Faster XP Machine?

XP SP3 running on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L with 4 gigs of RAM,
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 running at 2.66GHz.

This is my 24-7 box. One of the apps I'm running is an IP camera server
called BlueIris. With a half-dozen cams this app kind of brings my box
to it's knees. I mitigate that with an app called Process Lasso that
lets me move BlueIris's priority down... but still...

How much has the world moved on since I put this thing together?

Is there any hope of getting, say, 25% better response time without
spending more than $1,000 on a new mobo/processor?



--
Pete Cresswell

On 10/28/2013 9:34 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
XP SP3 running on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L with 4 gigs of RAM,
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 running at 2.66GHz.

This is my 24-7 box. One of the apps I'm running is an IP camera server
called BlueIris. With a half-dozen cams this app kind of brings my box
to it's knees. I mitigate that with an app called Process Lasso that
lets me move BlueIris's priority down... but still...

How much has the world moved on since I put this thing together?

Is there any hope of getting, say, 25% better response time without
spending more than $1,000 on a new mobo/processor?




The motherboard is at least 3 generations obsolete by now but there
is one option. Shop around for a Pentium-D 960 for it is, arguably,
one of the fastest Socket 775 CPU's that can be used with this mobo.

GR

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message ...
XP SP3 running on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L with 4 gigs of RAM,
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 running at 2.66GHz.

This is my 24-7 box. One of the apps I'm running is an IP camera server
called BlueIris. With a half-dozen cams this app kind of brings my box
to it's knees. I mitigate that with an app called Process Lasso that
lets me move BlueIris's priority down... but still...


IP camera run in a web browser


How much has the world moved on since I put this thing together?

Is there any hope of getting, say, 25% better response time without
spending more than $1,000 on a new mobo/processor?

Per Todd:

Most of the time your processor is doing nothing.

Do you know what part is slow?

From Process Manager:
1) is CPU 100%?
2) is your memory in use, under your installed memory?

When the IP cam server is running, CPU is continuously above 60% as in
http://tinyurl.com/k9wgzt8

Process Lasso is the only thing that keeps it from being totally pegged.

Do you have a hard drive lamp on the front of your case?
Is it blinking constantly?

No hard drive: just an 80-gig Intel SSD ("SSDSA2M080G2GC", if that means
anything... dunno from CherryVille...) so there's no light. Very
noticeable improvement over a conventional system drive.

I'm tempted to do my ripping to it, since I can copy a conventional
movie DVD to it in a little over five minutes - as compared to more like
12 minutes to the 1-TB backup drive that usually lives in the ESATA
sled.... but I don't do that because it seems like I'd be hammering the
system SSD and shortening it's life.

Ultimately, all my rips wind up on a NAS box.

In addition there are 3 2-TB drives hanging on the PC that I use for
recording TV shows... but I wouldn't think they would be players as long
as the Tivo-on-steroids app I have isn't actively recording and nobody's
watching.

If you are planning on upgrading, budget $2000 for a
decent computers and any accessories and specialty
equipments (SAS drives, UPS's, monitors, backup drives,
decent anti virus, etc.) that you need.

I was thinking more in terms of just a new mobo and CPU.

But, all that being said, you first have to know
why you are slow before going forward.

"Slow" might be too strong a word. 12 minutes to rip a DVD is
acceptable - and it seems like any improvement there would come from
using a different target device.

I just see that CPU meter pegged all the time and figure that the
machine might be a little snappier with a faster mobo/CPU.... but two
grand is probably too much for me to rationalize on such a marginal
thing.... Especially since a lot of windows that I open are
ISP-dependent....

Come to think of it, maybe I'd get more bang for the buck if I just
sprung for the higher-speed option with FIOS - $120 or $240 extra per
year for 50/25 or 75/35.... ten-year payback against a $2,000 worth of
hardware.... and I might not even live another 10 years...
--
Pete Cresswell

It happens that (PeteCresswell) formulated :
XP SP3 running on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L with 4 gigs of RAM,
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 running at 2.66GHz.

This is my 24-7 box. One of the apps I'm running is an IP camera server
called BlueIris. With a half-dozen cams this app kind of brings my box
to it's knees. I mitigate that with an app called Process Lasso that
lets me move BlueIris's priority down... but still...

How much has the world moved on since I put this thing together?

Is there any hope of getting, say, 25% better response time without
spending more than $1,000 on a new mobo/processor?

I think you might consider the chipset the problem.
I have two laptops, same brand, with essentially the same CPU and RAM.
But one, a later model, is tons faster while working with my webcams
(software I wrote).
i.e. the video update rate is significantly faster on one.

Also I use process explorer and process monitor (free from MS at
SysInternals) to watch the usage of everything.



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Todd:

Most of the time your processor is doing nothing.

Do you know what part is slow?

From Process Manager:
1) is CPU 100%?
2) is your memory in use, under your installed memory?

When the IP cam server is running, CPU is continuously above 60% as in
http://tinyurl.com/k9wgzt8

Process Lasso is the only thing that keeps it from being totally pegged.

Do you have a hard drive lamp on the front of your case?
Is it blinking constantly?

No hard drive: just an 80-gig Intel SSD ("SSDSA2M080G2GC", if that means
anything... dunno from CherryVille...) so there's no light. Very
noticeable improvement over a conventional system drive.

I'm tempted to do my ripping to it, since I can copy a conventional
movie DVD to it in a little over five minutes - as compared to more like
12 minutes to the 1-TB backup drive that usually lives in the ESATA
sled.... but I don't do that because it seems like I'd be hammering the
system SSD and shortening it's life.

Ultimately, all my rips wind up on a NAS box.

In addition there are 3 2-TB drives hanging on the PC that I use for
recording TV shows... but I wouldn't think they would be players as long
as the Tivo-on-steroids app I have isn't actively recording and nobody's
watching.

If you are planning on upgrading, budget $2000 for a
decent computers and any accessories and specialty
equipments (SAS drives, UPS's, monitors, backup drives,
decent anti virus, etc.) that you need.

I was thinking more in terms of just a new mobo and CPU.
But, all that being said, you first have to know
why you are slow before going forward.

"Slow" might be too strong a word. 12 minutes to rip a DVD is
acceptable - and it seems like any improvement there would come from
using a different target device.

I just see that CPU meter pegged all the time and figure that the
machine might be a little snappier with a faster mobo/CPU.... but two
grand is probably too much for me to rationalize on such a marginal
thing.... Especially since a lot of windows that I open are
ISP-dependent....

Come to think of it, maybe I'd get more bang for the buck if I just
sprung for the higher-speed option with FIOS - $120 or $240 extra per
year for 50/25 or 75/35.... ten-year payback against a $2,000 worth of
hardware.... and I might not even live another 10 years...

You can "dial-a-benchmark" here. There are a couple six core processors
for a premium motherboard platform (LGA2011). There is the "sane mans"
choice in the 4770K. In some benchmarks, the six cores don't give
50% more performance than the four cores do, and you get an extra
35% or so. Sometimes, the internal design of the six core, is
a limitation to scaling. But if you want to spend a little
more, the option is there.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Intel Core i7-4930K @ 3.40GHz 12,699 $580 (LGA2011) 6C/12T
Intel Core i7-3930K @ 3.20GHz 12,103 $570 (LGA2011) 6C/12T
Intel Core i7-4770K @ 3.50GHz 10,127 $330 (LGA1150) 4C/ 8T

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Intel Core2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66GHz 3244 $158 (LGA775) 4C/ 4T

Assuming a perfectly scaling application, with no limit to
how many threads it can run and get benefit from them, you'll
get between 3 and 4 times more performance.

(I look the processors up on ark.intel.com for the socket details.)

http://ark.intel.com/products/38512/...Hz-FSB?q=q8400

If I look on Newegg, I can find an LGA2011 motherboard for $220
that has two PCI slots. (That's the selection criterion I used.)
You can also sort through the LGA2011 motherboards by reputation,
and select one with the best reviews instead.

"ASRock X79 Extreme6 LGA 2011 Intel X79"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157289

The LGA2011 is a four channel memory motherboard, up to
two DIMMs per channel. (The LGA1150 by comparison, is
a two channel memory motherboard, with two DIMMs per channel.)
I'd select a set of four matched 2GB DIMMs, for a modest config.

"Kingston HyperX 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133" $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820104287

So now, for a Passmark of 12,699 , I can do an upgrade ATX
motherboard for $580 + $220 + $120 = $920

The CPU order page says "no cooling device", so we need a cooler.
The cooler can't bump into the DIMMs, so some care will
be needed selecting one there.

Intel Core i7-4930K Ivy Bridge-E 3.4GHz LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Processor BX80633i74930K $580
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116939

This one is a pig, at 158mm high. It might not fit in the
computer case.

Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 $85
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608024

This one blows downwards, and is 93mm high with both fans fitted.
Reviews suggest not suitable for high power processors.

Noctua NH-L12 LGA1150/LGA2011/LGA1366/LGA1156/LGA1155/LGA775... $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608025

This one is the size of Los Angeles. It shows 40mm clearance
over the RAM slots, but that doesn't mean you can get the RAM
in and out. Merely that if you fit the RAM first, you
can use a decent sized stick of RAM.

ZALMAN CNPS12X $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118097

"Customers who purchased the product after October 9th, 2011
can receive the LGA 2011 mounting kits free of charge. Please
contact support.usa... for more information."

So it doesn't even come with the LGA2011 mounting kit. 154mm high.

I guess cooler selection will be loads of fun. I'm not
off to a very good start. I started looking for a
"single socket" heatsink, compatible only with LGA2011,
to avoid the disappointment of later finding it didn't
actually fit LGA2011. And a couple of the "fits everything"
heatsinks, they claim to fit LGA2011, but actually don't.
For those, you check the customer reviews to detect
"screwing around" on the part of the manufacturer.

I can spend your thousand dollars for you. Or
with the alternate platform, maybe that one will come
in at $600 to $700 and be 3X your current setup.

There is a difference between single threaded speed,
and multi-threaded. If the new processor is 3.4GHz and
the old is 2.66GHz, then running SuperPI I would
predict 1.3X. Lots of code is single threaded, and for
those applications, you won't feel "value for money".
It gets to 3X when multi-threaded code runs on it,
such as movie transcoding. That's the benefit of a few
more cores and Hyperthreading. The quad channel RAM
probably isn't helping that much. In some experiments
on the LGA1366 triple channel platform, there wasn't
that much difference betwee two and three sticks on
there. You might want to find a review that tests
alternate memory configs on LGA2011, to see if
the platform was a good idea in the first place.

*******

Movie transcoding can occasionally be done by
movie editor software, on the programmable shaders
on video cards. But that would take me a long
time to research and track down a cost effective
solution, to go with a more modest CPU.

The nice thing about the relatively gutless CPU upgrade,
is it "can't fail to work" from the software
perspective. A CPU is a CPU, and there will be
no excuses from that perspective. With programmable
shaders, I'm bound to run into a few "um... we
forgot to tell you about this bug..." type
deals. Like maybe a lower quality of transcoding.
If you want even more performance, the research
time goes up.

There's probably only one guy over in rec.video.desktop
who has wasted a ton of money on acceleration, and can
comment on that aspect. Whether he feels he got what he
paid for. With a CPU only solution, I'm less
concerned. If two-pass coding is the best,
then the software will do exactly that with the
CPU. With the video card, we might not know
what it's up to.

Paul

On Monday, October 28, 2013 10:26:43 PM UTC-5, Hot-Text wrote:
"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message ...

Per Todd:

Most of the time your processor is doing nothing.

Do you know what part is slow?

From Process Manager:

1) is CPU 100%?

2) is your memory in use, under your installed memory?

When the IP cam server is running, CPU is continuously above 60% as in

http://tinyurl.com/k9wgzt8





Stop using a Wireless Network would help

and



Process Lasso is the only thing that keeps it from being totally pegged.





ADD 1 GB of RAM

I have to agree with increasing the RAM.

I am using 4 Gb with a XP 32 bit.

Andy

"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message ...
Per Todd:
Most of the time your processor is doing nothing.
Do you know what part is slow?
From Process Manager:
1) is CPU 100%?
2) is your memory in use, under your installed memory?
When the IP cam server is running, CPU is continuously above 60% as in
http://tinyurl.com/k9wgzt8


Stop using a Wireless Network would help
and

Process Lasso is the only thing that keeps it from being totally pegged.


ADD 1 GB of RAM

From: "Ghostrider" " 00
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 12:37 PM
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Subject: Faster XP Machine?

On 10/28/2013 9:34 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
XP SP3 running on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L with 4 gigs of RAM,
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 running at 2.66GHz.
This is my 24-7 box. One of the apps I'm running is an IP camera server
called BlueIris. With a half-dozen cams this app kind of brings my box
to it's knees. I mitigate that with an app called Process Lasso that
lets me move BlueIris's priority down... but still...
How much has the world moved on since I put this thing together?
Is there any hope of getting, say, 25% better response time without
spending more than $1,000 on a new Mobo /processor?
Good For Wireless

HP Z400 W3520 Cyber-PowerPC Core i5
250GB HDD Or 2TB HDD
4GB DDR3 Somewhere 16GB DDR
Workstation PC in between Workstation
$429.99 $999.99
Be the first to
Write a review





The motherboard is at least 3 generations obsolete by now but there
is one option. Shop around for a Pentium-D 960 for it is, arguably,
one of the fastest Socket 775 CPU's that can be used with this mobo.
GR
TigerDirect
ZOTAC IONITX-S-E - motherboard - mini ITX - Intel (7757441)
ZOTAC IONITX-S-E - Motherboard - mini ITX - Intel Atom D525 - NVIDIA ION - Wi-Fi(n),
Gigabit LAN - onboard graphics - HD Audio

http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id...wCjC-d2CjCdwwp
TigerDirect
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/...pe= 3&subid=0

On 10/29/2013 2:35 AM, Hot-Text wrote:
From: "Ghostrider" " 00
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 12:37 PM
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Subject: Faster XP Machine?

On 10/28/2013 9:34 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
XP SP3 running on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L with 4 gigs of RAM,
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 running at 2.66GHz.
This is my 24-7 box. One of the apps I'm running is an IP camera server
called BlueIris. With a half-dozen cams this app kind of brings my box
to it's knees. I mitigate that with an app called Process Lasso that
lets me move BlueIris's priority down... but still...
How much has the world moved on since I put this thing together?
Is there any hope of getting, say, 25% better response time without
spending more than $1,000 on a new Mobo /processor?
Good For Wireless

HP Z400 W3520 Cyber-PowerPC Core i5
250GB HDD Or 2TB HDD
4GB DDR3 Somewhere 16GB DDR
Workstation PC in between Workstation
$429.99 $999.99
Be the first to
Write a review





The motherboard is at least 3 generations obsolete by now but there
is one option. Shop around for a Pentium-D 960 for it is, arguably,
one of the fastest Socket 775 CPU's that can be used with this mobo.
GR
TigerDirect
ZOTAC IONITX-S-E - motherboard - mini ITX - Intel (7757441)
ZOTAC IONITX-S-E - Motherboard - mini ITX - Intel Atom D525 - NVIDIA ION - Wi-Fi(n),
Gigabit LAN - onboard graphics - HD Audio

http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id...wCjC-d2CjCdwwp
TigerDirect
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/...pe= 3&subid=0



The Intel Atom CPU is not known for its speed and throughput but for
its energy-saving capabilities. Hence, its primary utilization has
been in netbooks.

GR

Per Paul:
You can "dial-a-benchmark" here. There are a couple six core processors
for a premium motherboard platform (LGA2011). .....

If you were building one of these things and had a bunch of 32-bit XP
licenses already on hand (i.e. no cost), would you pay the extra money
to put Windows 7 on it - or would you be happy to stay with XP?
--
Pete Cresswell

"Ghostrider" wrote in message
m...
On 10/29/2013 2:35 AM, Hot-Text wrote:
From: "Ghostrider" " 00
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 12:37 PM
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Subject: Faster XP Machine?
On 10/28/2013 9:34 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
XP SP3 running on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3L with 4 gigs of RAM,
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 running at 2.66GHz.
This is my 24-7 box. One of the apps I'm running is an IP camera server
called BlueIris. With a half-dozen cams this app kind of brings my box
to it's knees. I mitigate that with an app called Process Lasso that
lets me move BlueIris's priority down... but still...
How much has the world moved on since I put this thing together?
Is there any hope of getting, say, 25% better response time without
spending more than $1,000 on a new Mobo /processor?
Good For Wireless
HP Z400 W3520 Cyber-PowerPC Core i5
250GB HDD Or 2TB HDD
4GB DDR3 Somewhere 16GB DDR
Workstation PC in between Workstation
$429.99 $999.99
Be the first to
Write a review
The motherboard is at least 3 generations obsolete by now but there
is one option. Shop around for a Pentium-D 960 for it is, arguably,
one of the fastest Socket 775 CPU's that can be used with this mobo.
GR TigerDirect
ZOTAC IONITX-S-E - motherboard - mini ITX - Intel (7757441)
ZOTAC IONITX-S-E - Motherboard - mini ITX - Intel Atom D525 - NVIDIA ION - Wi-Fi(n),
Gigabit LAN - onboard graphics - HD Audio

http://click.linksynergy.com/link?id...wCjC-d2CjCdwwp
TigerDirect
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/...pe= 3&subid=0
The Intel Atom CPU is not known for and throughput but for
its energy-saving capabilities. Hence, its primary utilization has
been in netbooks.
GR

But with a Wi-Fi(n) Gigabit LAN is its speed

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Paul:
You can "dial-a-benchmark" here. There are a couple six core processors
for a premium motherboard platform (LGA2011). .....

If you were building one of these things and had a bunch of 32-bit XP
licenses already on hand (i.e. no cost), would you pay the extra money
to put Windows 7 on it - or would you be happy to stay with XP?

I would be happy to use anything I could get drivers for :-)

Check the motherboard manufacturer web page, for the
availability of WinXP drivers. When next year rolls around,
I am expecting support for that to "drop like a rock".

*******

Nothing "compels" me to use a later OS. The newer ones don't have
any desirable features.

All the OSes have pathological conditions.

On WinXP, I can fork a set of tasks, and get the OS into
such a state, that tasks start dying (when under ideal
conditions, they should remain running). And more tasks
die, than are needed to regain a stable operating
configuration. If I do that on Windows 8, I would
probably not end up seeing that happen. The situation
may be handled slightly better. (Windows 8 seems to
reserved some CPU cycles for stability, so you can't
really drive it to "100%" on purpose.)

But the nice thing about WinXP, is Task Manager tends to
remain in control. The only time I lose control on the
WinXP machine, is when a 3D game blows up. Then there
are no guarantees on the side effects.

In my limited testing on Windows 8 (not an "every day OS"),
I happened to test the situation of "running out of pool memory".
The side effect of that was, Task Manager ended up drawing
35% of CPU, all on its own. It was competing with my
application, for CPU cycles. And, I was not able to use
the Task Manager interface, to kill the offending task
(the one that had leaked pool memory until there was none
left). The controls would not work. I couldn't tab around
or anything. I could not select the offending task and
kill it. The end result was, I had to power cycle the machine.
And this is surely the definition of "fail" in terms of
operation of a modern computer. As a result of this
single test case failure, I would not recommend
Windows 8 to any one. I don't want an OS, with
a brain dead Task Manager. Sorry.

If you want to test that failure case for yourself,
fit a copy of "NeatVideo" filter. It has a pool leak
function, presumably part of demo mode and preventing
people from getting a lot of usage from it. Somewhere
around the 21 hour mark (filtering a video and
computing for 21 hours), my Windows 8 test machine
ran out of Pool, and I could no longer control the
machine.

Stated in other words, in Windows 8, Task Manager is
no longer crafted in a "special way", to always be
in control of the machine. Instead, Task Manager
runs like an "ordinary application", and when the
**** hits the fan, the new Task Manager is in
as much serious trouble, as the applications it is
supposed to be controlling.

How you keep control of things, is by assigning
resources for Task Manager when the system starts up.
So Task Manager can never run out of resources it
might need later. You make your Task Manager rely
on as few things as possible, as those that
the "ordinary applications" are using and sharing.

I can't say whether Windows 7 suffers from this bug.
My Windows 7 machine is gutless enough (single core
processor), I would never do any computationally
demanding stuff on that machine. As a result, I
don't know of any corner cases to watch out for
on Windows 7. I don't have a spare Windows 7 license
to repeat the NeatVideo test with.

*******

Purely in terms of a "dual boot" install sequence,
you could install WinXP first. If you like what
you see, stick with it. If you want to then try
Windows 7, installing the later OS second, allows
automation of the boot menu setup. So it all works
for you, without additional sweat.

Note that Microsoft is using .NET as a "wedge" to
get people to upgrade. And the developers will fall
in line, because the development tools encourage
compiling against the later .NET versions. And
then, if you want to try a new application, while
using WinXP, you'll get a snotty message like
"this application requires .NET 4.0", and when you
go to install .NET 4.0 from Microsoft it will say,
"this version of .NET doesn't run on this OS". I
think to run the trial version of Corel software,
I needed Windows 7 SP1 (non-SP1 wasn't good enough),
just so I could get the damn software to install.

And that's how they'll get you. WinXP may compute
like a champ, but when you need to install a
brand new video editor, you'll in effect be
told to upgrade your OS. It's then your "choice",
as to what to do.

Paul

Paul wrote:
(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Paul:
You can "dial-a-benchmark" here. There are a couple six core processors
for a premium motherboard platform (LGA2011). .....

If you were building one of these things and had a bunch of 32-bit XP
licenses already on hand (i.e. no cost), would you pay the extra money
to put Windows 7 on it - or would you be happy to stay with XP?

I would be happy to use anything I could get drivers for :-)

Check the motherboard manufacturer web page, for the
availability of WinXP drivers. When next year rolls around,
I am expecting support for that to "drop like a rock".

*******

Nothing "compels" me to use a later OS. The newer ones don't have
any desirable features.

All the OSes have pathological conditions.

On WinXP, I can fork a set of tasks, and get the OS into
such a state, that tasks start dying (when under ideal
conditions, they should remain running). And more tasks
die, than are needed to regain a stable operating
configuration. If I do that on Windows 8, I would
probably not end up seeing that happen. The situation
may be handled slightly better. (Windows 8 seems to
reserved some CPU cycles for stability, so you can't
really drive it to "100%" on purpose.)

But the nice thing about WinXP, is Task Manager tends to
remain in control. The only time I lose control on the
WinXP machine, is when a 3D game blows up. Then there
are no guarantees on the side effects.

In my limited testing on Windows 8 (not an "every day OS"),
I happened to test the situation of "running out of pool memory".
The side effect of that was, Task Manager ended up drawing
35% of CPU, all on its own. It was competing with my
application, for CPU cycles. And, I was not able to use
the Task Manager interface, to kill the offending task
(the one that had leaked pool memory until there was none
left). The controls would not work. I couldn't tab around
or anything. I could not select the offending task and
kill it. The end result was, I had to power cycle the machine.
And this is surely the definition of "fail" in terms of
operation of a modern computer. As a result of this
single test case failure, I would not recommend
Windows 8 to any one. I don't want an OS, with
a brain dead Task Manager. Sorry.

If you want to test that failure case for yourself,
fit a copy of "NeatVideo" filter. It has a pool leak
function, presumably part of demo mode and preventing
people from getting a lot of usage from it. Somewhere
around the 21 hour mark (filtering a video and
computing for 21 hours), my Windows 8 test machine
ran out of Pool, and I could no longer control the
machine.

Stated in other words, in Windows 8, Task Manager is
no longer crafted in a "special way", to always be
in control of the machine. Instead, Task Manager
runs like an "ordinary application", and when the
**** hits the fan, the new Task Manager is in
as much serious trouble, as the applications it is
supposed to be controlling.

How you keep control of things, is by assigning
resources for Task Manager when the system starts up.
So Task Manager can never run out of resources it
might need later. You make your Task Manager rely
on as few things as possible, as those that
the "ordinary applications" are using and sharing.

I can't say whether Windows 7 suffers from this bug.
My Windows 7 machine is gutless enough (single core
processor), I would never do any computationally
demanding stuff on that machine. As a result, I
don't know of any corner cases to watch out for
on Windows 7. I don't have a spare Windows 7 license
to repeat the NeatVideo test with.

*******

Purely in terms of a "dual boot" install sequence,
you could install WinXP first. If you like what
you see, stick with it. If you want to then try
Windows 7, installing the later OS second, allows
automation of the boot menu setup. So it all works
for you, without additional sweat.

Note that Microsoft is using .NET as a "wedge" to
get people to upgrade. And the developers will fall
in line, because the development tools encourage
compiling against the later .NET versions. And
then, if you want to try a new application, while
using WinXP, you'll get a snotty message like
"this application requires .NET 4.0", and when you
go to install .NET 4.0 from Microsoft it will say,
"this version of .NET doesn't run on this OS". I
think to run the trial version of Corel software,
I needed Windows 7 SP1 (non-SP1 wasn't good enough),
just so I could get the damn software to install.

And that's how they'll get you. WinXP may compute
like a champ, but when you need to install a
brand new video editor, you'll in effect be
told to upgrade your OS. It's then your "choice",
as to what to do.

Paul

But how powerful a video editor does one really need, unless one is doing
this for a living? (in which case they'd have a workstation at work)

I think Cyberlink Power Director or MAGIX Movie Edit works well just as it
is (on XP). So maybe that day will be a LOOONG way off. :-)

I find Adobe Photoshop to be a bit "heavy" for my needs too (I'd classify it
as an albatross, but that's JMHO). Paint Shop Pro is good enough. :-)

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
Paul wrote:
[]
Note that Microsoft is using .NET as a "wedge" to
get people to upgrade. And the developers will fall
in line, because the development tools encourage
compiling against the later .NET versions. And
then, if you want to try a new application, while
using WinXP, you'll get a snotty message like
"this application requires .NET 4.0", and when you
go to install .NET 4.0 from Microsoft it will say,
"this version of .NET doesn't run on this OS". I
think to run the trial version of Corel software,
I needed Windows 7 SP1 (non-SP1 wasn't good enough),
just so I could get the damn software to install.

And that's how they'll get you. WinXP may compute
like a champ, but when you need to install a
brand new video editor, you'll in effect be
told to upgrade your OS. It's then your "choice",
as to what to do.

A similar situation applied with Windows 98 LITE: quite a lot of
software would run fine under LITE (which used the 95 shell, which was
smaller and more stable than the 98 one, but you got most of the real
improvements - such as better USB support - of 98), but you had to
switch back to the 98 shell to _install_. I think the same may have
applied to XP/9x, some things needing XP to get installed, though they
actually run fine under 9x. I think something called Kernelex (or
something like that) helped there, though that wasn't something you
could switch in and out.

Paul

But how powerful a video editor does one really need, unless one is doing
this for a living? (in which case they'd have a workstation at work)

I think Cyberlink Power Director or MAGIX Movie Edit works well just as it
is (on XP). So maybe that day will be a LOOONG way off. :-)

I find Adobe Photoshop to be a bit "heavy" for my needs too (I'd classify it
as an albatross, but that's JMHO). Paint Shop Pro is good enough. :-)

I'm the same next level down: I find PSP too heavy (takes too long to
start), and IrfanView does what I want. There was something I used to
have to use PSP for - ah yes, I remember now, the clone brush - but
someone added one of those to Irfan, so I haven't actually fired PSP up
for years.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when
you make it again. -Franklin P. Jones