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Posted to alt.home.repair
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OT computers
trader_4 wrote:
On Monday, March 31, 2014 7:54:04 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sun, 30 Mar 2014 23:30:48 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:
-- | Sometimes the smart thing to do in the OP's case is to get a win7
| machine that supports virtualization and put on a virtual XP - so he
| can still use his favourite programs like outlook express.
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He probably has OEM XP. Putting it on a Win7 box
would require buying a new OEM CD, for probably
about $100 if he could find it. There's no reason he
can't keep the old machine running. And it doesn't
sound like he's the sort of person to be setting up
VMs. 
The new or off-lease computer would come with the OS installed, and
installing virtual XP is litterally a "piece of cake".
You could do that, but I wouldn't be so sure it's a piece of cake.
XP is being EOL's by MSFT right now. No more support, no more
updates for security fixes, nada. Also, I wouldn't assume that XP
has all the necessary drivers, with bug fixes, etc for any new
PC that he's about to buy. For example if he buys an HP with a
particular vidoe card in it, how can you be sure that driver is
certified to work with XP? And if you buy a new HP, screw it up,
and can't get XP installed, then what? And the point to installing
an old OS is what exactly? He can't just use Windows Mail or
switch to an alternate?
Then add in the fact that IDK what browser he's using, but if it's
Windows Explorer, the newer versions of that no longer run on XP,
so he's very likely to run into big problems there, trying to access
web content for example, that won't run on an old unsupported browser.
In short, just buy a new PC and use it out of the box.
| Or buy an off-lease computer with WinXP Pro that is only less than 5
| years old with DDR3 ram and SATA hard drive instead of his ancient
| ide HD and DDR2 ram.
Even in 2002 the machine he has would have probably
had about a 1 Ghz CPU and maybe 500 MB RAM. That's
more than enough for most uses. Nothing is faster than
instant, no matter how new it is. *A lot* of money is
wasted on loads of RAM that never gets used. If he wants
to do a lot of editing of 30 MB images then he probably
needs a new box. For most other things, the cheapest PCs
have been more than adequate for many years now. (That's
a nice aspect of XP. Microsoft went to great lengths to
build bloat into Vista/7 so that their hardware partners
could sell more stock. Win8 needs 1 GB RAM just to sit there.
But XP is zippy on old hardware, and does just fine with 256
MB RAM for most uses.)
I've been in the PC business now for 25 years (well, will be 25
years in August). 256 is inadequate to run anything of consequence on
XP. 512 will work, but 1024 really wakes it up, particularly if
running 2 programs at a time. Takes all the load off the hard drive
(swap file/virtual ram issues). With 256 ram, you WILL wear out the
hard drive.
And the 6GB or whatever that you get with a basic PC today, combined
with a multi-core 3 ghz CPU will work even better. Even a $100 Android cell
phone has 2GB of memory today.
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