PC Problems? I am a PC TECH.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

Modman, your Computer is above win 7 requirements, so it will run fine, but it's weakest link is it's hard drive, 160 gig is a bit small, it was huge when it first came out, 3 years ago, if you were to upgrade to win 7 i would suggest you get a 500 gig drive, then upgrade, if you must, if xp works great for you, why fix it if it anit broke? Is there a piece of software you really need or want that ONLY runs on win 7 ?

I have not touched win 7, but microsoft is a company, and it's main goal is to be profitable, this being said.

There are 2 reasons microsoft launches a new windows, first to make money, secondarely, to support new hardware, but supporting new hardware only requires new drivers and maby a new piece of software or two, not a whole new windows.

So since XP works well, and is still supported, keep it, save your money for your next cpu, in a few years, which may come with win 8 or whatever they will call the next win.

Should you decide to go ahead and buy win 7 ($$$) you will have to save all your files, pics, movies, FAVORITES, saved games, work files, real player downloads, other downloads onto CD or DVD, and win vista drivers will work with win 7, will your older software work under win 7? i don't know, and usually they will say "some softwere may not work" so goto WWW.MICROSOFT.COM and ask them if your most important older software will run under win 7.

JohnDowe.

[Excaliborg]

greetings mr johndowe, i believe i can be of assistance, by your leave of course.

to my knowledge MS have actually extended support for XP for a few more years. as to programs that work with Windows 7, the majority that work with Vista work with Win7, with the exception of daemon tools. you might also experience some issues with older games, mainly games dsigned for XP.

now as to the whole Vista debacle. if the final release of Vista had been as good as the betas or release candidates, all would have ben fine. but MS being a for profit company, they messed it up. as johndowe says, if you have a stable working install of XP, dont change. Vista is a very resourse hungry beastie, so if you dont have the recommended specs, dont waste your time and ignore the minimum requirements. what "minimum requirements" actually mean is the bare minimum to get the os to successfully load without crashing. in my experience i have found Vista to be mostly stable, but there are more than a few gremlins that can hamstring your pc. one thing i can not stress enough is that your pc should always be up to date with the lastest patches and updates and anti-virus, anti-spyware.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

Welcome, my fellow tech, and i appreciate your help, i as every one on the planet, do not have all the ansewers, and i see that we concur on microsoft products.

If there was a new operating system that would run all my apps (office, games, acdsee, cd/dvd copy programs etc,) programmed in assembler i would change in a heartbeat, but vista & win7 aren't it.

JohnDowe.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

Excaliborg, since we will be sharing this thread, i would like to see your views on hard disk partitions?

Also i wrote 3 posts about computers, posts #2, 4 & 6, so you agree with them?


JohnDowe.

[Excaliborg]

post 2 you have on the money. there are some nefarious types who only install the bare minimum and let the people inexperienced with technical matters fend for themselves.

for the most part i agree with what you say but the rest just a matter of opinion. one prgram i would advise people to stay away from is itunes, as it has a habit of slowing down your machine.

winamp can handle just about any audio format and it hardly ever breaks for no reason at all.

i find that winrar is better than winzip, as it can open way more formats and can even be used as a replacement for windows explorer.

anti-virus is a matter of personal preference, some are better than others but whatever you do, you gotta be protected.

i have never been a fan of divx. a good codec pack to use is Combined Community Codec Pack, http://www.cccp-project.net/. plays everything and includes zoom player and media player classic, two of the best movie players.

anything else i missed?

[Excaliborg]

hard disk partitions? eish. the only reason i would partition a drive is if i were to create a recovery volume for my machine, beats the hell out of having to install every application you use when rebuilding your machine. but im a rather lazy bum so i dont it.

other than that i just add more drives. bigger is better

ive been typing and deleing trying to make my mind up one way or the other. so let me just say this, i dont partition my drives cos i dont need to and havebt had the need to for a very long time.

[sissygirl]

I need to upgrade from ms2000 pro to XP. anything special I need to do?

[Excaliborg]

Originally Posted by sissygirl

I need to upgrade from ms2000 pro to XP. anything special I need to do?

first things first. make sure you back-up all data that you want to keep, this includes favourites, lonks to frequently visited sites.

second, make sure you have the installation disks/files for your applications that you use and the drivers for all devices that are attacked to your pc, sound, grafix, printer, etc. or at the very least know where you can get them.

next make sure that the xp disc you are going to use is in good condition. no excess scratches and whatnot. and remember kids, piracy is not cool

next make sure your pc is able to boot from cd or dvd drive. also you got to make sure your pc meets or exceedsthe RECOMMENDED requirements for xp:

300 MHz CPU *
128 MB of RAM *
1.5 GB of available hard disk space *
Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution video adapter with at least 8 MB of video RAM and monitor
CD-ROM or DVD drive
Network adapter
Sound card and speakers
Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

* Actual requirements will vary based on your system configuration and the applications and features you choose to install. thats from the chaps over at MS. but i would suggest something more in the region of a P4 and above. a higher spec comes in handy if you are going to be using the media centre edition of xp or if you are oing to install fancy themes and whatnot. reason being is that not many people have a clear idea as to what they are going to be using a pc for and may end up with a slow machine. so ask yourself, "what am i going to do with this machine?"

if you require further assistance dont hesitate to ask

[johndowe]

Hi there.

Hey, Excaliborg, i agree, partitions are useless, unless you have a hard drive that is bigger than the max partition.

And, win 2000 to xp, i concur.

JohnDowe.

[Naked Freedom]

Originally Posted by johndowe

Hi there.

Hey, Excaliborg, i agree, partitions are useless, unless you have a hard drive that is bigger than the max partition.

And, win 2000 to xp, i concur.

JohnDowe.

i prefer to have 2 partions on one hard disk...one smaller (about 10 Gb) where i load the os and the bigger for other purposes....
i have multiple hard drives and have partioned the master only to separate 10 Gb space for loading the OS.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

BACK-UPS

One often neglected aspect of computing is making back-ups of one's data, yes computers are very reliable, and getting more and more reliable all the time, but they do fail eventually, and even prematurely sometimes, also some retards, make viruses, why? Just to cause mahem, and inconvinience as many people as they can, so the more important your info, the more you need to make back-ups and the more often. There has been a few companies that had their accounting on their computer, and it was stolen or broke down and the companies died because the billing info was lost, their supplyers sent new bills, but their customers didn't recieveany bills and did not pay because of that, so if the files on your computer are important to you, wheather they are pics of your kids, or your businesses accounting you have to safeguard that information, you can use CD's or DVD's and do it manually, which is my prefered methode, but there are many back-up software packages, and NERO, and EZ-CD/DVD CREATOR, have a back-up option, and shouled your computer fail, you can recover with your back-up, and you RESTORE your files, you may lose a little, (the files that you changed before you did the new back-up, but a little is way better than loosing all.

Also, the more important your info you may consider making several backups one on premesis, one at a freind's or budiness partner's, and maby in the bank's safety deposit box, should your info be VERY important, avluable or sensitive.

JohnDowe.

[twistedone]

Microsoft has a download you can get to see if your computer can handle Windows 7. I downloaded it, ran it, and it said my hardware was fine for Windows 7, but I may have to uninstall, and reinstall some programs.

With that, Windows 7 just lost me as a possible upgrade.

Originally Posted by johndowe

Hi there.

Modman, your Computer is above win 7 requirements, so it will run fine, but it's weakest link is it's hard drive, 160 gig is a bit small, it was huge when it first came out, 3 years ago, if you were to upgrade to win 7 i would suggest you get a 500 gig drive, then upgrade, if you must, if xp works great for you, why fix it if it anit broke? Is there a piece of software you really need or want that ONLY runs on win 7 ?

I have not touched win 7, but microsoft is a company, and it's main goal is to be profitable, this being said.

There are 2 reasons microsoft launches a new windows, first to make money, secondarely, to support new hardware, but supporting new hardware only requires new drivers and maby a new piece of software or two, not a whole new windows.

So since XP works well, and is still supported, keep it, save your money for your next cpu, in a few years, which may come with win 8 or whatever they will call the next win.

Should you decide to go ahead and buy win 7 ($$$) you will have to save all your files, pics, movies, FAVORITES, saved games, work files, real player downloads, other downloads onto CD or DVD, and win vista drivers will work with win 7, will your older software work under win 7? i don't know, and usually they will say "some softwere may not work" so goto WWW.MICROSOFT.COM and ask them if your most important older software will run under win 7.

JohnDowe.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

If your cpu works fine, don't fix it, you're just looking for problems, if you HAVE TO, reinstall win and you don't have XP or the win you had before, (and your cpu CAN handle a newer win) and you can find all the drivers and all your software will work, then upgrade, otherwise chill, there is no rush, XP will run almost all software, exept Halo 2, only because they wanted to force gamers to buy vista.

BTW - Funny story:

Someone asked microsoft why Halo 2 didn't work on XP, they said it was a hardware problem, so he asked if he installed vista, would halo 2 then work on his cpu, the tech at microsoft said: YES, so the hardware problem is BULLSHIT, they just want to make profit, and F*** everybody, nice guys, don't you think? Don't they know there's a recession going on and not everybody could or can pay ($279 in Canada) for vista.

microsoft software; inferior products at a premium prices.

PS. microsoft only publishes Halo, other companies designed and programmed it, but microsoft did put in their 2 cents on the vista thing.

JohnDowe.

[Excaliborg]

Originally Posted by twistedone

Microsoft has a download you can get to see if your computer can handle Windows 7. I downloaded it, ran it, and it said my hardware was fine for Windows 7, but I may have to uninstall, and reinstall some programs.

With that, Windows 7 just lost me as a possible upgrade.

c'mon fella. this one has been floating around teh interwebs for many moons now. when you have your existing operating system and a new operating system that you would like to try, install on a different drive, dual-boot if you have to but one thing that is hardly ever advisable is to upgrade the existing os to the new os. while it works just fine and dandy in theory and in lab environments, real life application works way differently. a fresh install is always the better option compared to upgrading, as it means that your os has no baggage and little niggles from the previous os. and of course the previous os is still there, just waiting to wreak havoc.

as to windows 7, i can honestly say the MS have done good this time round, and hopefully the final release will be better than the release candidate. what i can say about win7 is that overall it has a slicker feel than vista and its a whole lot faster.

you might also want to try out the following:
How to install Windows 7 on VirtualBox:
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-in...on-virtualbox/

if you have any further questions about windows 7, ask and i'll do my best to answer.

[johndowe]

Hi there.

I almost forgot that win can be upgraded instead of reinstalled, the reason is because it IS a bad idea, and i never do it, a fresh install is the best, everything is new and any viruses, spyware and questionable software is erased, the results beeing; minimal chance of getting the same problems as before, of course if you go to the same sites you KNOW you got problems with, you will have the same problems again, so be carefull.

As for bad sites, if you went to a bad site and got some virus or spyware, or some other nasty piece of software, don't go back to it when you have fixed the problem, the internet is a BIG place, whatever you are looking for, there are way more than 1 place to get it, and there is one magic tool to use and it is called "GOOGLE", you can find everything with it, but sometimes you have to be very specific and patient, usually google gives millions of results, but it has the very usefull "search within results" function to do more filtering but WORDING is very important, it often will make the difference between finding what you are looking for or not.

JohnDowe.