I still use XP. I have no reason to use 7 at the moment since everything I use works in XP. Next computer I build, I might put 7 or even Linux on it though. I want to make the transition to Linux, but I find it's not quite ready for my needs yet as far as a desktop. as much as I want to support open source, if I have to spend 80% of my time in the command line then to me that's not a proper desktop OS so I will use it for my servers only. Where I work, we just got off NT4 a few years ago. I'm sure there are still some NT4 or Win2k boxes hidden in some corners somewhere. So I doubt we'll see win7 any time soon. Business and medical software tends to be the most brutally written so transitioning to 7 would not be easy.
Another thing I thought I might mention is that you can bridge multiple network cards together on x86 windows OS's, I know this becuase my friend is running W7 x86 and he managed to do it too (yes I know I'm not bashing W7 for once!), works great it means I only have to run one network cable to his room and he can have connectivity on his PS3 as well.
Use XP Pro 32 bit at the office and windows 7 enterprise 64 bit at home. Home laptop (2005 Dell) has xp home but my son uses it for his games (cannot figure out how to install windows 7 on a laptop). XP at office was on a new desktop in June 2009 when Vista was a failed OS, and Windows 7 was still pre-RTM.
Most times this is, in fact, not the case. Very few (older) bios are difficult to mod any more. ISA is not a good choice at this time, as we have better methods. I would say that most XP era bios are easy to mod, Lenovo and some HP being the exceptions... USB dvd rom is the best option for netbooks. Some elaboration on the Dell model would hasten any proper advice...Dell bios have been very successful as of late..certainly with the updates to Andys tools. manual mods are also an option idf you find the right folks..
Tried this on a friends netbook and it refused to boot the disc, then researched how to make a bootable flash drive and worked fine.
Yep, some do and some don't. I guess the bigger question is is the change practical? Go through the trouble of installing W7 and it runs like poooo; Not cool... To do it to see if you can is one thing, to put it on a low spec computer to use can be a bit daunting and a waste of time...
Well the change was pratical in my case, my friends netbook came with W7, he decided to format it and install Ubuntu on it, didn't know how to really use Ubuntu so got me to reinstall W7 on it, geussed it already had a SLIC 2.1 and yup had the sony one, figures being it was a sony netbook.
The disc could be scratched or it's just too old, I'd just keep XP on it if I was you, you'd have driver problems too, W7 isn't compatible with old hardware.
None of that problem. Anyway, did not try hard enough to install win 7 on an ancient 2005 laptop. Given up too soon then, and not keen now anyway. Laptop to be soon sold at whatever it gets.
I would love to stick with XP SP3 but I'll be building a new PC with 3x 2GB ram sticks in tri channel mode and x86 operating systems only support up to 4GB of ram. You have to edit your boot.ini and add /PAE to actaully use 4GB on XP SP3 as well which could be pretty daunting for the adverage user. Would install XP x64 but that version of XP only gone up to SP2 and SP2 isn't compatible with the latest games, it's too old. I don't like the idea of having to hack the registry everytime I'm feeling nostalgic but it seems to me the only way to keep up with new technology, really hate W7 it's too noob friendly and bloated, geuss after some serious tweaking it'll be useable though.
got an old compaq presario r3000 laptop equipped with intel p4 2,8 i recently fixed it to a waal in my new house for simple tasks/searches/mail/internet in general it came with XP and i keep it on XP as none of it's newer siblings are able to run smoothly on it(yes i tried ) so its hanging on the wall kept for simple things and a little bit nostalgia the rest of my machines all run 7,strangely enough they are legit self-built rigs
I use win XP instead of win 7 because of the hassle involved in making my win 7 install 'genuine'. A loader/BIOS mod will be a constant source of anxiety every time I boot my system. I have to always keep hoping that my machine doesn't lock me out one day!
I still have very functional business software that I bought in 1996 and which I put a lot of time into customizing over the years and which I use on a daily basis. I have no install discs that are still usable (remember these were pre-CD days!). My 1996 software started under win95, now it is still running under win98 (and it works for me 200% better and about 70% faster than the current version which comes with a bunch of extra "features" that I have never needed or used and a $500+/year license replacing the one-time payment for the old version). A second business program runs best under true XP (Win7 has problems with mapped drives even using XP compatibility mode, the software requires them...). Modern machines run too much memory for Win98, but the original Win98-based setup (which has outlasted three laptops) runs flawlessly virtualized under VMWare Fusion on my Snow Leopard Hackintosh (grin), as does a virtualized copy of WinXP running the second program and a copy of Win7 just for playing with. You just gotta love virtual machines
Well I use Win7 x64 in my laptop and WinXP for use in VBox just for nostalgic and some DOS game A little OOT Is DOS game really free? And BTW XP and 7 are unique in their own way