Clive Page wrote:
On 10/04/2012 18:22, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Only COMPILED programs may not copy. Data is - just data. I mean I copy
those freely between a 32bit XP virtual machine and a 64 bit Linux..

Indeed. My experience is as follows.

My old laptop started having problems last year and I found that it was
hard to avoid getting 64-bit Win7 on any reasonable replacement, so I
gave in and did that. I found that the only *program* that didn't work
was something called Turnpike (a very good reader for Usenet News). This
used some features of 32-bit windows which weren't in the 64-bit
version, and was also a "mature product" i.e. no longer being developed
for new operating systems. All the possible work-arounds turned out to
be dead ends. There is a Win XP mode in Windows 7 but it can't be used
in Win7 Home Premium; you have to pay Microsoft an extortionate fee to
upgrade it. Eventually I switched to using Thunderbird for news reading
(it isn't as good, but I can live with it).

But printer drivers are also executable code, and I found that my new HP
laptop would not work with my existing HP laser printer, because HP
could not be bothered to create a 64-bit printer driver for it. It
won't even drive it over the home network when the old printer is
connected to the old Win XP computer which surprised me. Obviously HP
are trying very hard to get me to buy a new printer. Again I eventually
found a work-around, but it's clunky. As a result of my HP experience,
when I do get another printer, it certainly won't be from Hewlett Packard.

So: if you use any programs which are no longer supported (in the sense
of new versions still being developed), or device drivers for old
devices, you might have problems. Other than that, everything is
compatible.

By the way, the user interface for Windows 7 is substantially different,
and in my view worse, but it's easy to find instructions on the web to
get it all looking and behaving like Win XP. I see that Windows 8 has
even done away with the "Start" button - so it's a good idea to get Win
7 before Microsoft messes things up even more.


that ws te one blot on an otherwise beautiful 64 bit landscape when I
moved to 64 bit linux|: no scanner drivers for the HP scanner.

So I gave it to my wife for her mac and bought a ten year old heap of
**** from ebay.

I use it solely for scanning scale drawings for tracing: If I want
actual color rendition I use an anglepoise lamp and a DLSR. Its actually
better quality - but you cant rely on it for exact dimensions due to
the inevitable barrel and pincushion and perspective issues.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.