For the past 7 years I have been using XP 64. I've been very happy with the outcome. During this time, I purchased 2 systems, one every 3 years or so. I buy the components from  a local merchant, and he builds up the system for me. Both times, I used the same drives which I give to the merchant to install with all the NEW HARDWARE. Both times the NEW HARDWARE worked hand in hand with the OLD DRIVES loaded with XP 64. Of course, with the NEW GRAPHICS CARD and the NEW MOTHERBOARD, he had to install the drivers etc...........

 

I am feeling lucky again. I want to buy a new system. Do you think that my luck will succeed again?

 

Here's my 3-year old system:

3.33 gigahertz Intel Core i7 975

Multi-core (4 total)
Hyper-threaded (8 total)

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P6T SE Rev 1.xx

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285

6136 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

 

Would appreciate any help or recommendation.

 

Thanks.

Abe

Can't hurt to try, just backup any important data first. I'm on my 3rd system with the same Vista64 install.

Abe

I think that you may have proved the point that Windows 7 is not a "real significant" advance over Win XP - the exception that proves the rule.

We are led to believe that Win 7 handles hardware and software (incl, RAM, graphics WDDM etc) much better, (sound is worse IMHO) but your experience seems to nullify that type of statement.

I couldn't go back to Win XP having used Win 7 (post Vista SP1/SP2) but as long as it is efficient on the new hardware - why change?

I have Win 8 on an old slow machine and it works well but I haven't done any real in depth testing.

The only sad thing is that MS is slowly but surely removing support for XP and you may need to ensure security with 5rd party apps.

Good luck with the new build

pH

Thanks guys for the replies.

 

I would like to add that I also use Windows 7. I have it installed on a separate partition, and occasionly I boot with it. One thing that would be of interest to all. Something many wonder on the difference between XP64 and Windows7-64 - which is better.  I got the answer for you.

 

For sometime now. After installing FSX on both XP64 and Win7-64. And eventually the FSX partition, separate of course, is being used (SHARED)  by both installations. The result is sort of a toss-up. Sometimes Win7 wins and sometimes XP wins. I really enjoy that very much. It adds sort of a variety to FSX.

 

Thanks again guys. I still would like to share more opinions about the sanity of what I am doing, using XP64 practically perpetually for ever. I also would like to hear more opinions about the hardware, be it a motherboard, graphics card or anything else.

 

Thanks.

Abe

The only sad thing is that MS is slowly but surely removing support for XP and you may need to ensure security with 5rd party apps.

To expand on this a bit further, I understand that all support from Microsoft including security updates for XP will cease on April 2014. I think at that time any machine running XP will become a an attractive target for all types of lowlifes who will effectively have been given free reign to find and exploit any vulnerabilities in full knowledge that these will not be addressed. For this reason alone I would not advise anyone to be running XP after March 2014.

 

whilst XP is still an officially supported operating system I imagine manuafacturers are obliged to make some effort to provide drivers etc available. However once XP is no longer supported by MS I think it is very unlikely that any manufacturers / suppliers will offer support for their products under XP, so once this happens finding something like a replacement printer is likely going to be a real issue.

 

I have an affection for XP myself and was put off upgrading by the many reported problems with Vista, however I have found Windows 7 to be just as reliable as XP and actually a better user experience.

 

So my advice would be not to have XP on your next PC.

I agree with you, PieEater. But I have MOUNDS of programs that I am attached to. Many I could not REINSTALL and more I could NOT RUN. That's my dilemma. I have to keep XP ALIVE SOMEHOW.

 

Thanks.

Abe

I guess your best bet would be to keep the old PC and rebuild it (so you remove all personal data) with XP, maybe use a KVM switch and have 2 boxes under your desk. Best case scenareo is that you don't have to be online to use whatever software it is that you cannot find a modern alternative to so you just use the PC offline.

 

If you have to use XP online after March 2014 which I seriously advise against, then bascially you'll have to treat all of your data as publicly accesable and be ready with a clone image so you can reclone it every time the OS gets hacked to the point of instability (I dont know whether thats pessamism or realism). If you have to use email accounts and *any* passwords on this machine then make sure these are unique to it and not used for any other personal computing. I'd also avoid having any other computer live on the same network when you're online with the XP machine.

 

I wouldn't advise dual booting your new computer, I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to this sort of thing but as the XP partition is visible to Windows 7 but isn't used by it, it doesn't seem inconceiveable that someone could write a virus that looks for an XP partition and if it finds one sets up some kind of malware within XP so that when you're online with XP your Windows 7 partition and data is vulnerable. This might not be detected by your AV software on Windows 7 because the problem is with another operating system and of course how long will AV software providers support XP once MS stops doing so?

Thanks PieEater for the extensive warning, I'll take heed. Very well put. I'll probably stay away from surfing the internet with  my XP.

 

One option I have on mind - after backing up everything - is installing Win7 on top of all the garbage I have accumulated through the years and see how that works out. This would be on a separate partition - very experimental.

 

Thanks again.

Abe