Advice Requested on Life Expectancy of a PC Windows System

[Dave Woyciesjes]

On 06/30/2015 11:05 AM, Fred Cisin wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Jun 2015, Dave Woyciesjes wrote:
>>     I don't think this qualifies as answers persay, but more just data
>> points really...
>>     I have successfully installed & run Win7 x86 & x64 on Dell
>> Latitude D620, D630, D820 & D830. Not sure on the age, but they gotta
>> be getting on to around 7 years. The RAM they have varies between 2GB
>> & 4GB.
>>     I have also installed Win8 x64 on a Latitude D830, then proceeded
>> to swap that drive into a D620. Yesterday, I just "upgraded" a D820
>> from WIn7x64 to Win10 x64 preview; 3GB RAM, we'll see how that goes...
>>     In other words, you should not be using WinXP anymore unless you
>> have an app that just won't work with Win7.
>
> Why not??!?

	Fair question, easy answer. Security. Unless it's air-gapped, I 
wouldn't put anything sensitive on WinXP. Every month, we are finding 
out just how much WinXP is like swiss cheese.

> Why do the experts advocate not using something that had been working?

	Personally, I find Win7 runs about a fast as WinXP. Throw in 
compatibility with newer stuff (comes in handy when taking a break from 
the classics to deal with items from this decade, er, century....

> The fact that you CAN "upgrade", doesn't seem to imply that you SHOULD.

	Agreed. But RAM & HDD upgrades will improve performance.

>> In that case, ditch the program or run  in a VM.
 >
 >
 >
> Why?

	I'd run only that one application in the WinXP VM. Everything else I 
would do in the Win7/Linux/Unix/Mac host which is likely to be much more 
secure. And you get better portability.

> If the hardware is becoming too unreliable, . . .
> If you need some sort of unavailable support, . . .
>
> Otherwise, WHY change?

	It's subjective, personal opinion, really when it comes down to it.


-- 
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/
--- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/
Registered Linux user number 464583

"Computers have lots of memory but no imagination."
"The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back."
- from some guy on the internet.