"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 07/01/2014 18:21, Jim Hawkins wrote:
What do you gain by upgrading from
XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?

Support/patches.
64 bit if you're sensible and hence ability to use more than 3G memory.
Task manager is better.
It's more stable IME.

And what do you lose ?

Money if the upgrade costs?
UAC can be a bit of a pain if you set it up wrong.


Is it possible to upgrade a 32bit machine (whatever the OS)
to its 64 bit equivalent - or do you have to buy new ?

On 08/01/2014 17:13, Jim Hawkins wrote:
"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 07/01/2014 18:21, Jim Hawkins wrote:
What do you gain by upgrading from
XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?

Support/patches.
64 bit if you're sensible and hence ability to use more than 3G memory.
Task manager is better.
It's more stable IME.

And what do you lose ?

Money if the upgrade costs?
UAC can be a bit of a pain if you set it up wrong.


Is it possible to upgrade a 32bit machine (whatever the OS)
to its 64 bit equivalent - or do you have to buy new ?

If the hardware is already 64 bit, then yes you can just upgrade OS. If
the hardware is 32 only, then you will need new mobo, cpu and ram probably.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

Mike Tomlinson wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Try running 24/7 with it never turned off
and you will see a problem eventually.

Your usual bull****, Woddles.

We'll see...

My XP system is on 24/7, stays up for weeks, and only gets rebooted
when bloody M$ Update has installed something that demands a restart.

So you never do get to see the EVENTUALLY, stupid.

Jim Hawkins wrote
Clive George wrote
Jim Hawkins wrote

What do you gain by upgrading from
XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?

Support/patches.
64 bit if you're sensible and hence ability to use more than 3G memory.
Task manager is better.
It's more stable IME.

And what do you lose ?

Money if the upgrade costs?
UAC can be a bit of a pain if you set it up wrong.

Is it possible to upgrade a 32bit machine (whatever the OS)
to its 64 bit equivalent - or do you have to buy new ?

Depends on what you bought. Some do come with both versions.

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 15:48:59 +0000, Huge wrote:

On 2014-01-08, Jethro_uk wrote:
[quoted text muted]

W-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-llllll. Kinda. You have to do all kinds of devious
tricks to do a kernel update without rebooting. Or run Ksplice. (Anyone
know how that works?)

I wouldn't know about that ... I just have it set to inform me when
updates are available. I install them, and never get asked to reboot ...
except once. Maybe that was a kernel update ?

My flabber was well and truely ghasted when, following an Ubuntu upgrade
back in 2008 borked my soundcard. After hours of fiddling I finally
called my brother who's a bit of a Linux geek (he was compiling it in the
early 90s). He SSHd into the machine, while I carried on surfing. All of
a sudden, about 10 minutes later, the speakers burst into life.

He'd recompiled the driver, and reinstalled it. Impossible in Windows
without a reboot.

Perfectly possible with some of the drivers with Win.

On 08/01/2014 17:13, Jethro_uk wrote:

He'd recompiled the driver, and reinstalled it. Impossible in Windows
without a reboot.


Not true.
There are lots of drivers you can install on windows without having to
reboot, including, sound cards, video drivers, disk controllers, etc.

On 08/01/2014 08:13, Adrian wrote:
On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 22:56:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Because, of course, all those XP machines in offices crash at least twice
in the average working day...

Many XP machines in offices and running nothing unusual do crash, but
certainly not often enough to be bothered about.

SteveW

On 08/01/14 20:13, SteveW wrote:
On 08/01/2014 08:13, Adrian wrote:
On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 22:56:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Because, of course, all those XP machines in offices crash at least twice
in the average working day...

Many XP machines in offices and running nothing unusual do crash, but
certainly not often enough to be bothered about.

SteveW

The classic way is an app that request more ram than windows can give
it. the appp locks up and so does winders.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 08/01/2014 15:23, soup wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I have never net a machine that didn't have the ability to have RAM in
even Gbyte increments so Id guess 4GB is possible.

Only if his O/S can handle all those memory addresses, 64 bit windows
can but 32 bit windows can't[1]. How many addresses can his O/S handle?

Incidentally isn't the amount of RAM accessible limited to 3.125GB in
the BIOS of the 530

[1] Theoretically it can but there are lots of reports about 32 bit
Windows only "seeing" 3.5 GB. Quite often this 'lost' memory has been
reserved for on-board video but with the Inspiron having a separate
graphic card all bets are off.




On 32-bit W7, look at:

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System

It will tell you how much is usable. I see quite a lot of HP boxes at
3.24 GB - but it varies.

--
Rod

En el artículo , Jethro_uk
escribió:

I still marvel how Linux never needs a reboot after an update. I ran a
box for 7 months solid with no reboot ever. Experts have told me this is
nothing, and there are linux servers - completely up to date - that have
been on for *years*.

Yes, I admin several Linux servers. This is one of them:

http://jasper.org.uk/pics/uptime.jpg

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

In message , polygonum
writes
On 08/01/2014 15:23, soup wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I have never net a machine that didn't have the ability to have RAM in
even Gbyte increments so Id guess 4GB is possible.

Only if his O/S can handle all those memory addresses, 64 bit windows
can but 32 bit windows can't[1]. How many addresses can his O/S handle?

Incidentally isn't the amount of RAM accessible limited to 3.125GB in
the BIOS of the 530

[1] Theoretically it can but there are lots of reports about 32 bit
Windows only "seeing" 3.5 GB. Quite often this 'lost' memory has been
reserved for on-board video but with the Inspiron having a separate
graphic card all bets are off.




On 32-bit W7, look at:

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System

It will tell you how much is usable. I see quite a lot of HP boxes at
3.24 GB - but it varies.

This might be useful. I've got it on two XP PCs, but I can't remember if
I put it on a W7 Pro laptop.
http://www.jfitz.com/RAMpage/index.html
--
Ian

On 08/01/2014 21:28, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/01/14 20:13, SteveW wrote:
On 08/01/2014 08:13, Adrian wrote:
On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 22:56:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Because, of course, all those XP machines in offices crash at least
twice
in the average working day...

Many XP machines in offices and running nothing unusual do crash, but
certainly not often enough to be bothered about.

SteveW

The classic way is an app that request more ram than windows can give
it. the appp locks up and so does winders.



Are you still complaining about windows 3.0?

Linux from that era locked up as well.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 08/01/14 20:13, SteveW wrote:
On 08/01/2014 08:13, Adrian wrote:
On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 22:56:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Because, of course, all those XP machines in offices crash at least
twice
in the average working day...

Many XP machines in offices and running nothing unusual do crash, but
certainly not often enough to be bothered about.

SteveW

The classic way is an app that request more ram than windows can give it.
the appp locks up and so does winders.

Not when its been installed properly.

polygonum wrote:

On 32-bit W7, look at:

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System

It will tell you how much is usable. I see quite a lot of HP boxes at
3.24 GB - but it varies.

Thanks for that however I don't have an Inspiron 530 to hand it was Huge
that was asking about RAM for that. And I am sure he doesn't run
Windows at all.

Although replying to TNP I was (sort of) 'talking' about Huge's system

Ian Jackson wrote:

This might be useful. I've got it on two XP PCs, but I can't remember if
I put it on a W7 Pro laptop.
http://www.jfitz.com/RAMpage/index.html

Thanks for that however I don't have an Inspiron 530 to hand it was Huge
that was asking about RAM for that. And I am sure he doesn't run
Windows at all.

Although replying to TNP I was (sort of) 'talking' about Huge's system .

In article ,
Huge wrote:

Well, kinda. This whole thread arose out of the fact that I commented that
Windows 7 runs like a dog under VirtualBox on my Ubuntu Linux machine, which
is the aforementioned Inspiron 530. I had assumed it's because I don't have
enough memory; Ubuntu reports 3.2 GiB;

[snip]

This is with the W7 VBox fired up. VBox warns that there may not be enough
memory left for the host after assigning 1735 MB to the guest VM. But, I
notice that the CPU load is enormous - one core is pinned at 100% with
the other running at 30%, all the time, so I wonder if the problem is CPU
rather than memory? (It's a 3GHz Core2 Duo)


Could be Virtualbox - I run MacOS on a Macbook that is over 5 years old and
has a 2.0GHz Core2duo. With 4GB of RAM in the laptop I can run windows7 in
a VM under Vmware fusion it's ok (not swift, but usable for project and visio
which are the two things I want). Under virtualbox it's far less responsive.
Not used Virtualbox under Linux so might be a MacOS issue but...

Certainly it doesn't eat an entire CPU core.

Darren

On 09/01/2014 09:38, Huge wrote:
Well, kinda. This whole thread arose out of the fact that I commented that
Windows 7 runs like a dog under VirtualBox on my Ubuntu Linux machine, which
is the aforementioned Inspiron 530. I had assumed it's because I don't have
enough memory; Ubuntu reports 3.2 GiB;

huge@amun:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3275 3143 132 0 139 364
-/+ buffers/cache: 2639 636
Swap: 3216 0 3216

This is with the W7 VBox fired up. VBox warns that there may not be enough
memory left for the host after assigning 1735 MB to the guest VM. But, I
notice that the CPU load is enormous - one core is pinned at 100% with
the other running at 30%, all the time, so I wonder if the problem is CPU
rather than memory? (It's a 3GHz Core2 Duo)


I find that Winodws 7 runs like a sloth on Valium with less than 2
gigabytes of RAM available to it on a real machine, and I doubt there's
any difference in that requirement when it's a VM. You may also have a
problem with multicore support in your VM hosting program. I know M$
*say* a Gig will do for Windows 7, but they also used to claim XP would
run in 512 megabytes, which hasn't been true since SP3 came out.

For what it's worth, my netbook has a 1.6 GHz processor and 2 Gig of
RAM, and even that siezes up for a few seconds from time to time under
certain programs. It's never actually crashed yet....

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

Huge wrote:

This whole thread arose out of the fact that I commented that
Windows 7 runs like a dog under VirtualBox on my Ubuntu Linux machine, which
is the aforementioned Inspiron 530. I had assumed it's because I don't have
enough memory; Ubuntu reports 3.2 GiB;

huge@amun:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3275 3143 132 0 139 364
-/+ buffers/cache: 2639 636
Swap: 3216 0 3216

This is with the W7 VBox fired up. VBox warns that there may not be enough
memory left for the host after assigning 1735 MB to the guest VM.

Win7 64bit on this physical machine needs just over 1GB to get out of
bed with no apps running, I'd expect it to be dog slow with 2GB.

But, I notice that the CPU load is enormous - one core is pinned at
100% with the other running at 30%, all the time, so I wonder if the
problem is CPU rather than memory? (It's a 3GHz Core2 Duo)

That sounds more like a virtualisation/hardware emulation issue than not
enough CPU horsepower, I'm more familiar with hosting VirtualBox on
Windows than on Linux, have you got all the relevant drivers installed
in the guest? any different if Win7 uses a classic/basic theme rather
than an aero theme? Are you using guest addition to "pass" the 3D GPU
hardware into the VM?

On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:23:38 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
On 07/01/14 20:27, Mr Pounder wrote:
My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

I apply the patches 'cos I'm too ignorant to do anything else:-)

This m/c runs permanently; keeping the office warm. AFAIK XP has not
crashed although there have been issues with Explorer.

I see from my news client files that it was commissioned in May 2005.



Another vote for XP (pro) here. Been superbly stable for the last couple
of years at any rate. Just as well as I haven't backed up for about that
long!

"Cursitor Doom" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:23:38 +0000, Tim Lamb wrote:

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
On 07/01/14 20:27, Mr Pounder wrote:
My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

I apply the patches 'cos I'm too ignorant to do anything else:-)

This m/c runs permanently; keeping the office warm. AFAIK XP has not
crashed although there have been issues with Explorer.

I see from my news client files that it was commissioned in May 2005.



Another vote for XP (pro) here. Been superbly stable for the last couple
of years at any rate. Just as well as I haven't backed up for about that
long!

Yes, my XP pro has only failed when I have mucked it up myself.
But don't forget the hardware can fail too - you'll need a backup then |

Jim Hawkins

Jim Hawkins wrote
Cursitor Doom wrote
Tim Lamb wrote
The Natural Philosopher wrote
Mr Pounder wrote

My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

I apply the patches 'cos I'm too ignorant to do anything else:-)

This m/c runs permanently; keeping the office warm. AFAIK XP has not
crashed although there have been issues with Explorer.

I see from my news client files that it was commissioned in May 2005.

Another vote for XP (pro) here. Been superbly stable for the last couple
of years at any rate. Just as well as I haven't backed up for about that
long!

Yes, my XP pro has only failed when I have mucked it up myself.
But don't forget the hardware can fail too - you'll need a backup then |

Not necessarily. Most of the time replacing the failed hardware works fine.

On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 13:04:04 -0000, F news@nowhere wrote:

On 07/01/2014 20:44 John Williamson wrote:

On 07/01/2014 19:35, Jim Hawkins wrote:
"Clive George" wrote in message
UAC can be a bit of a pain if you set it up wrong.

What's UAC ?

If you've not met it, be glad. User Access Control, first introduced
under Vista, but mostly tamed under 7. The most obvious thing it does is
every time you want to install or update a program, it blacks out the
desktop and puts up a window saying, basically, "Are you *really,
really* sure you want to do this?", and may ask you to enter the
password for administrator permissions, which may be, and probably is on
most systems, blank.

Turn it off. It's easy to do.

Indeed, the first time I install something, the first thing I do is turn it off, then from then on it doesn't bother me.

--
An elderly man was stopped by the police around 2 a.m and was asked where he was going at that time of night.
The man replied, "I'm on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body, as well as smoking and staying out late."
The officer then said, "Really? Who's giving that lecture at this time of night?"
The man replied, "That would be my wife."

On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 17:39:33 -0000, John Rumm wrote:

On 08/01/2014 17:13, Jim Hawkins wrote:
"Clive George" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 07/01/2014 18:21, Jim Hawkins wrote:
What do you gain by upgrading from
XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?

Support/patches.
64 bit if you're sensible and hence ability to use more than 3G memory.
Task manager is better.
It's more stable IME.

And what do you lose ?

Money if the upgrade costs?
UAC can be a bit of a pain if you set it up wrong.


Is it possible to upgrade a 32bit machine (whatever the OS)
to its 64 bit equivalent - or do you have to buy new ?

If the hardware is already 64 bit, then yes you can just upgrade OS. If
the hardware is 32 only, then you will need new mobo, cpu and ram probably.

Not exactly, if you change from 32 to 64 you lose things:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...#1TC=windows-7

--
You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe. -- Carl Sagan

On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:35:46 -0000, Adrian wrote:

On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:28:04 +0000, Clive George wrote:

What do you gain by upgrading from XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?

Support/patches.

Right now, this is the big one.

XP won't support any version of IE above IE8, and - of course - even if
you use a different browser, Windows can't have IE removed. They're very
soon stopping all security patches for XP, although IE8 might continue
until W7's support ends. It wouldn't surprise me AT ALL if there's a big
security hole that'll never be patched heading to XP very shortly.

If you don't use IE, who cares?

--
Keyboards used to be expensive and beer used to be cheap.
Now beer is expensive and keyboards are cheap.
Conclusion, it's still bad to spill beer on your keyboard.

On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 22:56:48 -0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 07/01/14 20:27, Mr Pounder wrote:
My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Random blue screens? 99% chance your memory is ****ed, download and run memtest. Anything less than 3 complete passes without a single error, change the memory.

--
Advice given to RAF pilots during WWII:
"When a prang seems inevitable, endeavour to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity as slowly and gently as possible."

On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:14:29 -0000, soup wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

Have ran 7 for four years now (also did my HNC in Networking in it),
it has never blue screened. There is one program (A game. Which runs
fine on XP [youngest son now has the XP machine]) it refuses to run
have tried (halfheartedly) to get to the bottom of this but have pretty
much chalked it down to 'one of those things'.

Leaving XP on 24/7 can be problematic. I think it leaks memory.

--
If sex is a pain in the ass, then you're doing it wrong.

On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:47:29 -0000, John Williamson wrote:

On 08/01/2014 12:30, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/01/14 09:14, soup wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

oh its never a BSOD - it just hangs - runs out of memory.

You must be doing something extremely odd then, as I have had XP SP3
running reliably (As in days between reboots for other reasons) in 2
gigabytes of RAM and no swapfile, all held on a 4 gigabyte SSD. It was
slow, but then again, it *was* running on the EEEPC.

XP SP3 is v e r y s l o w with less than a gigabyte of RAM due to the
paging needed, but I've never had the OS hang due to memory problems as
long as the swapfile is enabled and big enough. XP SP1 and SP2 used to
run quite nicely in 128 megabytes of RAM using a Pentium 300 processor.
The bloat didn't arrive until SP3 was released.

With Windows 7 and 8 I never use less than 8GB. 16GB if you're doing anything more than just word processing or emails. Less memory is not only slower, but wears tou the hard disk swapping.

--
In 1999 the creators of KY Jelly created a new product. It was called "Y2K Jelly." It allowed you to get four digits in your date instead of two.

On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:21:04 -0000, Jim Hawkins wrote:

What do you gain by upgrading from
XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?
And what do you lose ?

If you're going to change, why not go straight to 8 and have a more up to date OS with better hardware support (it does UEFI properly for a start) and nicer more sensible interfaces for file copying etc? The metro interface is the only thing that's annoying, but you don't have to use it. Simply delete all the links to the stupid news and weather apps and use the metro screen like a huge full screen start menu. And the start button, contrary to popular belief, is still there, it's just invisible - you can click bottom left as though it was there. And if you apply the patch to 8.1 it puts it back anyway. Oh and it starts MUCH faster than 7.

--
If you spin oriental folk till they are dizzy, do they become disoriented?

In article , Rod Speed
wrote:
Jim Hawkins wrote
Cursitor Doom wrote
Tim Lamb wrote
The Natural Philosopher wrote
Mr Pounder wrote

My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

I apply the patches 'cos I'm too ignorant to do anything else:-)

This m/c runs permanently; keeping the office warm. AFAIK XP has not
crashed although there have been issues with Explorer.

I see from my news client files that it was commissioned in May 2005.

Another vote for XP (pro) here. Been superbly stable for the last
couple of years at any rate. Just as well as I haven't backed up for
about that long!

Yes, my XP pro has only failed when I have mucked it up myself. But
don't forget the hardware can fail too - you'll need a backup then |

Not necessarily. Most of the time replacing the failed hardware works
fine.

not if the hardware is the Hard disc on which you've stored all your
precious data.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

On 09/01/2014 21:21, Uncle Peter wrote:

With Windows 7 and 8 I never use less than 8GB. 16GB if you're doing
anything more than just word processing or emails. Less memory is not
only slower, but wears tou the hard disk swapping.

You're obviously not on a normal laptop, then.

Shrug I normally find that the swapping stops at around 2 Gig. My
normal RAM usage on the netbook is just over a gig, unless I'm
transcoding video, and that program seems to have developed a memory
leak lately. As it's the same .exe file that worked well until recently,
it's probably a changed .dll in the rendering library.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 09/01/2014 21:20, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:14:29 -0000, soup wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

Have ran 7 for four years now (also did my HNC in Networking in it),
it has never blue screened. There is one program (A game. Which runs
fine on XP [youngest son now has the XP machine]) it refuses to run
have tried (halfheartedly) to get to the bottom of this but have pretty
much chalked it down to 'one of those things'.

Leaving XP on 24/7 can be problematic. I think it leaks memory.

That memory leak was fixed *many* years ago.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216641

The infamous 49.7 day bug.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Jim Hawkins wrote
Cursitor Doom wrote
Tim Lamb wrote
The Natural Philosopher wrote
Mr Pounder wrote

My XP machine has NEVER crashed or froze.

Apply to Microsoft for a distinguished service medal.

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

I apply the patches 'cos I'm too ignorant to do anything else:-)

This m/c runs permanently; keeping the office warm. AFAIK XP has not
crashed although there have been issues with Explorer.

I see from my news client files that it was commissioned in May 2005.

Another vote for XP (pro) here. Been superbly stable for the last couple
of years at any rate. Just as well as I haven't backed up for about that
long!

Yes, my XP pro has only failed when I have mucked it up myself.
But don't forget the hardware can fail too - you'll need a backup then |

Not necessarily. Most of the time replacing the failed hardware works
fine.

Failed hard disks don't.

On 09/01/2014 21:20, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:14:29 -0000, soup wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

Have ran 7 for four years now (also did my HNC in Networking in it),
it has never blue screened. There is one program (A game. Which runs
fine on XP [youngest son now has the XP machine]) it refuses to run
have tried (halfheartedly) to get to the bottom of this but have pretty
much chalked it down to 'one of those things'.

Leaving XP on 24/7 can be problematic. I think it leaks memory.

Using XP Pro as a fileserver, Squeezebox server and Mercury Mail server,
I regularly got 6 months at a time out of it (it was usually shutdown
when going on holiday by then).

SteveW

On 09/01/2014 21:24, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:21:04 -0000, Jim Hawkins
wrote:

What do you gain by upgrading from
XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?
And what do you lose ?

If you're going to change, why not go straight to 8 and have a more up
to date OS with better hardware support (it does UEFI properly for a
start) and nicer more sensible interfaces for file copying etc? The
metro interface is the only thing that's annoying, but you don't have to
use it. Simply delete all the links to the stupid news and weather
apps and use the metro screen like a huge full screen start menu. And
the start button, contrary to popular belief, is still there, it's just
invisible - you can click bottom left as though it was there. And if
you apply the patch to 8.1 it puts it back anyway. Oh and it starts
MUCH faster than 7.

And if you install Classic Shell, you can boot straight to the desktop
and have the conventional Start Button, program menu, etc. of Windows
XP/Vista/7.

SteveW

On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:41:28 -0000, John Williamson wrote:

On 09/01/2014 21:21, Uncle Peter wrote:

With Windows 7 and 8 I never use less than 8GB. 16GB if you're doing
anything more than just word processing or emails. Less memory is not
only slower, but wears tou the hard disk swapping.

You're obviously not on a normal laptop, then.

What has lap/desktop to do with it? It's what programs I use.

Shrug I normally find that the swapping stops at around 2 Gig. My
normal RAM usage on the netbook is just over a gig, unless I'm
transcoding video, and that program seems to have developed a memory
leak lately. As it's the same .exe file that worked well until recently,
it's probably a changed .dll in the rendering library.

I'm using 5.1GB right now (with 3 programs and some background things running). With 8GB that would leave me with only 2.9GB for a disk cache, which is pathetic. With 2 Gig I'd be swapping the majority of the programs to disk. I usually find that you should use less than half your memory for a decent speed, leaving over half for the disk cache.

--
I know you believe you understand what you think I said,
but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not
what I meant.

On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:45:07 -0000, John Williamson wrote:

On 09/01/2014 21:20, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:14:29 -0000, soup wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

Have ran 7 for four years now (also did my HNC in Networking in it),
it has never blue screened. There is one program (A game. Which runs
fine on XP [youngest son now has the XP machine]) it refuses to run
have tried (halfheartedly) to get to the bottom of this but have pretty
much chalked it down to 'one of those things'.

Leaving XP on 24/7 can be problematic. I think it leaks memory.

That memory leak was fixed *many* years ago.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216641

The infamous 49.7 day bug.

Other things deteriorate with time powered up.

--
What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
Mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets.

On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 22:48:08 -0000, SteveW wrote:

On 09/01/2014 21:20, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:14:29 -0000, soup wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

Have ran 7 for four years now (also did my HNC in Networking in it),
it has never blue screened. There is one program (A game. Which runs
fine on XP [youngest son now has the XP machine]) it refuses to run
have tried (halfheartedly) to get to the bottom of this but have pretty
much chalked it down to 'one of those things'.

Leaving XP on 24/7 can be problematic. I think it leaks memory.

Using XP Pro as a fileserver, Squeezebox server and Mercury Mail server,
I regularly got 6 months at a time out of it (it was usually shutdown
when going on holiday by then).

Yes I also had an email/file server running on XP without a problem. I was referring to desktops in use though.

--
A boomerang that doesn't come back is a stick.

On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 22:51:30 -0000, SteveW wrote:

On 09/01/2014 21:24, Uncle Peter wrote:
On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:21:04 -0000, Jim Hawkins
wrote:

What do you gain by upgrading from
XP Pro to Win 7 Pro ?
And what do you lose ?

If you're going to change, why not go straight to 8 and have a more up
to date OS with better hardware support (it does UEFI properly for a
start) and nicer more sensible interfaces for file copying etc? The
metro interface is the only thing that's annoying, but you don't have to
use it. Simply delete all the links to the stupid news and weather
apps and use the metro screen like a huge full screen start menu. And
the start button, contrary to popular belief, is still there, it's just
invisible - you can click bottom left as though it was there. And if
you apply the patch to 8.1 it puts it back anyway. Oh and it starts
MUCH faster than 7.

And if you install Classic Shell, you can boot straight to the desktop
and have the conventional Start Button, program menu, etc. of Windows
XP/Vista/7.

Why bother? The metro screen IS a start menu, just larger. The only thing I miss is "recently used programs" and "recent documents", which I think are both missing from classic shell.

--
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway

On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:20:25 +0000, Uncle Peter wrote:

On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:14:29 -0000, soup
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

Have ran 7 for four years now (also did my HNC in Networking in
it),
it has never blue screened. There is one program (A game. Which
runs
fine on XP [youngest son now has the XP machine]) it refuses to run
have tried (halfheartedly) to get to the bottom of this but have pretty
much chalked it down to 'one of those things'.

Leaving XP on 24/7 can be problematic. I think it leaks memory.

I ran it for years and rarely rebooted (never powered off). Never had a
problem.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
My posts (including this one) are my copyright and if @diy_forums on
Twitter wish to tweet them they can pay me £30 a post
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Fri, 10 Jan 2014 00:05:14 -0000, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:20:25 +0000, Uncle Peter wrote:

On Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:14:29 -0000, soup
wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I think my longest up on XP without a crash is 3 hours.

Seriously, three hours? What on earth were you doing to it?
I ran XP for 7 years( fair enough it was switched off each night and
restarted the next day) and only once saw a BSOD.

Have ran 7 for four years now (also did my HNC in Networking in
it),
it has never blue screened. There is one program (A game. Which
runs
fine on XP [youngest son now has the XP machine]) it refuses to run
have tried (halfheartedly) to get to the bottom of this but have pretty
much chalked it down to 'one of those things'.

Leaving XP on 24/7 can be problematic. I think it leaks memory.

I ran it for years and rarely rebooted (never powered off). Never had a
problem.

What sort of programs did you use on it?

--
Chaos will reign over order - it's easier to implement.