New Laptop - which flavour of Windows? (and other issues)
in [Laptops]
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From: geoff on 12 Mar 2010 17:46 In message <4b9a604d$0$2483$db0fefd9(a)news.zen.co.uk>, Bernard Peek <bap(a)shrdlu.com> 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
From: geoff on 12 Mar 2010 17:50 In message <7vv2rbFst9U1(a)mid.individual.net>, Roger Mills <watt.tyler(a)googlemail.com> 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
From: Clive George on 12 Mar 2010 17:55 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.
From: Bernard Peek on 12 Mar 2010 18:21 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 bap(a)shrdlu.com
From: george [dicegeorge] on 12 Mar 2010 18:40
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. |