XP Pro or Windows 7 ?

Quote from chisel:

No RAID here. I know backup is not performance intensive but I was concerned/not knowledgeable about this scenario:

If I run SSD for main drive and clone to spinner: if SSD fails and I use spinner for main drive, can I then clone spinner to new SSD with no problems and then use new SSD for main drive? I have done this with spinners only but didn't know if there would be any problems with SSD to HDD to SSD.

They clone back-and-forth OK. Only issue I can think of is "partition alignment" if using XP (supposed to be automatic in W7).. and even if you're missing that, it's not a killer.
 
Quote from Scataphagos:

What I meant was having "enough". If you have only 1 backup source, what happens if it fails? (You're likely not to know it failed until you need it... and then it's too late.) If you have 2 sources, what happens if both fail? You always want to have "one more than you end up needing"... of course you only *know* what you needed in retrospect... and then it might be too late.

ANY backup is better than none (even System Restore). Two backups are better than one, etc.

"(You're likely not to know it failed until you need it... and then it's too late.)"

Very good point. Thanks.
 
Quote from colonial dr:

Good job, that is a nice setup. I didn't mean to attack personally regarding 10 year old software, I have plenty of legacy software from the 90s- that is great fwiw. I usually get annoyed over people still using XP because they dislike 7 for no reason. I use 7 for trading and find it to have all of the great futures XP has that Vista did not. 7 is rock stable, a better UI (you can use the taskbar still if you really want to, just switch it back) and improvements underneath with the installers, better (less annoying) UAC prompt, superior networking troubleshooting and dx11. I do not intend upgrading to 8 for my trading workstation.

Even with an antivirus, XP is a security problem imo. If you are only using a software antivirus, a good hacker can still break in. Allot of people do not know that the time an antivirus takes to detect a threat is important, because the antivirus can't be useful if a threat attacks before an antivirus reacts. Like trading, it can only be milliseconds. This is why institutions usually use hardware firewalls as well, such as the great from Barracuda. If you are on a private network, obviously it's not that big of a deal. Mike

you have to understand ET bunch..most of us are old folks,who hate any changes. even changes on our Pc's desktop. :p
plus-like i said above-trading is a business and like in any other business-you have to keep your expenses low. XP works with your software? so keep it running. otherwise you might get into endless loop of changing\updating software,hardware,network ..whatever..that never going to end. everyday there is something new. i might like it,but it doesn't mean i need it. plus-everything is getting more and more complicated. switching might be fine,but learning where everything is and how it works-it's a pain in the ass and time consuming exercise. like i said about security-i know every single process in XP. all i have to do is look into task bar,if i have suspicion,that something is not working right. on top of that-i have 4 PC's running,each for separate system\account. changing OS's on all of them not only time consuming,but also expensive(at least to me).

i never understand lines around wireless service boutiques..
wft people do? why you have to change your phone every few months? i got mine for free,works fine and delivers exactly what it suppose to-basic phone call. i have it for 5 years,i'm happy with it.. that's all i need. same rule i apply to my trading business. i still coding on VB6,even when i have all latest database and .net top of the line edition soft. for very simple reason-it would take for me probably a year or so to learn .net and to convert and test all my soft that i wrote. so..do you want trade and make money or waste your time to get your s**t up to date(for no reason whatsoever)?
 
Quote from Scataphagos:

Ask WinstonTJ. He says you can disable some stuff in W8 to make it look/work exactly like W7.

Good to know thank you, will be addressing it later after market closes.
 
Drives finally dropped enough that I bought some for my latest machine. 2x1T SATA 3 7k/64gb RAID 0, and figured I might as well try Win8. Set it up last night.

I like it so far. It's really fast (not sure how much is from my 12gb/sec RAID and how much is pure OS).

I was running Win7 and liked that as well. No way would I run XP again if I had a choice.
 
Quote from WinstonTJ:

So many closed-minded critics in this thread. Must all be republicans and not like "change" :p

Or people who don't want change for just change sake. When support for XP stops in 2014, I'll be switching to W7. W8 is a horrible OS for PCs, the ridiculous tablet interface makes no sense and is unusable and a waste of time, operations that before required 2 clicks require at least 4 in W8 - if that is "change", I don't want it.
Seems like MSFT does one okay OS followed by one dysfunctional OS.
 
Quote from NoBias:Metro is a bit of a nuisance at first, but I am sure I will be able to disable it after a little googling...

One option I am looking into to regain the Start button and Windows 7 feel

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-8-classic-shell.html

You do know that the start button brings up the metro screen which is essentially a very large start menu. You can also customize this to the point that you can make icons large or small, group them, show certain ones (or not) and also customize the look and feel of it.

When I first installed the DP (Developer's Preview) version about a year ago, maybe more, the very first thing I did was get rid of Metro. it's easy (Google it).

Today, I'd say that it's worth the aggravation to learn how to use it. It's much easier once you get used to it.

The only other thing I'll say about W8 is about the apps - sometimes it's a pain to learn how to close them or exit out of them so they don't always run in the background. If you click on them and then hit Alt+F4 will close the Window. Alt+F4 will close any open window/application (that is active) going all the way back to the days of XP.

Open Internet Explorer and then once your home screen comes up press Alt+F4. Same thing will happen on W8 when a metro app screen comes up that you want to close but don't yet know how.

Quote from d08:

Or people who don't want change for just change sake. When support for XP stops in 2014, I'll be switching to W7. W8 is a horrible OS for PCs, the ridiculous tablet interface makes no sense and is unusable and a waste of time, operations that before required 2 clicks require at least 4 in W8 - if that is "change", I don't want it.
Seems like MSFT does one okay OS followed by one dysfunctional OS.

I was joking about the politics thing but I'm going to have to disagree about W8. Once you get used to it and give it enough time that you learn how to customize it, the metro screen is actually going to be faster and easier than the old start menu. It's going to be less clicks, not more.

Windows 7 isn't a bad OS at all. It's leaps and bounds better than XP and Vista - but with W8 they really got a lot of things right that either should have been incorporated into W7 or that the market (people) weren't yet ready to see (like all the bitching about Metro).

Just for reference that screen that everyone hates (the new start menu) is even included on the new Windows Server 2012 operating system, both Standard and Datacenter editions. It's not just a home/tablet "looks nice" screen. It's actually productive. (in my opinion of course)
 
WinstonTj, would you make the same recommendation if the proposed OS is going to be running *inside* a VM? Host is OSX running VMware.
 
Quote from chisel:

Well shoot, I'm not liking what you all are saying :) My main trading computer running XP x86 is 4 y.o. and seems like it's in need of a reformat. I was planning to install W7 x64 over the holidays if I can pick up a SSD on sale next week. Maybe W7 won't seem too slow with a SSD.

You will need more than just an SSD to go to Win7 you need a faster processor and a whole lot more RAM. Don't do it on a puter built for XP bad idea. By the time you upgrade you could just buy a Win 8 machine make sure it's backwards compatible to Win 7, check the drivers, and go that route. I just found out the hard way my Win 8 machine has no drivers for Win 7 I am screwed.
 
Quote from Bob111:

once again-that's your(customer) problem,isn't? take a pick on probably thousands of different antiviruses\suites-they all will work with XP.
as for me-trading is a business. that's why my trading PC's sitting on separate cascaded network and NO browsing is allowed. good luck breaking thru it.

That really is the way to go white list the apps for trading computer only then there is no need for antivirus at all and put yourself behind a router with NAT and SPI firewall good to go.

I run plenty of security on my computer on the XP machine with light apps running in the background not that Norton junk and they take very little resources because I have watched them in task bar for enough time to know that.

And let's get real folks. Anyone can be hacked it's like locks on doors they just keep the honest people honest. Do you really think you are a big enough swinging dick to warrant someone hacking you really. Why would a hacker or a group target you when it makes much more sense to target a bank, a credit processing bureau, the DOD, etc. You are not worth their time. The black hats I know wouldn't even waste their time with anyone on this board, including me. Reward vs. risk just like trading.
 
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