did on XP, or they're using the existing install itself with no need to reinstall. And given the amount of crap I was seeing when I was Googling the issue, sharing between 7 and XP is pretty simple, too. I can't wait for the full release.

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Originally Posted by gep13

Hey,

I have just read about another feature of Windows 7, and I think it is applicable in this thread, namely:



Note: Taken from the recent TechNet Newsletter.

Here is a link with more details:

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/bus...irtual-pc.aspx

Gary

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I guess you missed this post ;)
http://www.vbforums.com/showpost.php...7&postcount=39

ooops, yip, I missed that :)

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

I haven't had a need for it. I'm running the 64-bit build, and all my 32-bit applications work fine. The only issue I've had is my sound driver which, as previously stated, Creative has mostly fixed. Multiple games, Visual Studio, Photoshop CS3, Steam, Impulse, Winamp... all of those are using either the same source as they did on XP, or they're using the existing install itself with no need to reinstall. And given the amount of crap I was seeing when I was Googling the issue, sharing between 7 and XP is pretty simple, too. I can't wait for the full release.

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I am running Windows 7 build 7100 now, and it feels a bit quicker and polished since 100 builds ago.

Media Center to my xbox 360 is a lot faster now too.

Nice. Where does one acquire the updated builds? I'm still on 7000, and haven't had anything ask me to update... last time I checked MS's site, they had the download pulled off. If there's an easy way to update to the latest build, I'd love to do so.

MS has only officially released 2 Win7 builds to the public.

Build 7000 and 7100

There were lots of other leaked builds posted on torrent sites and what not during the last few months.

Build 7100 is the release candidate, which means its pretty much the final version except for any bugs they fix between now and RTM. They generally won't be adding new features at this point.

You can get it May 5th when the RC build goes into public beta. If you have MSDN or TechNet subscriptions, or if you are a member of the Win7 private beta on connect, then you can get this build as of yesterday.

Neither of which I am or do... Does 7100 give you an upgrade option or is it a fresh install?

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Originally Posted by kleinma

If you have MSDN or TechNet subscriptions, or if you are a member of the Win7 private beta on connect, then you can get this build as of yesterday.

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Is it available on MSDN academic alliance? Because I can only find the Beta...

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

Neither of which I am or do... Does 7100 give you an upgrade option or is it a fresh install?

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From my experience installing Win7, the option for "upgrade" is always enabled (even in build 7000), even when I am installing on a formatted drive. I am not sure why this is (as it clearly states its only an option when it finds a previous windows version). I was thinking this may just be a beta thing, and will be gone by RTM. Or maybe once you click it, it then does the check for previous installation.

Either way, I tend to not trust upgrades, especially in beta software, and my only recommendation would be to do a format/reinstall once you do get the new build.

I have never actually clicked the upgrade option to see what it does though.


@Kregg: I have no idea.. if you don't see it, then its likely not available.