[Si_Crewe]

I often find myself working with older bits of kit which were never designed to work with W7 and so I've finally given in and reinstalled XP on one of my laptops to provide better compatibility with older stuff.

I don't need advice about anything specifically related to the stuff I need it for.

I was just wondering if anybody has any suggestions or advice about what to do with XP to make it as easy to live with as possible in the modern world.

I've just discovered, for example, that IE9 won't work with XP and that IE8 is much, much, slower than IE9 so it looks like I'll be using Chrome rather than IE8.

Other than that, the laptop just runs MS Office for work and I use VLC Player to watch DVDs and WMP for listening to music.

[max99]

There's nothing special you need to do. Just keep everything up-to-date and install some decent AV. If you're installing loads of stuff or doing lots of fiddling, take an image of the hard drive so that you can quickly restore when things get screwed up.

[LION8TIGER]

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

I was just wondering if anybody has any suggestions or advice about what to do with XP to make it as easy to live with as possible in the modern world.
.

Make sure it has 2GB ram as a minimum and stop programs from starting up using msconfig or Ccleaner (my preferred choice) to disable startup programs. I only have 2 programs staring on my PC which are the Antivirus and a third party firewall.On the pc I'm using (XP) it has an old P4 and 2 GB ram but gets by fine for what I need it for. It's noisy (fans) when doing anything intensive but at least I know it is being cooled down properly (big fan in the Dell)
The P4's are known for running hot but my daughter has a later P4 also a dell, same ram and you don't here much out of that, it would take something like Autocad + streaming Youtube to make the fans spin faster, a bit.

As far as the modern World is concerned, I can live with it fine but will have to go to 7 or 8 in the next 18 months. I would be grand and happy to stay right here on XP , glad I never got Vista but 7 looks nice enough.

[Si_Crewe]

One thing I've realised, and I don't know the correct term for it so I'll have to explain...

You click "Start" and your start menu opens and there's a bunch of applications in the start menu.

In W7 a lot of app's (Word, Excel, IE9, Chrome etc) have a pop-out sub-menu which will give you an opportunity to do something useful.
When you hover the mouse over the MS Word icon, for example, you get a pop-out menu which lists all the documents you've recently opened so you can select them again or, with IE9, you get a pop-out menu which lists a bunch of websites you've used so you can go straight to them.

Anybody know whether there's a way to impliment that function in XP?
I know it's only a small thing but it's a real time-saver and it gets to be a PITA not having it in XP.

I assume it's a feature of W7 rather than the app's themselves since Chrome and Office 2003 do it in W7 but they don't do it in XP.

Also, FWIW, I always said that my pokey old laptop was just as fast running W7 as it was with XP (and I maintain that's true) but I'm finding my battery seems to last longer now I'm running XP again so I guess W7 was really flogging my CPU/HDD to get it to work properly whereas the hardware isn't under so much strain with XP.

[Gary Brenton]

I have recently brought a new PC with windows 7 and it is the worst operating system I have ever used.

I have an XP disc and I am tempted to re-install XP as it is more stable.

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory...whearas windows 7 needs 2 gig to run.

[max99]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

There is something very wrong with the computer. Either restore to factory settings and see if things improve, or just return it to the store.

It's really not a good idea to write-off an entire Operating System based upon a single experience.

[chappie]

you could try using palemoon instead of chrome,works for me on XP

[Stig]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I have recently brought a new PC with windows 7 and it is the worst operating system I have ever used.

I have an XP disc and I am tempted to re-install XP as it is more stable.

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory...whearas windows 7 needs 2 gig to run.

A clean install of Windows 7 would have been a more sensible option.

[KieranDS]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I have recently brought a new PC with windows 7 and it is the worst operating system I have ever used.

I have an XP disc and I am tempted to re-install XP as it is more stable.

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory...whearas windows 7 needs 2 gig to run.

That's strange. I've used it since 2009 and never had any problems.

[JeffG1]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory

Not any more, it can't. And I agree with the previous comments. I have never seen anyone complain about Windows 7 before - there is obviously something wrong with your computer or the installation.

Anyway, I don't see how your comment about memory size is relevant - the new PC would have adequate memory to run the OS that's installed on it.

(Shouldn't this have been a new thread?)

[noise747]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I have recently brought a new PC with windows 7 and it is the worst operating system I have ever used.

I have an XP disc and I am tempted to re-install XP as it is more stable.

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory...whearas windows 7 needs 2 gig to run.

Xp would crawl on 512MB of memory., I certainly would not say run. My laptop had 5112 when I first had it with Xp and it was pretty slow, updated it to 1Gb and it was better.

If windows 7 crashes that often then you got a problem with your computer or your Windows 7 disk. running windows 7 or any modern OS on 512MB of memory is crazy. As much as I liked XP, it is now over 10 years old and way out of date.

The only problem I had with Windows 7 is when I had some faulty memory.

vista I can understand, that was awful, but not windows 7

[noise747]

To be honest giving internet Exploder a wide-birth is the best thing to do anyway. Go for chrome or a chrome clone like SRware iron or Comodo Dragon. Firefox and clones like Palemoon is also far better than IE.

Security wise most security software will still work with Xp, they be stupid not to as there are still a lot of XP machines out there.

I just put XP back on my laptop as a second boot option as i got linux on for the first and got AVG on it and Iron, office suite wise I have got Libre Office, free and does the job for many people.

[JeffG1]

Originally Posted by noise747

office suite wise I have got Libre Office, free and does the job for many people.

At the risk of going off-topic, I never managed to get Libre Office to print the address on a DL envelope in the right place. MS Word just seems to work.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by JeffG1

At the risk of going off-topic, I never managed to get Libre Office to print the address on a DL envelope in the right place. MS Word just seems to work.

i have, but it takes some working out. Ms office is too expensive to be honest just to write a few letters. I got office 2000 but it don't work too well on windows 7, the newer version of Office use that silly ribbon menu system.

Libre office is fine for the majority of people, don't take up the resources that office seems to, is free and works on XP.

See, i knew we would get back on topic, kind off

[Superwomble]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I have recently brought a new PC with windows 7 and it is the worst operating system I have ever used.

I have an XP disc and I am tempted to re-install XP as it is more stable.

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory...whearas windows 7 needs 2 gig to run.

Have to say Gary you are not the only one. I have been really disappointed with W7 especially as I waited at least two years after its release before buying and paid for what should be the Rolls-Royce edition, ultimate retail, at the Rolls-Royce price.

Freezes on load occasionally, slow loads, crashes, difficulties with program permissions and unclear paths to solve them, some programs which ran stably on XP dont run on W7 even in XP mode or crash the entire operating system, RAID errors causing repeated rebuilds slowing the entire system for hours, BSODs or the dreaded 'This program has been terminated. We are sorry if you have lost some data' (or words to that effect) box.
Granted it doesnt seem to happen every other day like it used to, only about once a fortnight or so now, but...

None of these happened on XP, not for months on end, and if anything did start to go wrong, a quick clean reinstall (which I have tried several times with W7) would sort it.

[Desolate one]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I have recently brought a new PC with windows 7 and it is the worst operating system I have ever used.

I have an XP disc and I am tempted to re-install XP as it is more stable.

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory...whearas windows 7 needs 2 gig to run.

Gary i would recover from the recovery partition to eliminate a software issue if brand new and if issues persist then return to vendor for replacement or refund.

Si crewe you do know mainstream support has ended for XP so microsoft wont' be offering updates to patch any vunerbilities a major concern you may wish to consider when downgrading.

[neo_wales]

Originally Posted by Gary Brenton

I have recently brought a new PC with windows 7 and it is the worst operating system I have ever used.

I have an XP disc and I am tempted to re-install XP as it is more stable.

Windows 7 constantly crashes/ freezes and is often very slow at loading.

XP can run fine on just a 512 ram of memory...whearas windows 7 needs 2 gig to run.

This is a wind up post I'm sure lol..XP more stable than 7 If its crashing and freezing you have a problem, get it sorted and forget XP...move on.

[s2k]

Originally Posted by Desolate one

Si crewe you do know mainstream support has ended for XP so microsoft wont' be offering updates to patch any vunerbilities a major concern you may wish to consider when downgrading.

Security vulnerabilities are covered in extended support which goes up until April 2014 providing you have SP3.

Lack of mainstream support basically means no new functionality than what is already available.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by Desolate one

Gary i would recover from the recovery partition to eliminate a software issue if brand new and if issues persist then return to vendor for replacement or refund.

Si crewe you do know mainstream support has ended for XP so microsoft wont' be offering updates to patch any vunerbilities a major concern you may wish to consider when downgrading.

i know a few people who got Xp on their computer and is going to keep with it for a while, security affects all Operating systems and they all got their problems. I expect there are many in windows 7 and windows 8 for that matter that will never be patched.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by s2k

Security vulnerabilities are covered in extended support which goes up until April 2014 providing you have SP3.

Lack of mainstream support basically means no new functionality than what is already available.

There you go, so just under 2 years. Maybe Ms will lose their grip by then and Linux may get a good hold. I can dream.

[Si_Crewe]

Originally Posted by Desolate one

Si crewe you do know mainstream support has ended for XP so microsoft wont' be offering updates to patch any vunerbilities a major concern you may wish to consider when downgrading.

Yeah, it's not really an issue.

The whole point of doing it is to give me a machine that has backward compatibility.
As long as I can run MS Office and surf the interweb I'm happy.

Kinda raises an interesting (sort of) point though....

I work in an industry where the equipment is designed to have a 50 year lifespan, at least.

As technology has advanced, it's become common to have machinery which can be hooked up to a PC to be configured or serviced or whatever.

Trouble is that although these companies are still building stuff that can physically work for 50-odd years they're providing it with software designed to work with the current OS and then never bothering to update it.

As a result, I'm having to muck about with all sorts of stuff which really isn't that old, made in the late 1990's, and all the bloody software is designed to run on W95 and the companies have never bothered updating it.

[noise747]

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

Yeah, it's not really an issue.

The whole point of doing it is to give me a machine that has backward compatibility.
As long as I can run MS Office and surf the interweb I'm happy.

Kinda raises an interesting (sort of) point though....

I work in an industry where the equipment is designed to have a 50 year lifespan, at least.

As technology has advanced, it's become common to have machinery which can be hooked up to a PC to be configured or serviced or whatever.

Trouble is that although these companies are still building stuff that can physically work for 50-odd years they're providing it with software designed to work with the current OS and then never bothering to update it.

As a result, I'm having to muck about with all sorts of stuff which really isn't that old, made in the late 1990's, and all the bloody software is designed to run on W95 and the companies have never bothered updating it.

That sounds about right, a mate of mine have a plotter that will only work with 95/98. not even sure if you can get plotters these days.

[Si_Crewe]

Quick update...

Having reinstalled XP on my laptop (and then manually downloading and installing SP3) I haven't been pestered about any updates at all... until today.

Suddenly got a message telling me there was one update available.
Installed the one update which was a package installer.
Then got another message saying there were two hundred and seventeen important updates to install.

Seems a bit weird that, between them, my laptop and the XP update server should take 6 weeks to decide to give me all the available updates for XP SP3.

[Rodney McKay]

I like XP, Windoze 7 is OK but I really don't like the interface and even installed a 3rd party app to give me the XP menus screen.

[squack]

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

Quick update...

Having reinstalled XP on my laptop (and then manually downloading and installing SP3) I haven't been pestered about any updates at all... until today.

Suddenly got a message telling me there was one update available.
Installed the one update which was a package installer.
Then got another message saying there were two hundred and seventeen important updates to install.

Seems a bit weird that, between them, my laptop and the XP update server should take 6 weeks to decide to give me all the available updates for XP SP3.

The one update was probably for windows update itself, that's why the 'old' updater didn't find any updates.
The first thing I tend to do when I do a clean reinstall is update windows update to microsoft update which includes patches for other windows programmes & office. That gets the updater up to the most recent version straight off.