Should I upgrade to Win7?

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 PC. Yes, it's old, a 2002 PC, but rock solid. I've been running WinXP and it has behaved very stable, very rarely did I cope with a BSOD, in very particular instances like a bad sector in the HD (only once in 8 years) or a corrupt printer driver. The PC has 2GB RDRAM and a P4 3.06Ghz HT CPU. For the sake of curiosity I tested Win7 installing it in a separate drive. It boots/shutdowns much faster than XP and the feel is real smooth, I feel it opens programs faster. Except for the sound card that has no Win7 driver (Voyetra Turtle Beach Santa Cruz) , all of the PC's internal hardware is Win7 compatible. I rarely use the sound card though as I use a Plantronics USB headset most of the time, and it's Win7 compatible. I also have an old HP printer and scanner that lack Win7 drivers. I can handle these non Win7 devices by creating a dual boot XP/7 system. The question is...is it worth it? Will Win7 offer advantages on this platform to justify the shift from XP? Thanks.

I would say yes, it isnt as bad as vista or xp... it has more features leaving it faster and more reliable then most others.

Really the choice is yours! I will say that I have an XP laptop and I prefer my boyfriend's Windows 7 desktop. There are a lot of new features in Windows 7 that are fun (and useful) - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows.

Cheers,
Cassandra
Microsoft Windows Outreach

One day or another you will have to get off XP anyhow. Whether that is with Win7 or Win8 is only a matter of time. On the other hand, if your current system does everything ou want to do, there is no rush.
I am not a big friend of dual boots. I would buy an extra disk for $50 and install Win7 on that (disconnect the XP disk during installation). Then you can switch between the two with the BIOS boot sequence. I have this setup with Vista and Win7 and that works flawlessly. I also made a seperate data partition (should be from XP) and included the folders into the Win7 libraries (really easy). That way you don't have to sync the data.

whs said:

...I would buy an extra disk for $50 and install Win7 on that (disconnect the XP disk during installation). Then you can switch between the two with the BIOS boot sequence...

The BIOS boot sequence in my Dell only gives you the option to either boot from the main hard drive (and of course the CD/DVD drive), it does not give you the option to choose among the 1st or 2nd hard drive if both are connected. So how can I control the boot drive from the BIOS?

antares said:

whs said:

...I would buy an extra disk for $50 and install Win7 on that (disconnect the XP disk during installation). Then you can switch between the two with the BIOS boot sequence...

The BIOS boot sequence in my Dell only gives you the option to either boot from the main hard drive (and of course the CD/DVD drive), it does not give you the option to choose among the 1st or 2nd hard drive if both are connected. So how can I control the boot drive from the BIOS?

Hmm, that is strange. Maybe it does not show any other drives because you only have one (internal) drive - or do you have 2 internal drives?

whs said:

antares said:

whs said:

...I would buy an extra disk for $50 and install Win7 on that (disconnect the XP disk during installation). Then you can switch between the two with the BIOS boot sequence...

The BIOS boot sequence in my Dell only gives you the option to either boot from the main hard drive (and of course the CD/DVD drive), it does not give you the option to choose among the 1st or 2nd hard drive if both are connected. So how can I control the boot drive from the BIOS?

Hmm, that is strange. Maybe it does not show any other drives because you only have one (internal) drive - or do you have 2 internal drives?

I use my PC with only the main drive. But I do have other drives that I use as 2nd internals. Even if they are installed as I said, the BIOS only gives you the option to boot from the 1st main drive, not the 2nd internal (I'm talking about the Boot Sequence section of the BIOS). Remember that the PC is from 2002, maybe at that time this feature in the BIOS was not available.

I guess you are right. My oldest PC is from 2007 so I am not too familiar with "vintage gear" - LOL.

In my opinion, yes!

I find multi-tasking with Win7 MUCH better than trying to mutli-task with Vista, which in my opinion is better than XP.

The drag of the windows to top or side of screen alone, for me, makes it so much faster.

Of course, XP has it's advantages over Vista, but I feel that Win7 is VERY stable....something Vista lacks, to say the least. I found about every 3rd or 4th update, with Vista, was creating some kind of problem. I have had no issues, as of yet, with Win7 updates.


I would suggest disabling Homegroup, and sticking with the Workgroup setup, if you do go with Win7.
That of course is up to you.....just my preference.



DOOOOOOO IT!:)