Win 7 availability once Win 8 launches?

carwiz said:

There's a lot of folks that aren't afraid of upgrading from XP. In some cases their hands are tied because a perfectly running PC can't be upgraded without spending a lot of cash. And it will still be a worthless machine on the market if I do. I have one such machine. A Sony VAIO VGC-RB30 (circa-1996) that's not worth upgrading hardware to run Windows 7 and is happily running XP with no problems at all.

The machine also has the serial and parallel ports I need to run a wide body tractor-feed printer and a small receipt printer. With a flip of the switch on an A/B box, It will also interface to the serial port on some of my automotive test equipment that requires thousands of dollars worth of software that only runs on XP. And, when the wind is blowing and my wireless net craps out, it still has dial-up modem access to my ISP. It does everything I need it to do and it's paid for.

Sometimes it not as easy as just "upgrading" or replacing a PC. I know I'm not the only one in this type of predicament. Some of you need to realize that PCs are used for more than just playing games at 70fps.

I was in a similar boat as you. I had a fairly new XP machine I had dropped $1700 on (and spent even more to keep fixing it; I had to have the crappy RAM and two HDDs replaced) when Win 7 came out. I also had a laser printer, a flat bed scanner, and some expensive software that would have needed replacing before being able to upgrade.

As the money trickled in, I eventually replaced the scanner because it was a POS from word go. I replaced it with an ADF scanner and a good flat bed. The laser printer worked just fine but the company that made it is a POS. The drivers were never updated for Win 7 and it was pretty much impossible to find toner cartridges that didn't have expired chips so I recently replaced it with a color laser. The manufacturer of the expensive software (that had become abandonware so would never be fully compatible with Win7) made me an offer to allow me to upgrade to an even more expensive and much better version for a steal after I threatened to switch over to their major competitor.

It was because the XP desktop never really met my needs and was a money pit (and it was a custom built machine at that) that I decided to build my own machine this time around.

Indianatone said:

I know XP will be at EOL April 2014 but I suspect a bunch of enthusiasts will modify updates for still supported OS's just like they did for NT4 and 2000. Of course if it is valuable like your set up you can just disconnect it from the internet once security patches are no longer produced.

As I started to read that comment I was thinking it would be what a wanted and I must find this bunch of enthusiasts. But then I read that I would need to disconnect from the Internet.
As I use Windows XP to create and upload websites to the internet that won't work for me. Ah well. Maybe something else will come along.
However, I would appreciate it if those enthusiasts could give me a contact e-mail/website now or at the time so that I can get in touch about modified updates. . . !

PS: It occurs to me that the note "Windows 7 Professional" might seem to refer to my working status. It is, as you will all know, the MS OS I use ! I'm just an amateur website creator, etc. (Retired journalist).

As I said: "An additional current problem is that I am trying to edit a video using Corel's Pinnacle Studio 15 and Adobe Audition CS6. I want to add a commentary but don't want to use the Voice Over set up because I get more editing flexibility with Audition. Sorry if you are not familiar with these other products but I AM getting to the point."

I've returned to this point to say that I have solved the problem (but I still can't use the darned library system!).
I transferred all 14 commentary segments to a CD and then captured the CD tracks as you would music tracks and was eventually able to drop the commentary segments into the soundtrack of the video editing programme just as I would for a music track.
If that sounds long-winded and going round in circles at least it works unlike trying to get the tracks from the Windows 7 Libraries set-up. And all the KBs of sound are there. No more messages about "Content: 0.0"

carwiz said:

Dabber - The text below is posted at the bottom of every page you view here. The Seven Forum is not affiliated with Microsoft directly. The Microsoft badges are awarded because the Seven Forum has become the elite go-to site for help with Windows and Microsoft has "allowed" the honorary designations because of that. It's the members here that volunteer their time and expertise that make it the best informational gathering site on the web. A quick browse through the volumes of Tutorials will show that this site is committed to helping users.

Yes, I saw that. But it was the "(Windows logo) Supporter" and "(Windows logo) Seven Guru" that got me thinking. I accept that you are all genuine! And that the forum and not Microsoft (or employees if there had been any) awarded the badges.

And pardon my ignorance - I haven't done a thorough search of the forum - what is BSOD? I'm still getting my head around MS (Microsoft, I assume) and OS (Operating System)! That's why I used MS OS in a previous post - hoping I was right.

carwiz said:

There's a lot of folks that aren't afraid of upgrading from XP. In some cases their hands are tied because a perfectly running PC can't be upgraded without spending a lot of cash. And it will still be a worthless machine on the market if I do. I have one such machine. A Sony VAIO VGC-RB30 (circa-1996) that's not worth upgrading hardware to run Windows 7 and is happily running XP with no problems at all.

The machine also has the serial and parallel ports I need to run a wide body tractor-feed printer and a small receipt printer. With a flip of the switch on an A/B box, It will also interface to the serial port on some of my automotive test equipment that requires thousands of dollars worth of software that only runs on XP. And, when the wind is blowing and my wireless net craps out, it still has dial-up modem access to my ISP. It does everything I need it to do and it's paid for.

Sometimes it's not as easy as just "upgrading" or replacing a PC. I know I'm not the only one in this type of predicament. Some of you need to realize that PCs are used for more than just playing games at 70fps.

Hi there
I have some EXPENSIVE legacy stuff for which the last hardware driver available was for Windows 2000. Fortunately the Windows 2000 driver worked on Windows XP so that's fine.

I've also got a VINYL cutting machine -- this only works on XP / Windows 2003 server so I'm running these in a Virtual 2003 server machine and the hardware works just fine. I'll probably STILL be running this long after XP support ends - or even W2003 server --a little longer support.

Virtual Machines with OLD OS'es aren't always used by people just wanting to play legacy games etc.

I sometimes create some VINYL's for friends from their music collections with customised labels, record sleeves, and photos. The Vinyls seem very popular -- I do 78's, 10 / 12 inch singles, EP's (remember those), 45's and standard LP (album) sizes -- used to be hard to source blank Vinyls but there has been a little resurgence in Vinyl -- while a Niche product there's still more than enough interest as well.

I sometimes CLONE rare albums for people -- so they can play the Clone while keeping the original in pristine condition. -- For PERSONAL use this is not illegal either and just by looking at the blank you can tell it's a copy so no chance of selling it as an "Original" on the open market.

Whatever people say about "Audio Quality" - and I like good stuff - there's still something undescribeably satisfying about playing some Vinyl - scratches and all. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but an audio stream from the Internet doesn't give anything like the same sensation.
Perhaps a hangover from my childhood days when I'd look forward to rushing out to a record store on a Saturday morning and look for whatever goodies were on sale that week.


Cheers
jimbo