XP to Windows 8 Upgrade

Beginning in a few days, Microsoft will begin putting up dialog boxes on
Windows XP machines telling customers that support is ending for XP as of
April 8, 2014.

Some people will want continued XP support, which is fine with me given that
XP is fairly bulletproof these days.

HOWEVER, rather than get new computers some people (probably many) are going
to want upgrades from XP to Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft is going to make a
2-jump upgrade wizard available (XP directly to 7 or 8, bypassing Vista),
which is unusual because they're known for only issuing 1-jump wizards.
It's also unusual in that in the past the hardware requirements changed so
much over 2 jumps that a 2-jump simply wasn't practical.

My question to the knowing folks here is how much oomph does Windows 7 or 8
really need? Is a P4 dual processor good enough? I have a machine running
Vista with a P4 and it hums along just fine. I also have a Vista laptop
with single P4 processor and it is also fairly fast. My Windows 7 machine
uses an AMD chip and I don't know enough about those to figure out how they
compare in speed to Intel.

On 05/03/2014 09:56, David Kaye wrote:
Beginning in a few days, Microsoft will begin putting up dialog boxes on
Windows XP machines telling customers that support is ending for XP as of
April 8, 2014.

Some people will want continued XP support, which is fine with me given that
XP is fairly bulletproof these days.

HOWEVER, rather than get new computers some people (probably many) are going
to want upgrades from XP to Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft is going to make a
2-jump upgrade wizard available (XP directly to 7 or 8, bypassing Vista),
which is unusual because they're known for only issuing 1-jump wizards.
It's also unusual in that in the past the hardware requirements changed so
much over 2 jumps that a 2-jump simply wasn't practical.

My question to the knowing folks here is how much oomph does Windows 7 or 8
really need? Is a P4 dual processor good enough? I have a machine running
Vista with a P4 and it hums along just fine. I also have a Vista laptop
with single P4 processor and it is also fairly fast. My Windows 7 machine
uses an AMD chip and I don't know enough about those to figure out how they
compare in speed to Intel.


If it'll run Vista, it'll certainly run 7, 8 or (better) 8.1.

I've got an HP Mini 2133 (Via C7M, 2Gb, 120Gb). Came with Vista, but
usually ran XP/Slackware now running 8.1 Pro. It's a lot better than Vista.


--

Chris Elvidge
England

On 03/05/2014 03:56 AM, David Kaye wrote:
Beginning in a few days, Microsoft will begin putting up dialog boxes on
Windows XP machines telling customers that support is ending for XP as of
April 8, 2014.

Some people will want continued XP support, which is fine with me given that
XP is fairly bulletproof these days.


Xp is not what I'd call "bulletproof" but I am not convinced that lack
of updates are going to be a real killer. Browsers other than IE will
still be getting updates and so will the virus and malware checkers.
Even MS has extended MSE for over a year.

Within the past few months I worked on a few XP machine that did not
have any updates past SP2 . They did have updated virus checkers and the
systems were quite clean. I also worked on a few fully updated Win7
machines that were so badly infected I needed to perform a clean install.


HOWEVER, rather than get new computers some people (probably many) are going
to want upgrades from XP to Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft is going to make a
2-jump upgrade wizard available (XP directly to 7 or 8, bypassing Vista),
which is unusual because they're known for only issuing 1-jump wizards.
It's also unusual in that in the past the hardware requirements changed so
much over 2 jumps that a 2-jump simply wasn't practical.


I have never seen anything concerning the above. Can you provide a link
that's something other than speculation? To me it's kind of a moot point
as a clean install of Win7 goes quite fast and to reinstall applications
and copy over the data is not a big deal.

My question to the knowing folks here is how much oomph does Windows 7 or 8
really need? Is a P4 dual processor good enough? I have a machine running
Vista with a P4 and it hums along just fine. I also have a Vista laptop
with single P4 processor and it is also fairly fast. My Windows 7 machine
uses an AMD chip and I don't know enough about those to figure out how they
compare in speed to Intel.




I have converted /many/ P-4's from XP to Win7

A dual core P-4 is plenty good and I will consider installing Win7 on
any machine with even a single core P-4 (or AMD) that's 1.8 ghz or
above. For the actual speed of an AMD chip an AMD 6000 runs at 3ghz.
(Fortunately I have a lot of P-4's in my junk box and replace any Celerons)

As to RAM, I recommend at least 2gigs but I have setup some systems with
only 1 or 1.5 gigs. One gig of RAM is a bit meager.


In all cases I turn off visual effects. (Best performance in the control
panel)


Also: For many on-board video cards, there may not be specific Win7
drivers. The "standard VGA" drivers function moderately well if the
machines are not going to be used for gaming or high quality
multi-media. I usually just go ahead and install Win7 and only add a
video card if the on-board chip is unsuitable for the purpose of that
machine.

On Wed, 5 Mar 2014 01:56:02 -0800, "David Kaye"
wrote:

Beginning in a few days, Microsoft will begin putting up dialog boxes on
Windows XP machines telling customers that support is ending for XP as of
April 8, 2014.

Some people will want continued XP support, which is fine with me given that
XP is fairly bulletproof these days.

HOWEVER, rather than get new computers some people (probably many) are going
to want upgrades from XP to Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft is going to make a
2-jump upgrade wizard available (XP directly to 7 or 8, bypassing Vista),
which is unusual because they're known for only issuing 1-jump wizards.
It's also unusual in that in the past the hardware requirements changed so
much over 2 jumps that a 2-jump simply wasn't practical.

My question to the knowing folks here is how much oomph does Windows 7 or 8
really need? Is a P4 dual processor good enough? I have a machine running
Vista with a P4 and it hums along just fine. I also have a Vista laptop
with single P4 processor and it is also fairly fast. My Windows 7 machine
uses an AMD chip and I don't know enough about those to figure out how they
compare in speed to Intel.

My suggestion to an XP user would be to try Linux Mint first. It's
free, so there's nothing to lose by trying it. (Offload all your own
stuff to an external drive first of course, but you'd do that anyway).

If the disk drive connections are SATA, rather than the old IDE
parallel cables, then you have the option of adding a solid state
drive, which will jazz up the performance of any PC more than anything
else you choose to do with it as well. A desktop PC will usually have
room to add the SSD while keeping the old hard drive, so in that case
a 60GB one would be plenty for any operating system (or perhaps two),
and needn't be very expensive. Use the SSD just for the operating
system, and the other drive for saving documents, pictures etc.

If you're not sure whether the PC can run 64 bit software, try the 64
bit version first. You'll just get an error message if it can't, and
no harm will be done, so you can then install the 32 bit version.

If you decide you can't live with Linux, remove the partitions from
the drive (you'll need to use the Linux partitioner, Gparted, to do
that) and try Windows 7. As long as you don't activate it, you'll have
a few days to "try before you buy", as it were. I'd recomment
upgrading the memory to at least 2GB, but if it's the 64 bit version
of Windows the more the merrier. If it works to your satisfaction,
then enter the authentication code and activate it, but if not you've
still got an unregistered copy of Windows 7 to install on that much
faster new PC you're going to build, and you can put Linux back on the
old one and flog it on Ebay. Good luck.

Rod.

On 05/03/2014 4:56 AM, David Kaye wrote:
Beginning in a few days, Microsoft will begin putting up dialog boxes on
Windows XP machines telling customers that support is ending for XP as of
April 8, 2014.

Some people will want continued XP support, which is fine with me given that
XP is fairly bulletproof these days.

HOWEVER, rather than get new computers some people (probably many) are going
to want upgrades from XP to Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft is going to make a
2-jump upgrade wizard available (XP directly to 7 or 8, bypassing Vista),
which is unusual because they're known for only issuing 1-jump wizards.
It's also unusual in that in the past the hardware requirements changed so
much over 2 jumps that a 2-jump simply wasn't practical.

My question to the knowing folks here is how much oomph does Windows 7 or 8
really need? Is a P4 dual processor good enough? I have a machine running
Vista with a P4 and it hums along just fine. I also have a Vista laptop
with single P4 processor and it is also fairly fast. My Windows 7 machine
uses an AMD chip and I don't know enough about those to figure out how they
compare in speed to Intel.

While Windows 7 might require more than XP, it requires less than Vista.
If you have a gigabyte of RAM, Windows 7 will run quite well but you'll
be wishing but better speed. 2GB usually suffices for decent
performance. I used 7 with that much RAM quite comfortably in 2009. As
for the processor itself, the P4 isn't by any means slow. You won't game
with it, you won't want to encode video either but for regular use, I
don't see how you might be uncomfortable.

As for the AMD chips, the older ones use a rating such as 4800+ to give
you an idea of how fast they are. The new ones are generally more
difficult to decipher and you can only rely on benchmarking sites. I'd
suggest you look up the name of your processor in the Control Panel -
System and then go on the web and look for 'processor name and model'
benchmarks. The results should give you an idea of how it stacks up.
--
Silver Slimer
Wikipedia Supporter
Embrace mediocrity. Install GNU/Linux today.

David Kaye said on 3/5/2014 4:56 AM:
Beginning in a few days, Microsoft will begin putting up dialog boxes on
Windows XP machines telling customers that support is ending for XP as of
April 8, 2014.

Some people will want continued XP support, which is fine with me given that
XP is fairly bulletproof these days.

HOWEVER, rather than get new computers some people (probably many) are going
to want upgrades from XP to Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft is going to make a
2-jump upgrade wizard available (XP directly to 7 or 8, bypassing Vista),
which is unusual because they're known for only issuing 1-jump wizards.
It's also unusual in that in the past the hardware requirements changed so
much over 2 jumps that a 2-jump simply wasn't practical.

My question to the knowing folks here is how much oomph does Windows 7 or 8
really need? Is a P4 dual processor good enough? I have a machine running
Vista with a P4 and it hums along just fine. I also have a Vista laptop
with single P4 processor and it is also fairly fast. My Windows 7 machine
uses an AMD chip and I don't know enough about those to figure out how they
compare in speed to Intel.


I've got a P4 2.8Ghz desktop machine and put Win7 on it. Ran fine, a
bit slower of course than other PC's, yes, it's a P4 not intel i3.
Found a better PCI video card, had a AGP and that was useless, and that
improved it. 4G memory, 32bit board.

I do think that Win8 is faster software than win7 but that's a THINK.
I got a Dell laptop with Win7 installed and added Win8 as a play toy and
dual booted. Bought win8 on day one and thought it would be just a toy,
but I like it, and now use it mainstream.

Others have said Linux Mint (16 is my pref). I've found that Mint 16
Cinnamon is dang close to windows. I have it as a 3rd boot option. I
can load it and use it all day and forget that I'm even in Linux until I
think about downloading .exe windows files. But mail, web, music etc
is just like windows. You might have fun with this OS for free.

Win7,Win8,Linux... all are not XP. If you move from XP either of them
are going to be different and you're going to have to be flexible and
understanding. You can do the same things in all OS's, just different
places and different ways.

In eb.com,
Big Al typed:

I've got a P4 2.8Ghz desktop machine and put Win7 on it. Ran fine, a
bit slower of course than other PC's, yes, it's a P4 not intel i3.
Found a better PCI video card, had a AGP and that was useless, and
that improved it. 4G memory, 32bit board.

I do think that Win8 is faster software than win7 but that's a THINK.
I got a Dell laptop with Win7 installed and added Win8 as a play toy
and dual booted. Bought win8 on day one and thought it would be just
a toy, but I like it, and now use it mainstream.

It depends on the machine and how they are setup. As Microsoft learns
tricks to make you believe that the newer one is faster. Like Windows 7
used the trick over Vista and XP to pop up the desktop far faster than
before. But it is still just a trick since it still has a lot of the OS
to load yet while XP and Vista waits until the OS is completely loaded
before the desktop shows.

Windows 8 uses a shortcut they call fast boot. Windows 8 pulls off this
magic by "it only partially shuts down and partially hibernates". So it
isn't really shutting down like earlier versions.

How Windows 8 Hybrid Shutdown / Fast Boot feature works - TechRepublic
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/win...feature-works/

I don't compare different versions by dualboot, but by exact same
hardware running two different versions at the same time. And it is very
easy to compare that way. And I can get Windows 7 to run applications a
tad faster by turning off appearance and Aero features. Windows 8 you
can speed it up by appearance too, but Windows 8 *must* have Aero
enabled. I heard is because Metro depends on it. And you can clearly see
the difference on a very slow machine like a Dell Latitude ST using an
Atom Z670. As any change in performance is very clearly seen with ease.

Others have said Linux Mint (16 is my pref). I've found that Mint 16
Cinnamon is dang close to windows. I have it as a 3rd boot option. I
can load it and use it all day and forget that I'm even in Linux
until I think about downloading .exe windows files. But mail, web,
music etc is just like windows. You might have fun with this OS for
free.

Wow you are lucky! I do tons of stuff under Windows and Linux just
doesn't have the software and drivers to keep up with me. Linux for
example seems to have stuttering problems with WMA and WMV files (and I
have tons of them). And a thing like LibreOffice is about it for Linux.
But I search and replace EOL characters all of the time and LibreOffice
this is a nightmare to do. Under Windows, MS Office, MS Works, and just
about any non-open source word processor can handle this task very easy.
That's just a couple of things.

Win7,Win8,Linux... all are not XP. If you move from XP either of
them are going to be different and you're going to have to be
flexible and understanding. You can do the same things in all OS's,
just different places and different ways.

Not always. For me based on what I can all do.

XP = 100%
7 and 8 = 95%
Linux = 5%

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz - 4GB - Windows XP SP2

Wow you are lucky! I do tons of stuff under Windows and Linux just
doesn't have the software and drivers to keep up with me. Linux for
example seems to have stuttering problems with WMA and WMV files (and I
have tons of them). And a thing like LibreOffice is about it for Linux.
But I search and replace EOL characters all of the time and LibreOffice
this is a nightmare to do. Under Windows, MS Office, MS Works, and just
about any non-open source word processor can handle this task very easy.
That's just a couple of things.

You might try Kingsoft. There is a Linux version
http://wps-community.org/download.html I use it on Windows, never
tried it though on Linux. Word processing is one item I don't do on
Linux.

In eb.com,
Big Al typed:
Wow you are lucky! I do tons of stuff under Windows and Linux just
doesn't have the software and drivers to keep up with me. Linux for
example seems to have stuttering problems with WMA and WMV files
(and I have tons of them). And a thing like LibreOffice is about it
for Linux. But I search and replace EOL characters all of the time
and LibreOffice this is a nightmare to do. Under Windows, MS Office,
MS Works, and just about any non-open source word processor can
handle this task very easy. That's just a couple of things.

You might try Kingsoft. There is a Linux version
http://wps-community.org/download.html I use it on Windows, never
tried it though on Linux. Word processing is one item I don't do on
Linux.

Oh yes, I have it on some of my Windows machines and I also installed it
on my Android. Thanks!

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz - 4GB - Windows XP SP2

On Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:42:39 -0500, Big Al wrote:

Others have said Linux Mint (16 is my pref). I've found that Mint 16
Cinnamon is dang close to windows. I have it as a 3rd boot option. I
can load it and use it all day and forget that I'm even in Linux until I
think about downloading .exe windows files. But mail, web, music etc
is just like windows. You might have fun with this OS for free.

Cinnamon is very polished, but one little thing I don't like is that
the main menu buttons don't have labels next to them, but some
distance away as you hover the mouse over the buttons. I'd naturally
expect labels to be placed next to the things they refer to,
especially the first buttons I'd need to click to open anything. It
may seem trivial to an experienced computer user, but this is exactly
the sort of thing that confuses newcomers.

The Mate version has three different menus you can choose after
installation. You can place all of them on the "launcher" (taskbar)
simultaneously if you like, until you've decided which one you want to
keep. One of them is very similar to the XP menu, and all of them are
clearly labelled. I've seen it stated that Mate makes fewer demands on
the computing hardware, so it might be a better choice for someone
wanting to get a bit more life from an old XP machine.

(It's pronounced "Mah-tey" by the way. Most Youtube presenters don't
seem to know this, almost as if they didn't know how to use Google).

Rod.

Roderick Stewart said on 3/6/2014 12:15 PM:
On Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:42:39 -0500, Big Al wrote:

Others have said Linux Mint (16 is my pref). I've found that Mint 16
Cinnamon is dang close to windows. I have it as a 3rd boot option. I
can load it and use it all day and forget that I'm even in Linux until I
think about downloading .exe windows files. But mail, web, music etc
is just like windows. You might have fun with this OS for free.

Cinnamon is very polished, but one little thing I don't like is that
the main menu buttons don't have labels next to them, but some
distance away as you hover the mouse over the buttons. I'd naturally
expect labels to be placed next to the things they refer to,
especially the first buttons I'd need to click to open anything. It
may seem trivial to an experienced computer user, but this is exactly
the sort of thing that confuses newcomers.

The Mate version has three different menus you can choose after
installation. You can place all of them on the "launcher" (taskbar)
simultaneously if you like, until you've decided which one you want to
keep. One of them is very similar to the XP menu, and all of them are
clearly labelled. I've seen it stated that Mate makes fewer demands on
the computing hardware, so it might be a better choice for someone
wanting to get a bit more life from an old XP machine.

(It's pronounced "Mah-tey" by the way. Most Youtube presenters don't
seem to know this, almost as if they didn't know how to use Google).

Rod.

Ma-Tey. I looked it up, you're right. Thanks, not that it maters
much but I've been mentally pronouncing it as it were my wife. LOL
(And we'll ignore all the puns that go with that statement!).

"philo " wrote

I have never seen anything concerning the above. Can you provide a link
that's something other than speculation? To me it's kind of a moot point
as a clean install of Win7 goes quite fast and to reinstall applications
and copy over the data is not a big deal.

The Microsoft website itself says that they'll have an upgrade wizard that
will upgrade from XP to Windows 7, including programs.

I have converted /many/ P-4's from XP to Win7

A dual core P-4 is plenty good and I will consider installing Win7 on any
machine with even a single core P-4 (or AMD) that's 1.8 ghz or above.

Thanks. That's what I needed to know.

"Roderick Stewart" wrote

My suggestion to an XP user would be to try Linux Mint first. It's
free, so there's nothing to lose by trying it.

These are end users not hobbyist geeks. I like Linux, but it's not ready
for prime time.

David Kaye wrote:
"philo " wrote

I have never seen anything concerning the above. Can you provide a link
that's something other than speculation? To me it's kind of a moot point
as a clean install of Win7 goes quite fast and to reinstall applications
and copy over the data is not a big deal.

The Microsoft website itself says that they'll have an upgrade wizard that
will upgrade from XP to Windows 7, including programs.

I have converted /many/ P-4's from XP to Win7

A dual core P-4 is plenty good and I will consider installing Win7 on any
machine with even a single core P-4 (or AMD) that's 1.8 ghz or above.

Thanks. That's what I needed to know.

I would forget about P4 class machines for Windows 8.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/your-p...with-windows-8

Windows 8.1 adds a requirement for CMPXCHG16b.

Who knows what curve ball they'll add for the next incremental release.

I think Windows 7 is a better bet. My Windows 7 laptop has a single
core processor, and is about as weak as a single core P4 3GHz. And
I can still use it.

Paul

On 03/07/2014 02:08 AM, David Kaye wrote:
"philo " wrote

I have never seen anything concerning the above. Can you provide a link
that's something other than speculation? To me it's kind of a moot point
as a clean install of Win7 goes quite fast and to reinstall applications
and copy over the data is not a big deal.

The Microsoft website itself says that they'll have an upgrade wizard that
will upgrade from XP to Windows 7, including programs.

In other words, you cannot provide a link. I'm going to need proof on
this one.
I know they have a migration wizard but I've never seen an upgrade wizard.



I have converted /many/ P-4's from XP to Win7

A dual core P-4 is plenty good and I will consider installing Win7 on any
machine with even a single core P-4 (or AMD) that's 1.8 ghz or above.

Thanks. That's what I needed to know.



You are welcome, P4 should be fine.