Playing around on a rainey day with 3 different versions

[George-CT]

of Windows... I am running on 2 different systems, one with Vista Premium, one with XP Pro and Windows 7 Ultra. Tell ya, each has some great features, and each has some not so goods but none of them is perfect. I did tweak Vista premium enough that I've very happy with it, but it takes a lot of ram and tweaking to get that. It is a ram hog and likes fast chips. Win 7 will run fine on 2gig of ram.
XP does also.... My Vista and Win 7 are the 64 bit but I have the 32 bit also.... Not a lot out there for the 64 bit stuff yet and the 64 bit OS is picky about it..... I run the AMD dual core & quad core chips and they seem to be happy with either. Run Ubuto also, and its a decent system also and free....... I load them on different drives so I can play with them when I get the urge to mess around without taking out the system I'm on now from a mistake...... Win 7 is picky about Virus protection in the 64 bit mode but AVG does work with it.....

Rain days gave the back a rest.... Looks like tomorrow its back at it again. Thats it from not so sunny CT.

George-CT

 

[Wayne in BC]

i have one but 6 year old Compaq, only 512 RAM and only upgradable to 1 GiG so i will wait. Good on ya!
You may want to look into Avira anti virus free version, much less bloated than AVG now is and a better detection rate.

 

[George-CT]

AVG was one recommended just to get online with the Win 7. I've used Avira and liked it also. 64 bit don't use any of the old ones. Shame as I had a nice Norton one that never expired, but don't know what 64 bit is.

I built these 2 systems over the last 3 months. You can build a nice desktop for Under $300 bucks that will run any of it... this one I'm on here is 8 gig of ram, 750 gig hard drive, ASUS motherboard, AMD chips just because I like there chips and their less money. Nice mid size case, DVD/CD burner with the light-scribe feature, lots of USB ports and internet card., mouse and keyboard. I caught it on sale for
$299 from Tiger Direct. Get on their listing and they have weekly deals that are hard to beat. I've seen nice systems for $149 bucks bare bones. All you need is a monitor and OS of which I have lots of.... They are not hard to build at all.... I can send you their links if you like. TigerDirect or Newegg are both decent outfits to buy from. They ship fast, I usually look for the free shipping on them....

I used to build them when I first retired and was doing well at it, but they they kept dropping in price and it became pointless to do it at little markup. The company's started selling for just above cost and making it up later on repairs, phone calls etc.... I was just doing it for spending money and because I liked playing with electronics. My Ham Radio hobby carried right over when computers caught on.

 

[Wayne in BC]

but i'm not quite brave enough yet and i am not good with electronics.
Sounds like a monster you have there!

 

[Micheal_R]

n/t

 

[George-CT]

with Win 7. I could live with XP Pro just fine. Does and has done all I need to do. But I like to tinker with the systems and help others at the club with them so I need to be able to get around on all of them. As many people as I hear trash Vista, I run the Vista Premium and with 8 gig of ram, and AMD Phenon Quad chip it gives me zero problems. I think to many try to run it with to little ram and it gives them trouble.

I'm on the dual boot now with XP and Win 7 Ultra and aside from the different screens and different ways it does things, inside a program you would never know the difference in how either runs. Win 7 stumbles on a few games I have so am hoping they come out with the Win 7 drivers for those soon. The 64 bit one is even more picky on what it wants for software. For most part whatever you can run in XP, more than likely it will run fine on the 32 bit Win 7. I'm running Win 7 and XP with 2 gig of ram and both run fine. I do like the Win 7 media center and how it does movies etc. Really does a nice job.

 

[Wayne in BC]

contrary to the bad press i have had no problems. You are right on George, trying to run Vista on too little RAM does not work. I have told several people that were going to buy puters with only 1 GIG of RAM and Vista that they will be disappointed. Same with Win7 which is just really only an updated Vista and as you said somewhat better specialty programs.
Mine is Vista Home Premium 32bit and i have 3 GIGs RAM. 64 bit on anything can be a problem for drivers if you do not have newer software, same trouble people had with Vista.

 

[George-CT]

the 64 bit Vista Premium and drivers were a problem. More will be catching up now as they start to address 64 bit Win 7 also. No one is really writing for it much now but that will change down the road especially in the games. I have both the the 32 and 64 bit in Win 7 and run the 32 bit there. And your right, the core is the pretty much the same on Vista and Win7. Fact there are enough new pieces of software out there right now to make Vista pretty much look and run like Win 7. For me, If your happy with XP or Vista, stay with it. When you get a new system at some point, Win 7 will be on it anyhow so why toss out the extra money for it. I would have been very disappointed in the changes from Vista to Win 7. I could live with it, but I can live with the other 2 also. I took Vista 64 because it was free with the system I was building on a real disk, and product number..... Rock solid here........ does what I ask it to do and I tend to keep a lot of windows open at one time, doing the chat rooms and the web sites I maintain, running music in the background etc.

Geo