my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » Should I keep XP around? (Page 1)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Should I keep XP around? Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 06-24-2014 07:11 PM                     I have two laptops. The main one is newer, and it runs Windows 7. And then there's an "extra" one that I like because it has a built-in COM port. That laptop is a Dell Latitude D520 running Windows XP. Should I upgrade the older one to Windows 7? Will Win7 slow it down, or will it run okay? Is there any setup software (Dolby, etc) that can't run on Win7? In other words, is there a reason to keep Windows XP?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 06-24-2014 08:07 PM                     Keep the older one with the real com port on XP. Until you test each program you might use, there is no telling what might not work right in Windows 7. I just had to connect up to an SDDS unit a few days ago...but I had XP and a real com port available.  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 06-24-2014 08:29 PM                     I'm in exactly the same situation, Manny. I have several useful diagnostic and LED sign configuration programs running on my old laptop, many of which do not have Windows 7 or 8 versions or drivers avalable. It's also loaded with dozens of PDF equipment manuals. Although it's used mostly off the WWWeb, I've beefed up the anti-virus & firewall programs on it, 'just in case'. If something does happen, I have that entire drive mirrored on a backup device, so I can restore the whole system & data if necessary. But for now, I have no plans of dumping the older laptop. I just have too much useful 'stuff' on it.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 06-24-2014 09:39 PM                        You folks might want to look at Virtual Box. The price is right (free), it works really well and it's dead simple to set it up. At least it is on Linux; I assume it would be much the same on MS Windows.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 06-24-2014 09:59 PM                     There are many reasons to keep XP, but don't use Explorer as your main browser since it's now vulnerable for virus attacks and similar. In fact, delete it, or delete the shortcut so it won't be used anymore Use other browsers, especially Firefox and Chrome since they're still receiving protection updates from Google and Mozilla. I'm the same: DELL Inspirion 6000 with XP PROsp3. I did try Win7 in the thing, but XP ran faster. But, could switch over to Ubuntu 14.10 with excellent results. EDIT: after looking at the virtual box website, be kind of interesting to load OS/2Warp and have some fun with that old program once again. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-26-2014 11:05 AM                     Yea, older computers won't run W7 very well or in some cases even allow you to load it. W7 is written for completely different chipsets then XP is written for. Mark  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 06-26-2014 11:28 AM                        Actually, I've had completely the opposite experience with W7 on older machines. I recently installed it on my father-in-law's two computers: a desktop from 2003, and a laptop he bought in 2007. It installed without any problem, and I was able to find drivers for all the onboard stuff and peripherals. If anything, he thought that W7 was actually faster and more reliable than XP in both cases (though this is probably at least in part because the XP installations it replaced had many years of patching and crud accumulation behind them). I did put more memory in both machines (upgraded from 500mb to 2GB in both cases), but DDR2 is now so cheap that this only cost around $25. Vista was the opposite extreme - there were so many bits of hardware for which there was simply no driver that would work and other software problems. Replacing XP with Vista on a machine was a crapshoot as to whether it would even barely function. In contrast, all the XP to 7 conversions I've done have gone fine, with only minor glitches if any. Agreed with the general point that upgrading any one software component risks breaking others that depend on it, though. For that reason I'd be inclined to take a system image, e.g. using Clonezilla, before then rewriting the partition table and starting over with W7 (and if it were me, I'd create two partitions and set up a dual boot, e.g. using Easy BCD, into Windows plus a desktop Linux package - for one thing, the latter is very useful for reading ext2 DCP drives).  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-26-2014 01:40 PM                     If you keep a notebook or desktop with XP around, make sure you keep its installation as clean as possible and have the installation backed up with something like Norton Ghost. If you perform a clean install of Windows XP on an old computer you're not going to get any patches from Microsoft. They removed everything related to Windows XP from their Windows Update website. I found this out the hard way. We have an old PC controlling a vinyl cutter. Its registry was getting corrupt, bogging the computer down to a crawl. So I performed a factory reset, which wiped the c: partition and re-installed WinXP clean. The first thing I did was check Windows Update. All of the existing security & performance patches, including service packs 1, 2 & 3 were all gone. Not only did that make the old computer more vulnerable to attack via the Internet, it created additional software issues. I had intended to install an Adobe Creative Suite CS4 package on that machine. Unfortunately it requires Win XP SP3 to run. That old PC is old enough I don't think it would run Win 7 productively at all. Plus I didn't want to spend the money for a Win 7 disc for such an old machine. So I wound up installing a couple now ancient Adobe CS2 generation applications on it (as well as Flexi Sign Pro 7).  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 06-26-2014 02:11 PM                     I have loaded W7 on some older P4 machines with no problems. As long as you have about 1GB RAM things should be fine. These machines actually run better on W7 than they did on XP. So far I have only found one machine that I couldn't get the video driver for the onboard video, an old E-machines, and the video defaults to 640 X 480. I need a PCI video card to get that one working at better resolution since it doesn't support AGP. Anyone have a PCI video card they'd like to part with?  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 06-26-2014 05:11 PM                     I have a D520 myself. If you put WIN7 on it, you bury it. Keep it as it is. I actually have a couple of older DELLs with COMs on them on XP and I hope they keep as long as possible. With this usage profile in mind, future missing software updates are irrelevant. Bobby - there is an offline updater available, installing all updates automatically from a local filesystem. A day before MS ended XP support, I ran a last update to make sure I have every update for XP and Office 2003 downloaded. It sits on a dedicated USB-Stick now. You can install a virgin XP and have it updated to the very latest patches within half an hour without an online connection. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Shawn Arndt Film Handler Posts: 37 From: South Milwaukee, Wisconsin Registered: Aug 2012 posted 07-11-2014 01:07 PM                        Very informative thread here. Thanks for sharing all of your experiences as it helps us noobs keep up a bit.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 07-13-2014 10:13 PM                     Kicking this back up has anyone here tried Virtual XP? It's a free app from Microsoft that that allows you to run XP inside of W7 or 8... Seems like a cleaner way of dealing with the occasional need for XP. Mark  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-14-2014 06:00 AM                     That is what I do. I have XP mode installed for those times I need a 32-bit OS to talk to older equipment with older programs. Heck, series 1 DLP program doesn't like to stay operating with Win 7 64-bit...but has no problem staying up living in XP Mode.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 07-14-2014 08:22 AM                     Will it talk to COM ports properly? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-14-2014 02:41 PM                     Thus far...yes on most counts. It passes physical hardware between the operating systems and you can define things too. That said, I've had issues with things like the JSD80 connecting up. USL stuff drives me crazy on their older RS232.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.