Roger Mills wrote:
> Most new laptops seem to come with Windows 7 - and I'm hearing comments
> suggesting that elderly software applications (e.g. Quicken 98, Design CAD
> 3000, etc.) which work perfectly well under XP may refuse to work under 7.
> Is this likely? Is there a solution? Would I also need new drivers for all
Some older stuff may have problems with the enforced security model of
win7. This is basically a result of apps not following the rules about
which parts of the files system and registry they are allowed to access.
(MS apps being just as bad as others!).
Sometimes you can get past this with selective use of admin rights
during first run etc. (i.e. doing a run as administrator)
Better versions of win7 also include an XP mode - this is basically a
complete XP system inside a virtual machine that can be used for stuff
that goofs in a bad way.
> my USB-based devices?
If you have WDM drivers that work under XP these will also work under 7.
Older style drivers will need replacement though.
> Would I be any better off with Vista (which I've so far managed to avoid!)
No, not in any conceivable way. Stay away, avoid, don't go there!
> or would I face the same issues as with 7? [One or two
> half-way-decent-looking 'refurb' laptops are seemingly still available with
> Vista].
You would have many of the same issues, in addition to the OS being
totally crap as well.
> How easy is it to 'downgrade' a Vista or Win7 PC to XP - and would that
> solve my problems? [I have a valid XP-Home licence from a PC which I
> scrapped - and some original (may just be SP1) media - but not the latest
> version.]
It can vary from easy (wipe the partition, boot from cd and install) to
impossible. Some later laptops may have drivers that won't run on XP and
are not available. This is relatively rare - but does happen (especially
on sony laptops!)
> Other Issues:
> How the heck do you backup and restore systems which no longer have floppy
> drives? In my current setup, I have Norton Ghost 2003 which needs to boot
> into DOS from a floppy - and can then clone a drive or partition to another
> internal or external (or network) drive. It doesn't provide the option of
> creating a bootable CD. Come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that it
> would recognise SATA disks! I get the impression that later versions of
> Ghost can backup the system disk while Windows is actually running. Is this
> correct? Also, they seem to come with a bootable 'recovery' CD from which to
> boot in order to restore a backup. Does this work ok? Is so, it looks like
> I'm going to have to invest in the latest version of Ghost!
Bootable CDs and memory sticks have completely replaced floppies now.
There are plenty of partition imaging / copy programs about other than
ghost as well. Segate Maxblast is basically a slightly limited version
of Acronis Trueimage and can be very handy[1]
[1] In theory it only runs if you have a Sesgate or Maxtor drive in the
system somewhere, and throws up an error if you don't. To circumvent
this, just type ALT+t, ALT+o at the dialog and click ok.
> Your comments - particularly regarding the best choice of OS for my
> particular circumstances - will be greatly appreciated.
If the choice was XP or Vista, then hanging out with XP would probably
be viable for a bit. Now 7 is here there is not really much reason to
stay with xp since there will come a time that support for it dies, and
then you are in a didgy position the first time a serious security break
comes along that does not get patched.
Note if you by Win7 Pro then that automatically includes downgrade
rights to XP if you really are worried about not limiting your options.
--
Cheers,
John.
/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd -
http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/
