posted
Amen. I also have a system with Windows 7 64-bit that hates any program that dates before 2006/2007. New games look pretty though. I'm currently having some trouble with Quicktime, seems its conflicting with Flash when trying to view certain online videos.
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
My parents both have 64bit versions of Win7 running on their laptops and there really isn't that much of a difference. Other than, when you get any software it has to be 64bit compatible. Had a hell of a time getting Office on there before I figured that out.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Reverend, I'm more concerned about your motherboard and why you still need DDR2800. The standard these days is DDR3. If I think what I think you have, I think it's time to get a whole brand new computer instead.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
^Don't have the cash mate. How much of a difference would it really make anyway? According to the specs my board can handle upto 8GB at 1066MhZ which I'm given to understand is plenty.
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: My parents both have 64bit versions of Win7 running on their laptops and there really isn't that much of a difference. Other than, when you get any software it has to be 64bit compatible. Had a hell of a time getting Office on there before I figured that out.
I was thinking more in terms of software I already have ceasing to work on a 64bit system.
posted
Well my main concern is Paint Shop Pro X, which is about 7 years old, so I doubt it. I'm also a bit concerned about my steam games. I mean would I have to re-download everything? Actually, come to think of it I don't remember any program I've installed ever asking me to select 32 or 64 bit.
posted
I'm fairly certain my mum is running PSPX on her Win7 x64 machine at home. A lot of companies haven't made 64-bit versions of their software yet, because the 32-bit version runs fine and the performance increase wouldn't be enough to justify it. That's changing as time has gone on, but the number of 64-bit versions (as opposed to 64-bit compatible) is still fairly small.
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: My parents both have 64bit versions of Win7 running on their laptops and there really isn't that much of a difference. Other than, when you get any software it has to be 64bit compatible. Had a hell of a time getting Office on there before I figured that out.
The 32-bit version of Office 2010 and 2007 runs fine on 64-bit Windows 7. I'm pretty sure the 2003 version does as well. There is a 64-bit version of 2010, but we're not using it at work at the moment as it breaks a couple of third-party plug-ins, and it will cause out accountant guys to make spreadsheets 50 billion rows long.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
OK, so it finally happened. It is dead, gone, deceased, my PC is a late household appliance!
So....yeah. I'm building a new one and thought I'd best consult the brain trust and make sure I'm not doing anything drastically wrong in my selection of components.
I'm pretty sure the PSU & graphics card I still have are OK, so no worries there (hopefully!)
The OS may be a little tricky as while I do have a legit copy of Win7, it's one of those XP/Vista upgrade copies and it's on a HD who's original computer is long gone. I gather MS don't like you installing on more than one machine so I think the trick will be installing the new motherboard drivers manually before doing a reinstall/repair.
posted
Legally, as long as you still have your XP/Vista licence key, you can install it fine on a new computer. You might have to phone them up but they will activate it. Otherwise you might try blagging it with them. Do you have the licence key for the Win 7 upgrade version? And do you have the DVDs?
Are you doing a full reinstall, or are you going to copy your old hard drive image over to your new machine?
One piece of hardware I would strongly recommend - a solid state drive. You can get 256GB ones for a bit over £100 nowadays, and they make a HUGE difference to your day to day life.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Legally, as long as you still have your XP/Vista licence key, you can install it fine on a new computer. You might have to phone them up but they will activate it. Otherwise you might try blagging it with them. Do you have the licence key for the Win 7 upgrade version? And do you have the DVDs?
Are you doing a full reinstall, or are you going to copy your old hard drive image over to your new machine?
That's where things get sticky. Basically what I have is the HDD I ripped out of my mum's old Dell desktop machine after she decided to get rid of it. It was originally pre-installed with Vista and later upgraded to Win7 (and yeas, I still have that disc.) Problem is that I imagine the Vista code was probably on a sticker in the case, which as far as I know ended up down the recycling centre.
The plan was to either just shove the HD in the new machine, manually copy over the appropriate chipset drivers and whatnot and hop the OS will run long enough to install them properly and maybe reinstall the OS from the disc.
Not sure if there's another way around it without resorting to...uh..."other means" but I'm open to suggestions.
quote:One piece of hardware I would strongly recommend - a solid state drive. You can get 256GB ones for a bit over £100 nowadays, and they make a HUGE difference to your day to day life.
Forgive me, but I don't really keep up with the tech trends. What's one of those and why are they so useful?
I do have a neat little 1TB USB3 samsung external drive that I've been using to salvage my data ready for the new machine, so storage space shouldn't be an issue.
Just to clarify though; have I made any poor selections with that hardware? I'm a bit wary of dropping over £500 only to find out something's incompatible or notoriously unreliable or something.
posted
You can read the Wikipedia article about SSDs if you want the details, but, basically, it's a lot like a flash drive upscaled to hard drive size. It doesn't have moving parts inside, so it's faster and less likely to break.
As for the Windows issue, I think the pre-installed OEM versions often (always?) are (license-wise, anyway) restricted to the computer they originally came with, aren't they?
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
An SSD will greatly improve program loading times, and if you install your OS on it, your comp's boot time will be much faster as well.
I'm told that if an SSD breaks however, there is no practical way to retrieve the data from it. That's why I keep all my documents on a normal hardrive and just run programs off the SSD.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
It does look useful, but I'm already at the upper limit of my budget so it's not really worth it at this point. Especially if I'm going to end up having to buy a new copy of Win7.
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