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New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 3/12/2010 7:02 PM, John Rumm wrote:
Wandering off topic a bit here, but, are you aware of any free solutions that can work in the manner of VNC-SC (i.e. a small prog a user can DL and run that then "phones home" back to me and gives remote control - nicely sidestepping any NAT and firewall issues on the remote end of the setup). While VNC-SC works well controlling XP machines, its painfully slow on Vista and Win7. I don't have any issues with speed going from my Vista laptop (or the Win 7 partition on the laptop) via VNC to my Win 7 desktop upstairs. Of course, I turn off most of the Aero eye candy, as it does nothing except increase power usage and suck RAM. That could be part of your speed issue? |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 3/12/2010 11:08 AM, Roger Mills wrote:
Can you run USB-connected physical devices in a VM, or only software applications? I'm thinking of things like my Midiman Uno MIDI interface, for which there doesn't appear to be a W7 driver. In my experience, Win7 will happily install most XP and Vista drivers. Win7 successfully installed, and all my peripherals worked on my old desktop, which was based on 6 year old MB, AMD 3200, and all the associated old hardware. With 1GB of RAM, no less. I think its really going to be luck of the draw on your peripherals working in Win7. Best thing to do will be to Google your peripheral along with Win7. Chances are other people have the same peripheral as you do, and likely there will be a workaround. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to the
same software and data files at two different locations, and have decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of hardware and trying to keep them in synch. Much as I would like to get away from the clutches of Microsoft, I *need* Windows because I've got lots of software which won't run on anything else. My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7. Is this likely? Is there a solution? Would I also need new drivers for all my USB-based devices? Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!) or would I face the same issues as with 7? [One or two half-way-decent-looking 'refurb' laptops are seemingly still available with Vista]. How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest version.] Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated. -- Cheers, Roger _______ Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom checked. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In article ,
Roger Mills wrote: My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7. Is this likely? It's possible, yes. Some might work under the compatibility options in Win 7. Some may just never work. Is there a solution? Would I also need new drivers for all my USB-based devices? Depends. Some will just work under Win 7 (probably). Some might have new drivers available. Some won't. It's all a bit hit and miss. Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!) No, no one is *ever* better off with Vista IMO. or would I face the same issues as with 7? Yes, but with less chance of being able to fix them. Win 7 is largely Vista but fixed. It's far from perfect but a whole lot better than Vista. How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest version.] Getting harder and harder particuarly for laptops. We have plenty of laptops here that just won't run properly with XP as there are no drivers available for the hardware. Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! This isn't really my area, but running an image of your old XP machine under a virtual environment is a possible option if your new laptop is powerful enough. VMware (can't remember what the free version is) or the Sun^WOracle Virtualbox might be worth a look. You'd need something that offers the physical to virtual migration tools. Get a laptop with decent amount of RAM and if your existing machine isn't huge it might just work. I have an XP, a Solaris and a Win 7 VM on my macbook and it works fine under VMware for what I need. Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated. I'm writing this as a Solaris and MacOS user - but windows 7 is much better than Vista. As for XP on new hardware - it's getting harder and harder. Darren |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 12/03/2010 14:52, Roger Mills wrote:
Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! Macrium reflect? The free one does what I need it to do, and runs from a CD for recovery. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 12/03/2010 15:12, D.M.Chapman wrote:
In , Roger wrote: My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7. Is this likely? It's possible, yes. Some might work under the compatibility options in Win 7. Some may just never work. Is there a solution? Would I also need new drivers for all my USB-based devices? Depends. Some will just work under Win 7 (probably). Some might have new drivers available. Some won't. It's all a bit hit and miss. Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!) No, no one is *ever* better off with Vista IMO. or would I face the same issues as with 7? Yes, but with less chance of being able to fix them. Win 7 is largely Vista but fixed. It's far from perfect but a whole lot better than Vista. How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest version.] Getting harder and harder particuarly for laptops. We have plenty of laptops here that just won't run properly with XP as there are no drivers available for the hardware. Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! This isn't really my area, but running an image of your old XP machine under a virtual environment is a possible option if your new laptop is powerful enough. VMware (can't remember what the free version is) or the Sun^WOracle Virtualbox might be worth a look. You'd need something that offers the physical to virtual migration tools. Get a laptop with decent amount of RAM and if your existing machine isn't huge it might just work. I have an XP, a Solaris and a Win 7 VM on my macbook and it works fine under VMware for what I need. Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated. I'm writing this as a Solaris and MacOS user - but windows 7 is much better than Vista. As for XP on new hardware - it's getting harder and harder. Darren Generally agree with you Darren. For compatibility, you might need to stick to the 32-bit version of W7. Do remember that with W7 Pro you get a full copy of XP as a virtual machine in with W7 itself. (You might have to download it, but you are immediately licensed for that virtual copy of XP.) Make sure you have plenty of memory and processor power if you wish to use virtual machines. Another option might be to leave your main computer (of whatever sort) at one location and use another to remotely access it - whether using LogMeIn, RDP, VNC or something else to do so. It could leave you free to get a lightweight (physically and in terms of performance) laptop to take with you. And no need to sync as everything is really on the main computer. WIth Wake-on-LAN facilities the remote machine doesn't even have to be running all the time. Might be totally useless to you, but a thought. Indeed, if you have some things that won't run any other way, you could remote access your current computer. -- Rod |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
Huge wrote:
On 2010-03-12, dmc@puffin. (D.M.Chapman) dmc@puffin wrote: I have an XP, a Solaris and a Win 7 VM on my macbook and it works fine under VMware for what I need. FWIW, I run Windows XP, Solaris, Ubuntu(*) and Plan9(+) under VirtualBox under Ubuntu. (* Playing with new versions.) (+ Very slowly. But it runs.) I'm running XP in virtual box here.Native Debian. If windos gets borked, revert to snapshot and as long as the DATA is on the main machine not inside windows, windows is up and freshly installed in 30 seconds! |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 12/03/2010 15:49, Rod wrote:
On 12/03/2010 15:12, D.M.Chapman wrote: In , Roger wrote: My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7. Is this likely? It's possible, yes. Some might work under the compatibility options in Win 7. Some may just never work. Is there a solution? Would I also need new drivers for all my USB-based devices? Depends. Some will just work under Win 7 (probably). Some might have new drivers available. Some won't. It's all a bit hit and miss. Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!) No, no one is *ever* better off with Vista IMO. or would I face the same issues as with 7? Yes, but with less chance of being able to fix them. Win 7 is largely Vista but fixed. It's far from perfect but a whole lot better than Vista. How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest version.] Getting harder and harder particuarly for laptops. We have plenty of laptops here that just won't run properly with XP as there are no drivers available for the hardware. Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! This isn't really my area, but running an image of your old XP machine under a virtual environment is a possible option if your new laptop is powerful enough. VMware (can't remember what the free version is) or the Sun^WOracle Virtualbox might be worth a look. You'd need something that offers the physical to virtual migration tools. Get a laptop with decent amount of RAM and if your existing machine isn't huge it might just work. I have an XP, a Solaris and a Win 7 VM on my macbook and it works fine under VMware for what I need. Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated. I'm writing this as a Solaris and MacOS user - but windows 7 is much better than Vista. As for XP on new hardware - it's getting harder and harder. Darren Generally agree with you Darren. For compatibility, you might need to stick to the 32-bit version of W7. Do remember that with W7 Pro you get a full copy of XP as a virtual machine in with W7 itself. (You might have to download it, but you are immediately licensed for that virtual copy of XP.) Make sure you have plenty of memory and processor power if you wish to use virtual machines. Another option might be to leave your main computer (of whatever sort) at one location and use another to remotely access it - whether using LogMeIn, RDP, VNC or something else to do so. It could leave you free to get a lightweight (physically and in terms of performance) laptop to take with you. And no need to sync as everything is really on the main computer. WIth Wake-on-LAN facilities the remote machine doesn't even have to be running all the time. Might be totally useless to you, but a thought. Indeed, if you have some things that won't run any other way, you could remote access your current computer. I have just gone from XP SP3 on my old PC to Windows 7 64 bit on my new one. Only had problem was with Alk co-pilot 7 which apparently is not and will not be supported for Windows 7 64. I eventually googled enough to find a workaround via a registry hack. What I do find aggravating are the pop-up thumbnails from the taskbar. I haven't managed to find a way to turn them off but have now set the delay until they appear to 20000 (milli seconds). Also disabled one of the security options in IE (which I very rarely use) to save me having to override warnings every time I open digiguide from a link in the taskbar. One day I will find time to take a look at ubuntu but for the moment I find windows 7 stable and quite good. Just a battle to do things my way instead of how ms think everyone should do things. I have got an overclocked core 7 cpu and 6gb of ram which probably helps. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:52:56 +0000, Roger Mills wrote:
Much as I would like to get away from the clutches of Microsoft, I *need* Windows because I've got lots of software which won't run on anything else. Personally, I run Linux as the host OS and Windows in a VM for when I absultely have to use it for something (extremely rarely in my case). I really wouldn't trust Windows as the host, in part due to poor design and in part simply due to it being the target of most security threats. Having it in a VM makes it very easy to back up the raw data and restore from a previous point if some nasty does get in. How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? I've used g4l (ghost for linux) before, booting from a CD, to do a raw backup of a Windows machine. Make sure that your target backup machine can handle the size of the file (I need to tweak my current Linux desktop as by default it won't create anything over 2GB in size) and that if you're using FTP to transfer the data, your target FTP server can cope with the size (some Windows flavours seem to quietly stop accepting data beyond 4GB) cheers Jules |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Rod
wrote: Do remember that with W7 Pro you get a full copy of XP as a virtual machine in with W7 itself. (You might have to download it, but you are immediately licensed for that virtual copy of XP.) Make sure you have plenty of memory and processor power if you wish to use virtual machines. Can you run USB-connected physical devices in a VM, or only software applications? I'm thinking of things like my Midiman Uno MIDI interface, for which there doesn't appear to be a W7 driver. Another option might be to leave your main computer (of whatever sort) at one location and use another to remotely access it - whether using LogMeIn, RDP, VNC or something else to do so. It could leave you free to get a lightweight (physically and in terms of performance) laptop to take with you. And no need to sync as everything is really on the main computer. WIth Wake-on-LAN facilities the remote machine doesn't even have to be running all the time. Might be totally useless to you, but a thought. That would presumably require a fairly fast internet connection at both ends? At my main location, I have wired BB with a D/L speed of about 2Mbps (U/L much slower) and at the other location, I'm currently using '3' mobile internet, which struggles to get up to 500kbps (D/L) and 100kbps (U/L) - so I guess that remote access would be pretty dire! -- Cheers, Roger _______ Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom checked. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 12/03/2010 17:08, Roger Mills wrote:
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Rod wrote: Do remember that with W7 Pro you get a full copy of XP as a virtual machine in with W7 itself. (You might have to download it, but you are immediately licensed for that virtual copy of XP.) Make sure you have plenty of memory and processor power if you wish to use virtual machines. Can you run USB-connected physical devices in a VM, or only software applications? I'm thinking of things like my Midiman Uno MIDI interface, for which there doesn't appear to be a W7 driver. Another option might be to leave your main computer (of whatever sort) at one location and use another to remotely access it - whether using LogMeIn, RDP, VNC or something else to do so. It could leave you free to get a lightweight (physically and in terms of performance) laptop to take with you. And no need to sync as everything is really on the main computer. WIth Wake-on-LAN facilities the remote machine doesn't even have to be running all the time. Might be totally useless to you, but a thought. That would presumably require a fairly fast internet connection at both ends? At my main location, I have wired BB with a D/L speed of about 2Mbps (U/L much slower) and at the other location, I'm currently using '3' mobile internet, which struggles to get up to 500kbps (D/L) and 100kbps (U/L) - so I guess that remote access would be pretty dire! I spend a considerable proportion of my working life connected to various machines across the country. No control over the net connection at the far end. Varies from brilliant, through mostly fine, to a few which are not much fun. At a guess, the ones that are not good are on bottom end ADSL connections which are being used for many purposes other than my access to that location. Wish I had some real numbers to give you but we don't actually measure anything like traffic. Perhaps someone else could advise? The best technologies minimise traffic by caching and all sorts of clever tricks. For me the best user experience is with RDP over a VPN. (I just don't like the effect of connecting and disconnecting VPN connections all day. But if it is all day to one location that is not much of an issue.) Main reason is that RDP will set itself to use the size of monitor you are connecting with (quite large in my case) whereas LogMeIn and VNC use the real monitor size - and some sites I connect to have postage stamps for monitors. But it is also quite fast and fluid. I'd suggest you simply try it. For simplicity set up free LogMeIn on your computer and try to access it from somewhere else. (That will need a browser plugin on the computer you connect from. Works fine in IE and Firefox.) -- Rod |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On Mar 12, 3:31*pm, Huge wrote:
[...] FWIW, I run Windows XP, Solaris, Ubuntu(*) and Plan9(+) under VirtualBox under Ubuntu. Out of interest, what do you run Plan9 for? Thanks J^n |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
Some of your applications are REALLY old. Quicken 98? Really, you
should make upgrading to later versions a bit of a priority. [In my case, I upgraded from Quicken 98 to 2000 to 2003 to 2006 to 2010]. One problem is that you have waited SO long that you may not be able to move from 98 to 2010; you might have to try to find someone who actually has installation CDs of at least one or a few intermediate versions. Similarly with the other products. I would recommend that you go with Windows 7 Professional, 32-bit. This will give you the most options and backwards compatibility. Most things will probably work, but it's absolutely the case that not everything will. The reason I suggested Professional instead of Home Premium is that with Professional, you have the option, at least, of using "XP Mode". I think that Win 7 is better than Vista in just about every way. Also, be certain that the CPU in whatever laptop you are going to get supports "Intel Virtualization Technology". This is required for running "XP Mode", and is only supported by about half of current CPUs. You can ALWAYS take a bootable floppy and make a bootable CD that will behave EXACTLY like the floppy (although, of course, you won't be able to write to it). Roger Mills wrote: I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to the same software and data files at two different locations, and have decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of hardware and trying to keep them in synch. Much as I would like to get away from the clutches of Microsoft, I *need* Windows because I've got lots of software which won't run on anything else. My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7. Is this likely? Is there a solution? Would I also need new drivers for all my USB-based devices? Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!) or would I face the same issues as with 7? [One or two half-way-decent-looking 'refurb' laptops are seemingly still available with Vista]. How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest version.] Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In message , Barry Watzman
writes I would recommend that you go with Windows 7 Professional, 32-bit. This will give you the most options and backwards compatibility. Most things will probably work, but it's absolutely the case that not everything will. The reason I suggested Professional instead of Home Premium is that with Professional, you have the option, at least, of using "XP Mode". I think that Win 7 is better than Vista in just about every way. Also, be certain that the CPU in whatever laptop you are going to get supports "Intel Virtualization Technology". This is required for running "XP Mode", and is only supported by about half of current CPUs. I've just been through this choice process with a friend. Many business laptops come with Win7Pro with a separate XP Pro DVD to enable you to revert if necessary, and that's what I would definitely go for. Win7 Pro lets you make a Microsoft full backup, so it's easy to be sure you have a chance of reverting back to Win7 if you feel the need and you should have all the bits to do this with no hassle. We looked at machines between about 450 and 1200 uk pounds, and eventually she chose one at the low end because she didn't seem to see much difference, and liked that keyboard. I suggested Win7, 64 for future proofing, but there seemed few of these. I've run virtual machines, but I really think that on a laptop simplicity is all unless there is a real reason for multiple OS's. At the moment she is still on 32-bit Win 7, having got most of her old programs to run. This included an old version of Quickbooks. She found the Win7 "import all your old stuff" application a nightmare. It took all night to do it and put the old software all over the place in her new machine. She is still sorting through it. -- Bill |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On Mar 12, 2:52*pm, "Roger Mills" wrote:
I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to the same software and data files at two different locations, and have decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of hardware and trying to keep them in synch. Much as I would like to get away from the clutches of Microsoft, I *need* Windows because I've got lots of software which won't run on anything else. Have you tried it in virtual windows on ubuntu? Apps run almost seamlesly like that - the almost comes from the fact that ubuntu doesnt seem to create file associations in the win registry, but I've probably just not yet looked to see how to set it to do so. My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. most windows stuff runs on ubuntu now I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7.. Is this likely? Is there a solution? ubuntu? Would I also need new drivers for all my USB-based devices? all built in with ubuntu - even windows 98 doesnt need usb driver installs if you install the nusb3.1 driver. Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!) or would I face the same issues as with 7? [One or two half-way-decent-looking 'refurb' laptops are seemingly still available with Vista]. How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest version.] Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? insert ubuntu cd, switch on, and just copy across whatever you want to. This will copy windows or your data to a thorough extent that windows itself won't. If win breaks, just copy the image back to the laptop. In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS *from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated. I know I sound like a broken record on this, but seriously all these concerns and many more are non-issues if you try Ubuntu. Linux has a poor usability reputation, but ubuntu is the distro that's really changed that. It costs nothing to try, and if for some reason you still want to get windows you can buy it if and when you find linux isnt what you want. The days of linux being only for geeks are history. NT |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
"Clive George" wrote in message o.uk... On 12/03/2010 14:52, Roger Mills wrote: Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! Yes, Ghost 14 |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Barry Watzman
wrote: Some of your applications are REALLY old. Quicken 98? Really, you should make upgrading to later versions a bit of a priority. [In my case, I upgraded from Quicken 98 to 2000 to 2003 to 2006 to 2010]. One problem is that you have waited SO long that you may not be able to move from 98 to 2010; you might have to try to find someone who actually has installation CDs of at least one or a few intermediate versions. Similarly with the other products. But why? My attitude is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"! Quicken 98 does everything I want - so why upgrade? [I did get a free millennium-proof upgrade for it - but it probably wasn't necessary because my wife is still using an even earlier version quite successfully!] I would recommend that you go with Windows 7 Professional, 32-bit. This will give you the most options and backwards compatibility. Most things will probably work, but it's absolutely the case that not everything will. The reason I suggested Professional instead of Home Premium is that with Professional, you have the option, at least, of using "XP Mode". I think that Win 7 is better than Vista in just about every way. Also, be certain that the CPU in whatever laptop you are going to get supports "Intel Virtualization Technology". This is required for running "XP Mode", and is only supported by about half of current CPUs. Useful advice - thanks! You can ALWAYS take a bootable floppy and make a bootable CD that will behave EXACTLY like the floppy (although, of course, you won't be able to write to it). Yes, I guessed that that must be possible. Would you care to elaborate as to how to go about it? -- Cheers, Roger _______ Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom checked. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, NT
wrote: I know I sound like a broken record on this, but seriously all these concerns and many more are non-issues if you try Ubuntu. Linux has a poor usability reputation, but ubuntu is the distro that's really changed that. It costs nothing to try, and if for some reason you still want to get windows you can buy it if and when you find linux isnt what you want. The days of linux being only for geeks are history. Sorry - I accept that it's probably a failing on my part, but I can't get on with Ubuntu. My current machine dual boots between Ubuntu and Win XP - and I spent quite a lot of time trying to get to grips with Ubuntu - and failed - so I never use it now. Even simple things like getting it to accept a fixed IP address seemed to need a script of some sort to be written, and I just couldn't be arsed! -- Cheers, Roger _______ Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom checked. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In message , Bernard Peek
writes On 12/03/10 14:52, Roger Mills wrote: My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most applications will run under the 32-bit version of Windows 7. Some older programs won't install under the 6-bit version. I can see how that might be a problem -- geoff |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In message , Roger Mills
writes I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to the same software and data files at two different locations, and have decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of hardware and trying to keep them in synch. Ask me when I phone you when your fan's ready I have a few pointers -- geoff |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 12/03/2010 19:52, Barry Watzman wrote:
Also, be certain that the CPU in whatever laptop you are going to get supports "Intel Virtualization Technology". This is required for running "XP Mode", and is only supported by about half of current CPUs. At a guess, AMD virtualization (AMD-V) will also work. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 12/03/10 22:55, Clive George wrote:
On 12/03/2010 19:52, Barry Watzman wrote: Also, be certain that the CPU in whatever laptop you are going to get supports "Intel Virtualization Technology". This is required for running "XP Mode", and is only supported by about half of current CPUs. At a guess, AMD virtualization (AMD-V) will also work. It will. -- Bernard Peek |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
Is your current laptop at 2GB RAM.
If not can it be upgraded- #this may solve most of your problems! Roger Mills wrote: I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to the same software and data files at two different locations, and have decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of hardware and trying to keep them in synch. Much as I would like to get away from the clutches of Microsoft, I *need* Windows because I've got lots of software which won't run on anything else. My current - rather elderly - laptop is running Win XP Home Sp3 and lots of essential applications - many of which came free with various PC magazines, and would cost a fortune to replace or upgrade - so my 'new' laptop needs to be able to run all of these. I've also got a number of USB devices - printers, scanners, MIDI interfaces, etc. - which need to work with the new laptop. Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7. Is this likely? Is there a solution? Would I also need new drivers for all my USB-based devices? Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!) or would I face the same issues as with 7? [One or two half-way-decent-looking 'refurb' laptops are seemingly still available with Vista]. How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest version.] Other Issues: How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost! Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
"But why? My attitude is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"!"
Because it is broken, only the cracks are not on the surface. There is NO support by Intuit for anything over about 3 years old. There are security issues. And once you get more than about 6 years old, you may not be ABLE to migrate from the old version to a current version. What I did was do multiple migrations at about 3-year intervals. The problem is, you have waited so long that you may not be able to find the necessary intermediate versions. But, more to the point, if you continue to wait, doing so will get increasingly more difficult. You will get to a point where you won't be able to migrate and will lose everything. To make a bootable CD from a bootable floppy, you need a program such as "Roxio" or "Nero". They have the ability to make a bootable CD using a floppy as the boot image; it's a standard feature of "full feature" burning products. When you boot from the CD, the floppy image will come up as A: and the rest of the CD will come up as some other drive letter, PROVIDING that the OS booted from the image (e.g. the floppy) had generic CD drivers (e.g. a device driver and MSCDEX) [if these are not present, the rest of the CD won't be accessible, which may not be relevant anyway, e.g. if you are flashing a bios or running a memory or disk diagnostic that originally was on a bootable floppy]. Roger Mills wrote: In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Barry Watzman wrote: Some of your applications are REALLY old. Quicken 98? Really, you should make upgrading to later versions a bit of a priority. [In my case, I upgraded from Quicken 98 to 2000 to 2003 to 2006 to 2010]. One problem is that you have waited SO long that you may not be able to move from 98 to 2010; you might have to try to find someone who actually has installation CDs of at least one or a few intermediate versions. Similarly with the other products. But why? My attitude is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"! Quicken 98 does everything I want - so why upgrade? [I did get a free millennium-proof upgrade for it - but it probably wasn't necessary because my wife is still using an even earlier version quite successfully!] I would recommend that you go with Windows 7 Professional, 32-bit. This will give you the most options and backwards compatibility. Most things will probably work, but it's absolutely the case that not everything will. The reason I suggested Professional instead of Home Premium is that with Professional, you have the option, at least, of using "XP Mode". I think that Win 7 is better than Vista in just about every way. Also, be certain that the CPU in whatever laptop you are going to get supports "Intel Virtualization Technology". This is required for running "XP Mode", and is only supported by about half of current CPUs. Useful advice - thanks! You can ALWAYS take a bootable floppy and make a bootable CD that will behave EXACTLY like the floppy (although, of course, you won't be able to write to it). Yes, I guessed that that must be possible. Would you care to elaborate as to how to go about it? |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:17:22 -0500, Barry Watzman wrote:
"But why? My attitude is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"!" Because it is broken, only the cracks are not on the surface. There is NO support by Intuit for anything over about 3 years old. There are security issues. And once you get more than about 6 years old, you may not be ABLE to migrate from the old version to a current version. What I did was do multiple migrations at about 3-year intervals. The problem is, you have waited so long that you may not be able to find the necessary intermediate versions. But, more to the point, if you continue to wait, doing so will get increasingly more difficult. You will get to a point where you won't be able to migrate and will lose everything. I migrated last year from Quicken 98 (non Millennium version) to MyMoney on FreebSD - no problem! -- Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 13/03/2010 01:02, John Rumm wrote:
Wandering off topic a bit here, but, are you aware of any free solutions that can work in the manner of VNC-SC (i.e. a small prog a user can DL and run that then "phones home" back to me and gives remote control - nicely sidestepping any NAT and firewall issues on the remote end of the setup). While VNC-SC works well controlling XP machines, its painfully slow on Vista and Win7. I had never see VNC-SC before. But as we use LogMeIn extensively that has become our preferred solution. Never have firewall issues (once the remoter machine has normal web access) at either end. If the remote computer does not have it installed, we simply talk the user through installing it. Have managed to get some pretty incompetent people through that process. (Depending on how you set up accounts/usernames, you might need temporarily to reveal your password to allow them to add their computer to your account. When this issue arises, we change our password for a minute or two.) And we only use LogMeIn free ourselves - though quite a number of the sites we access have decided to get a paid-for version. -- Rod |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
On 13/03/2010 00:17, Barry Watzman wrote:
"But why? My attitude is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"!" Because it is broken, only the cracks are not on the surface. There is NO support by Intuit for anything over about 3 years old. There are security issues. And once you get more than about 6 years old, you may not be ABLE to migrate from the old version to a current version. Quicken stopped UK support in 2005. http://www.quicken.co.uk/ I still use Quicken 98 for invoicing, and I really should get around to exporting my data to something else... Need to find round tuits. -- Adrian C |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
There are 3 options for these situations:
1. Put up with the very annoying UAC prompts every time you use the older programs. 2. Turn off UAC entirely. Not recommended by the experts, but in reality you are no worse off than you would be if you were just using XP. 3. It is possible to configure UAC behavior on a program-by-program basis, e.g. off for ill-behaved older programs but on for later, UAC compliant software. A web search will find instructions. It's not easy or fun; this was not something Microsoft really intended to support, but it can be manually configured. John Rumm wrote: Roger Mills wrote: Some older stuff may have problems with the enforced security model of win7. This is basically a result of apps not following the rules about which parts of the files system and registry they are allowed to access. (MS apps being just as bad as others!). Sometimes you can get past this with selective use of admin rights during first run etc. (i.e. doing a run as administrator) Better versions of win7 also include an XP mode - this is basically a complete XP system inside a virtual machine that can be used for stuff that goofs in a bad way. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
Roger Mills wrote:
I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to the same software and data files at two different locations, and have decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of hardware and trying to keep them in synch. Much as I would like to get away from the clutches of Microsoft, I *need* Windows because I've got lots of software which won't run on anything else. /snip Don't go Vista. It doesn't do anything that Win7 doesn't do better. XP was OK, but I think I prefer 7. Andy |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, geoff
wrote: In message , Roger Mills writes I'm in the market for a new laptop computer. I need to have access to the same software and data files at two different locations, and have decided that a single laptop is preferable to maintaining two lots of hardware and trying to keep them in synch. Ask me when I phone you when your fan's ready I have a few pointers Will do. Ta! -- Cheers, Roger _______ Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom checked. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Barry Watzman
wrote: "But why? My attitude is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"!" Because it is broken, only the cracks are not on the surface. There is NO support by Intuit for anything over about 3 years old. There are security issues. And once you get more than about 6 years old, you may not be ABLE to migrate from the old version to a current version. Sorry, you've lost me! I've used Quicken 98 for 12 years or so to do the accounts for my own family and for two voluntary organisations with which I am associated without requiring any support from Intuit. So why should I need any *now*? *What* security issues? My use of it never goes anywhere near the internet! -- Cheers, Roger _______ Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom checked. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
"for example Word 2003 will install and run ok on Win7, but will pop
up the license acceptance agreement for the user to OK every time it runs" It does not do that on my system. John Rumm wrote: Barry Watzman wrote: There are 3 options for these situations: 1. Put up with the very annoying UAC prompts every time you use the older programs. 2. Turn off UAC entirely. Not recommended by the experts, but in reality you are no worse off than you would be if you were just using XP. 3. It is possible to configure UAC behavior on a program-by-program basis, e.g. off for ill-behaved older programs but on for later, UAC compliant software. A web search will find instructions. It's not easy or fun; this was not something Microsoft really intended to support, but it can be manually configured. It can go a bit deeper than just dealing with UAC IME... for example Word 2003 will install and run ok on Win7, but will pop up the license acceptance agreement for the user to OK every time it runs. This seems to be a failure to record the users acceptance, due to write permissions. However it does not generate a UAC popup when it attempts to save the users answer. With that one, you can fix it by doing a run as admin on it, accepting the agreement popup and then closing it. Next time you run with normal rights, it works normally. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
In article , John
Rumm scribeth thus Ryan P. wrote: On 3/12/2010 7:02 PM, John Rumm wrote: Ok, with content this time! Wandering off topic a bit here, but, are you aware of any free solutions that can work in the manner of VNC-SC (i.e. a small prog a user can DL and run that then "phones home" back to me and gives remote control - nicely sidestepping any NAT and firewall issues on the remote end of the setup). While VNC-SC works well controlling XP machines, its painfully slow on Vista and Win7. I don't have any issues with speed going from my Vista laptop (or the Win 7 partition on the laptop) via VNC to my Win 7 desktop upstairs. The normal VNC seems ok over a LAN when controlling Vista etc, but the single click version over a pair of ADSL connections seems to have major difficulties. Of course, I turn off most of the Aero eye candy, as it does nothing except increase power usage and suck RAM. That could be part of your speed issue? Turning off aero helps - but its still almost postal - e.g. click for a menu and wait anything from 10 to 20 seconds to see the result etc. Dunno what was wrong with WIN 2000 best prog microsoft ever wrote;)).. -- Tony Sayer |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
I know I sound like a broken record on this, but seriously all these concerns and many more are non-issues if you try Ubuntu. Linux has a poor usability reputation, but ubuntu is the distro that's really changed that. It costs nothing to try, and if for some reason you still want to get windows you can buy it if and when you find linux isnt what you want. The days of linux being only for geeks are history. Second all that .. try it, you've nowt to loose:))... NT -- Tony Sayer |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
for example Word 2003 will install and run ok on Win7, but will pop up
the license acceptance agreement for the user to OK every time it runs. This seems to be a failure to record the users acceptance, due to write permissions. However it does not generate a UAC popup when it attempts to save the users answer. Or use the latest version of Open Office;))... -- Tony Sayer |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
tony sayer wrote:
In article , John Rumm scribeth thus Ryan P. wrote: On 3/12/2010 7:02 PM, John Rumm wrote: Ok, with content this time! Wandering off topic a bit here, but, are you aware of any free solutions that can work in the manner of VNC-SC (i.e. a small prog a user can DL and run that then "phones home" back to me and gives remote control - nicely sidestepping any NAT and firewall issues on the remote end of the setup). While VNC-SC works well controlling XP machines, its painfully slow on Vista and Win7. I don't have any issues with speed going from my Vista laptop (or the Win 7 partition on the laptop) via VNC to my Win 7 desktop upstairs. The normal VNC seems ok over a LAN when controlling Vista etc, but the single click version over a pair of ADSL connections seems to have major difficulties. Of course, I turn off most of the Aero eye candy, as it does nothing except increase power usage and suck RAM. That could be part of your speed issue? Turning off aero helps - but its still almost postal - e.g. click for a menu and wait anything from 10 to 20 seconds to see the result etc. Dunno what was wrong with WIN 2000 best prog microsoft ever wrote;)).. What was wrong with W2000 (from MS's point of view) was that everybody already had it. That wasn't good for sales. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
NT wrote:
I know I sound like a broken record on this, but seriously all these concerns and many more are non-issues if you try Ubuntu. Linux has a poor usability reputation, but ubuntu is the distro that's really changed that. Let me put in a plug here for Jolicloud. http://www.jolicloud.com/ This is a customised version of Ubuntu, specifically tailored for netbooks (it seems to work fine on most laptops too). The user interface is very easy to get used to. I've put it on my Asus eeePC as a boot alternative to XP. One of its appealing features is the speed of booting and shutdown. Note that it is still "Pre-Beta", but even at this stage it's pretty impressive. |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
Barry Watzman :
Some of your applications are REALLY old. Quicken 98? Really, you should make upgrading to later versions a bit of a priority. You seem to be assuming that later versions are better. After several Quicken "upgrades" that made the product worse rather than better for my purposes, I stopped upgrading at Quicken 6 (1997, I believe). Nothing I've seen or read since suggests that I made the wrong decision. -- Mike Barnes |
New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
tony sayer :
I know I sound like a broken record on this, but seriously all these concerns and many more are non-issues if you try Ubuntu. Linux has a poor usability reputation, but ubuntu is the distro that's really changed that. It costs nothing to try, and if for some reason you still want to get windows you can buy it if and when you find linux isnt what you want. The days of linux being only for geeks are history. Second all that .. try it, you've nowt to loose:))... No *money* to lose. I'd place myself firmly in the geek category and once spent countless hours trying to get Ubuntu to do what I want a PC to do. Those wasted hours count as a loss to me. -- Mike Barnes |
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