windows 7 64 bit - questions
twm47099
Posts: 867
I am going to have to get a new computer. Currently I am an XP (32 bit) user, and I've been shopping for a Windows 7 tower/mini tower. Looking at Dell my choice is Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. Looking at HP I can get either Windows 7 home or pro (both 64 bit).
Two questions: 1. Is there anything special about Windows 7 pro?
2. Does 64 bit OS mean I have to replace all my current 32 bit software (things like adobe Lightroom, Corel Paint Shop Pro, games, LT Spice, etc? Or can I still run them on the 64 bit system?
Thanks
Tom
Two questions: 1. Is there anything special about Windows 7 pro?
2. Does 64 bit OS mean I have to replace all my current 32 bit software (things like adobe Lightroom, Corel Paint Shop Pro, games, LT Spice, etc? Or can I still run them on the 64 bit system?
Thanks
Tom
Comments
Games are iffy anyway, because they often depend on the video card you have. You may need to verify the card on the machine you want supports all the OpenGL/etc features needed by your games. If not you'll need to upgrade the card, which is an added expense.
Win 7 Pro is nice, so if the price is similar, I'd opt for it. There are some advantages, and Microsoft provides a comparison to see if the added features are worth it to you. For example, Pro supports an XP emulation mode that can be handy for very old software. If it were me, I'd get a machine with Pro on it.
As Gordon said, some of your old software might work but don't count on it.
Pro vs regular - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
7 Pro from Dell is usually a good deal because it comes with a Windows 8 license as well. I don't think HP is doing that with their home premium computers.
Well, not according to Microsoft (see "Before you begin"):
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7
but maybe they've updated it since this page was published, and they didn't come back to correct it. As noted on the page it might download and install on Home, but not properly run.
There are a couple scenarios you will see:
1. Vendor says they do not support Windows 7 64 bit because they do not want to support it, however the software will run just fine.
2. Vendor says they do not support Windows 7 64 bit, but the software will run in compatibility mode.
3. Software will not run no matter what. (XP Mode)
Don't forget to check your printers and devices too.
As you have at least one Corel product in your list, you can cross-check here:
http://www.corel.com/corel/pages/index.jsp?pgid=800577
You'll find it curious that Corel doesn't actually make a distinction between running 32- or 64-bit Windows 7, either because they didn't know to, or didn't think they should have. The earliest tested version of PSP is X3, which is actually fairly old as software goes. They're up to X7 now.
Do note that even the latest versions of many software packages are still 32-bit applications. Corel WordPerfect is (and likely always will be) a 32-bit app; the latest Corel Draw is available in a 64-bit version. Microsoft Office 2013, which only runs in Win7 or later, has both 32- and 64-bit installs, though always defaults to 32-bit, even on a 64-bit system. You have to tell it otherwise when you install.
Adobe packages several of their programs in both 32- and 64-bit versions. That's the case for more recent editions of Lightroom, for example. In some instances you can install both versions, and use whatever one best fits the third-part add-ins you have. I use the 64-bit version of Photoshop almost exclusively, though there are some plugins that won't work with it, and I have to fall back to the 32-bit version.
I'll test it, I don't have a lot of experience with "non-pro" versions. It probably still shouldn't be a determining factor since there are so many other ways to run XP.
Thanks for the link. Regarding the full specs, I haven't gotten that far yet. I will get microsoft office (home and student with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and some Note software. It doesn't have Outlook, but I've never used that on any of my home computers.) Right now I'm thinking 8G Ram and a 1T hard drive. Is that considered sufficient? My XP computers have 3G Ram which has been ok. I always seem to run low on disk space, but I only have an 80G C-drive and a second built in of 300 G. (by the way, this raises a totaly unrelated question that I'll ask at the end of this post.)
I'll need some USB 2 and want some USB3 ports. The Dell has 6 USB3 ports, but don't mention USB2. I've read that USB3 ports can connect to USB2 devices. Is that correct?
I will get a DVD burner. I'm not sure about video card or monitor yet,
Any other suggestions?
Now for the unrelated question.
Because of the small C drive on my XP computers, I have used the second drive to install most of my programs, including the photo software, turbo tax, games, SimpleIDE, PropTool, etc. I use Norton Ghost to make images of both the C and second drive. In my recent problem it appeared that I either had a virus or the XP OS got corrupted. I did restore C using the Ghost image I had made a few months ago, and copied more recent files I had backed up a couple of weeks ago (after doing a virus scan of the backups.) Things seem to be working ok now. Question - is using the large second drive for programs (other than OS and office) a reasonable thing to do or is there some (potential) problem that I setting myself up for?
Should I get a second internal drive for the new computer and do the same thing.
Thanks for all your help
Tom
You have to be careful with specs, CPU, video and the form factor of the PC play big roles too.
USB 2.0 works on USB 3.0 ports, there have been a lot of reports of the USB 3.0 chipset doesn't play nice with some USB 2.0 devices. It always comes down to a transitory period where you find out. You could always add USB 2.0 via the PCI bus (pay attention to form factor here).
Using more than one drive has pros and cons. With both drives on the same drive controller there is a marginal increase in performance by putting frequently accessed files on separate drives than the OS. Another good example for two drives is video editing. If you have your raw video files on one drive, and encode them to another drive you gain a little performance there.
Cons of two drives... I guess you have increased heat and power consumption. Some new computers may not even have a spot for you to mount it. It's another part to fail, but that shouldn't matter if you backup.
If I were to have two drives I would do a RAID 1. Are you familiar with RAID?
Consider getting an SSD for your boot drive. Nothing else will make as dramatic a difference in how fast the computer responds. Prices are reasonable these days and you don't need more than 120-256 GB. Crucial and Samsung are good brands. Use the SSD for Windows and install your most frequently used software and games on it, put everything else on a second data drive. Make sure you back up both.
I don't much like Dell, HP is okay I guess. I actually prefer to assemble my own.
TWM, Rick brings up a couple good points. SSD performance and build your own PC. He also mentioned he doesn't like Dell. I don't blame anyone for not liking certain brands, and when it comes to workstations, towers, PCs, etc there have been some "bad" brands.
Sony VIAO and their RAID 0 as a default system configuration on their website.. They were usually Western Digital brand, decent MTBF and typical 1yr warranty. I don't think it would have mattered. That line of PCs probably started a lot of the data recovery places we know today.
I don't have anything against HP when it comes to workstations, but their online server configuration sucks when it comes to storage. Dell DRAC is so much better than HP iLO too. I work remotely so this kind of stuff matters a lot to me. I'm not sure if it trickles down into the PC market. I do know that with Dell you're getting a business class PC (because they don't have Win 7 for home anymore). That means way less preloaded software, if that matters. Since the HP is going to have Win 7 Home Premium on it, I also bet it's loaded with all kinds of software that's going to make you want to fresh install.
We're left with assemble your own, and these days it couldn't be easier. I don't like building PCs, but I don't like pre-configured PCs either, and often save money by building. Would you consider building it yourself?
xanadu
I love the casual way you guys bandy these numbers around. That's HUGE. Speaking as a guy whose first ever computer had 16 kilobyte of RAM and only audio cassette tape for storage.
Still, now a days such specifications are chump change so you may as well throw it in there for any kind of normal PC work. Normally I can throw such a machine together from spare parts hanging around the office.
Only two slightly meaningful comments here:
1) Put your OS on an SSD. A 128GB SSD will cost as much as that tera byte drive but my SSDs are the best upgrades I ever made to any machines. As RDL2004 says the improvement is dramatic.
2) I would never by a DELL or whatever ready made PC tower. It's so cheap and easy to assemble your own machine and get just what you want.
3) We can never say anything is "sufficient" unless you say what you want to do with the machine. I would have a very hard time filling up a tera byte drive (This PC I'm typing on only has 128GB SSD and that is only half full). You however may have many times that much data, who knows?
Edit: Yeah, yeah, that was three comments.
Those Dell Optiplex Win 7 Pro come with next business day onsite hardware replacement. If you build your own PC, Heater shows up to fix it! Trust me, by time he leaves you're going to wish the thing didn't break!
Most vendors will shaft you by installing many small modules, so that you'll have to toss out one or more when upgrading later.
Second the 'Two drives' setup.
But if the big one is a Hybrid (Spinning platters of rust + SSD baked into one) it won't exactly hurt performance.
Certainly for work I buy ready made PC's with service agreements.
For home, well, I have never actually bought a PC or a laptop. My machines have been salvaged or built from spare parts or even new parts. PC's are such horrible things I can't bring myself to buy them new.
I certainly don't want to pay the Windows tax no matter how small it is.
Anyway despite the service level agreements on office PC's I had not noticed that the hassle they cause when they fail and the rate at which they do it is any less that the DIY stuff.
Check out the Dell outlet store at http://www.dell.com/outlet
You can sometimes find really good deals there, I have two precision laptops and two printers that were all purchased as refurbs that have been in daily use for 5 years or so now. I also purchased a Precision workstation that was raising ECC error codes on boot. They replaced the mobo and RAM, that did not resolve the issue, they asked if I would be OK with just shipping me a NEW machine, can't say I was unhappy about that! Ended up with a fairly loaded brand new T7400 for half price. I did lose a DIMM and the hard drive in the past year, but the machine is usually running 24/7 so I don't think that is out of the norm for failures.
I also have a dell server that was purchased new that has been in constant use for around 7 years with no issues.
I agree with Heater that building one can be fun and sometimes save a few bucks. I used to do that in younger days, but now I usually don't have the time or patience and just need to get something up and running and go with off the shelf machines.
C.W.
Edit: I would also suggest going with the Pro version of Windows, it does offers more networking options regarding remote access, etc.
Thanks everyone for the comments and advice. I did look at Dell and added an SSD. Then the magic happened. It seems with a Dell once you add an SDD (125G) you have to start with a more expensive computer and to add a HDD to that you need a even more expensive computer. I see the attraction for building your own system.
@xanadu
At one time I knew what the different RAIDs did. After I had some problems with a nasty virus on a previous computer and found my auto recovery points were also contaminated, I didn't like anything that made an automatic image on a backup drive. I preferred to do it manually after I did everything I could to make sure the original was clean (I realize that's not a 100% thing).
But I don't recall what the different RAID types are and the advantages/disadvantages are and would appreciate comments /recommendations.
Thanks again
Tom
http://www.newegg.com/Barebone-Mini-Computers/Category/ID-3?name=Barebones-Mini-PCs
IMHO, Window 7 32 bit is a lot more like XP where it comes to running older, off beat things. If you have this use case, the 32 bit OS could make good sense. I'm actually going to upgrade my old XP machine to the 32 bit OS, for this reason, along with some legacy hacks I keep around for those times I want / need to work with older hardware.
Otherwise, get the 64 bit version. Win 7 64 is a great OS. I run some really big stuff on it, and I find it performs very nicely.
In my world 8GB RAM and 1TB storage is barely enough to even start the software, let alone load a project and process it. I'm up to 24GB RAM, two processors, and 2TB, and on one drive I'm down to my last 60 GB.
I also started with a TRS80 with the same RAM and storage, but is that relevant for what we use computers for today? I didn't, and couldn't, use my Trash-80 for editing video and rendering CG. I imagine text-centric applications like Word and Excel are perfect contenders for a machine with 4 or 8GB, as would be many business-oriented graphics. Rendering HD cinematics consumes a lot of resources, but I realize this is not a terribly common use case. The happy thing about is a machine with the required specs isn't all that expensive these days.
Mind you, I would expect the software to at least start with a few megs of RAM. I can't imagine that anyone has written a single app that needs a terabyte for it's executable code.
Like I said, we cannot say if any machine is sufficient until we know what it is expected to do.
My first computer was a COSMAC ELF (I think it had 4 or 8 Kb.)
My second (pre MSDOS) computer had 16 kB user ram and used 52 Kb 5-inch floppies.
My first MSDOS computer had a 10Mb drive. As I added software I started having problems when it got 60% full. I don't remember the Ram, but I do remember the joy of waiting while overlays swapped in and out. Photo editing of 5Mpixel scans was very slow. Because of hardwired BIOS, I couldn't up grade the drive.
The next computer was a windows machine with a wonderful 40Mb drive and (I think) 1 Gig Ram. Same problem as the smaller computer because Windows ate up a lot of those resources. Each time I up graded, so did the bloat in Windows, photo software, etc.
The computer I'm looking at has Windows 7 on it -- Microsoft has all versions of Windows 7 installed, but only activates the one I would be licensed to use. The computer also has Windows 8.1 installed (although that won't be my active OS.) I assume these OS and newer versions of Microsoft Office have not gotten any smaller, either on the drive or in the RAM. In addition my cameras now output 24+ Mpixels, and more of my photo processing is done with multiple layers of 48 bit RGB.
I guess my questions should have been - With an empty system (except for the OS and office if loaded) how much HDD and Ram is available in a 1T HDD and 8G Ram system.
thanks
Tom
A new, bare machine will use maybe 1/20th (or less) of the drive for core Windows components, but that's a useless number as it's your software and DATA that matters. Working with camera RAW photos takes up a lot of space, particularly if you save different versions of your edited work.
Windows will use as much RAM as it needs, and the system has, but for ordinary things won't usually require more than say, 2-3G. You'll have plenty for your apps. Office 2013 really doesn't take up all that much space in the scheme of things.
Though the 1TB main drive is probably enough -- and you can always add a second internal drive later -- if you have the budget, I'd recommend getting maybe 12GB. It's usually cheaper to upgrade now, rather than later. As Gadgetman mentioned earlier, they often populate the RAM in such a way that you will have to replace all the the existing sticks if you want more, and buy your RAM all over again. (Of course you can check that before you buy. If it's a single 8GB stick, or even two 4GB sticks, then that's not so bad.) As desktop computers have a useful life of 3-5+ years, think about where you'll be in a few years time, and try to buy for that.
Down memory lane here ... first hard drive I had was the Hard Disk 20 for the Mac 512 -- as in 20MB, not 20GB. The next year I splurged and got a 10MB hard disk card for my Morrow CP/M machine. It had a serious fault that if the power went out, the heads would crash, requiring a reformat. Cheap as it was, the thing used a stepper motor rather than a voice coil to move the heads.
Funnily enough, I still use an old Win95 machine for my CNC. Its hard drive is all of 1GB. I remember when I first got it, a computer for my son so he could play his favorite game, The Incredible Machine. Seemed like a HUGE drive at the time. This was when I was using Syquest 100MB removable hard disks.
In many ways I really liked these early days of computing. Everything was frightfully costly -- I remember the day I spent $45 just for a 6' Centronics printer cable -- but you didn't need as much junk to complicate your life. My biggest worry was could my printer ribbon last one more round of shooting it with WD-40 to stretch out the ink!