Dante Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 I've wiped quite a few computers in my day and re-installed all, for a variety of reasons. My advice, before doing so, download all the drivers for all the various components first. Then copy them to a CD or USB stick. Actually, I would do this for any computer I owned. The easiest way to make sure you get everything back up the way it was is to go to the My Devices and double check all the hardware and drivers. In the few times I haven't been able to do that. I just google the laptop brand and model and can usually find all the drivers that are supposed to be installed in short order. So, its still just about as easy. So, I'd say getting everything to work properly on a laptop with a new OS install is usually pretty easy. Worst case scenario, it may take you a day to do it if some of the hardware is atypical to that model. Just a little planning goes a long way. When I reinstall, I just put all the drivers, saved games, profiles, docs etc on 2nd hard drive. Same thing. I also reinstall drivers in this order: 1) Mobo drivers/chipset 2) Direct X 3) Vid card drivers 4) Audio drivers(if a add on card). 5) Mouse drivers. After that all other things in no particular order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuckincincy Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 I've read bits and pieces about it. Several have said that the virtual xp emulation (which evidently has certain memory requirements above and beyond) is so-so. Win 7 is 64 bit - so if you have 16-bit DOS apps to use, like I do, you are SOL. I guess that was the case with 64-bit xp, too...dunno. Can't say I've spent much time investigating about win7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC-Bills Posted October 30, 2009 Share Posted October 30, 2009 I've read bits and pieces about it. Several have said that the virtual xp emulation (which evidently has certain memory requirements above and beyond) is so-so. Win 7 is 64 bit - so if you have 16-bit DOS apps to use, like I do, you are SOL. I guess that was the case with 64-bit xp, too...dunno. Can't say I've spent much time investigating about win7. Win7 also comes in a 32bit edition. Both DVD's are included in the retail packages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 Okay...ran into my first brick wall with Win7. My USB audio interface won't work. No drivers available. Called Tascam the company that makes the device and they said since my unit is out of production (a whole 3 years old...ancient!) they won't bother making a Win7 driver for it. Great, now I have to spend another $100 for a new interface...assuming any of the companies made them Win7 compatible. I mean Windows sure sprang a big surprise on Tascam. Who knew Windows was coming out with a new OS? PTR Okay...so even though I like Win7 I took the laptop back and got an Asus netbook that runs XP Home. Why? Becuase none of my damn peripherals, the ones I need to run my business, will run on Win7. XP emulation? Fine if you have software. Hit or miss when plugging in USB plug-n-play devices. (Tascam told me there would be no Win7 driver for my out-of-production audio interface.) I figured this would be my last chance to own a new XP machine and I will just plan on upgrading everything in a year or two. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 I've read bits and pieces about it. Several have said that the virtual xp emulation (which evidently has certain memory requirements above and beyond) is so-so. Win 7 is 64 bit - so if you have 16-bit DOS apps to use, like I do, you are SOL. I guess that was the case with 64-bit xp, too...dunno. Can't say I've spent much time investigating about win7. Actually, you can set the emulation VM up to run everything back to DOS, as well as Linux. And I would not be surprised if some uber-nerd already has OS-X running on the Win7 VM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 Just a little planning goes a long way. When I reinstall, I just put all the drivers, saved games, profiles, docs etc on 2nd hard drive. Same thing. I also reinstall drivers in this order: 1) Mobo drivers/chipset 2) Direct X 3) Vid card drivers 4) Audio drivers(if a add on card). 5) Mouse drivers. After that all other things in no particular order. I just put in a new hard drive, and stick the old one in a USB enclosure. Nice thing about that, too, is that more recent machines will boot from USB...so I can effectively always boot up the old OS install if I really need to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullim4 Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 Personal opinion hat on... again, personal opinion only here... these do not in any way, shape, or form, represent opinions of the company that I work for. As a software developer, back compat just plain sucks. It stresses test organizations so hard it's unbelieveable - test case matrices can triple in size, configs that need to be tested get huge (in the case of non-O/S software, we're talking things like x86, x64, WoW, different O/Ses, etc), side-by-side configurations are costly, etc. It is impossible to hit everything. Developers hate it because it creates spaghetti code and forces them to maintain ancient codepaths that see little code coverage. Program managers hate it because it limits the development of new features. And then after all that work, someone will complain that their scenarios don't work and requests a QFE. Without question, it is the most un-fun part of development. And really, in the end it's the customer that suffers because perf is what usually suffers. Back compat comes with a price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fezmid Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 Personal opinion hat on... again, personal opinion only here... these do not in any way, shape, or form, represent opinions of the company that I work for. Nice post. That's not opinion, it's fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC-Bills Posted October 31, 2009 Share Posted October 31, 2009 Personal opinion hat on... again, personal opinion only here... these do not in any way, shape, or form, represent opinions of the company that I work for. As a software developer, back compat just plain sucks. It stresses test organizations so hard it's unbelieveable - test case matrices can triple in size, configs that need to be tested get huge (in the case of non-O/S software, we're talking things like x86, x64, WoW, different O/Ses, etc), side-by-side configurations are costly, etc. It is impossible to hit everything. Developers hate it because it creates spaghetti code and forces them to maintain ancient codepaths that see little code coverage. Program managers hate it because it limits the development of new features. And then after all that work, someone will complain that their scenarios don't work and requests a QFE. Without question, it is the most un-fun part of development. And really, in the end it's the customer that suffers because perf is what usually suffers. Back compat comes with a price. Very good post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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