"Terry Coombs" wrote in message ...
On 3/31/2020 12:18 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
[top posting is the default in Win Live Mail]
"Terry Coombs" wrote in message ...
On 3/31/2020 9:54 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
This is a test to confirm that I can finally retire my XP laptop and post
from this Win7 one.
"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message ...
Looks to me like you got it nailed . I'm still trying to decide
whether to move all my daily use stuff over to the Win7 OS or leave it
here on the XP boot .
Snag
----------------------
My only remaining "snag" was posting to Usenet, since the Outlook Express
in XP was discontinued. Thunderbird didn't configure itself properly to
send but Live Mail seems OK. The Firefox bookmarks were easy to export
from XP and import into 7. Look under "Show all Bookmarks".
My fleamarket Win10 Thinkpad T530 gathers dust between update sessions.
Kinda hard to migrate when both OS's are in the same comp ... I just
replaced the failing motherboard in this desktop with a newer one that
will run 7 , and installed it in an otherwise empty 500 Gb drive . So
far that's the only "snag" I've found with this setup . Oh , and I run
Tbird on all these comps , makes it much simpler to move to another comp
, like using the laptop when we travel .
Snag
===================================
So I replied to you instead of to the group.
About 12 years ago I switched to cheap second-hand business laptops for less
demanding, non-gaming applications like programming, CAD drafting and
internet access. At first I did it to economize on UPS and battery costs
because they draw around 1/10th the power, 30W vs 2~300W and have their own
battery backup. An external USB keyboard on a roll-out shelf makes them as
easy to type on as a desktop.
Then I realized I could use Win7 laptops as compact portable
AC/12V/battery-powered televisions with recording and playback ability, as
long as they had at least a 2GHz Core2 Duo CPU. I set up my computer bench
with two large monitors, one an HDTV, on the upper shelf and whichever
laptop(s) I'm using, or none, on the desktop static mat. A ham radio
fleamarket provided a nice Altec speaker set with a subwoofer for watching
PBS music programs. The monitor, keyboard and speakers remove all of a
laptop's annoyances. Right now the upper HDTV is showing the local news and
the laptop has recorded the weather.
Since these thicker laptops accept plug-in second hard drives in the DVD bay
they can selectively boot one of two operating systems, and transfer files
such as exported bookmarks or lists of settings between them. A large
second drive can have a small bootable OS partition for emergencies and the
rest a storage partition for videos etc.
There are several free programs that can back up the operating system
partition to the second (faster) or an external USB (slower) drive so you
are free to experiment and can restore the backup if your HDD goes bad or
you mess up or are contaminated by malware. I've searched the backups to
find one before the corrupted Java installation.
This ~10 year old Dell D630 laptop cost me $15. It has the base Intel
graphics which is more reliable than the NVidia upgrade and adequate to
display VGA video on a larger external monitor. Several other brands shared
the overheating NVidia problem.
AFAIK it's about the oldest that's still
acceptable, my slightly older D820s have wonky 1st-gen SATA controllers
though they do boot from SSDs.
I have newer and faster laptops costing from free, won't boot (CMOS battery)
to the $100 Win10 Thinkpad. They stay stacked, available for more demanding
apps like running an SDR radio receiver while the old guys do the grunt
work.
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