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Kev Williams
07-29-2017, 2:38 PM
short version: (best I can ;) )

I cannot use anything newer than win7 to run 90% of my work and office machines and/or software.
I've been using XP forever, just recently found a pop email program that will work on win7, that was one big hurdle.
Next hurdle is, the good win7 I had committed suicide immediately after morphing it into place of my 999% completely useless win8 (the 1% use came from running an XP virtual machine, but that was short lived)
I'm now using a laptop win7 Ultimate 32 bit with only a 2-core/4-gig setup, which isn't enough horsepower.

SO- I have the win8, which is an HP Pavillion 500, 4 core, 8-gig setup with a 1T hard drive. I've removed everything of importance off of it, and I'm ready to reformat the drive and install win7 on the thing.

So I go to the HP website, and not only do they not have downloadable drivers for a win7 OS, they don't have any for the win8 that it came with---!?!

And I'm also reading MS has 'fixed' the BIOS in many machines to NOT let users fully free up drive space even during a format, so as to prevent the installation of a backwards OS... I've disliked MS for years, but who do they think they are, sabotaging computers before they're ever sold? http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/orelse.gif--and I don't have much good to say about HP either...

So this is basically just a rant, unless someone can share with me any info on the BIOS situation and maybe someplace online to get the drivers I'll need if I try reformatting and installing win7 on what is proving to be nothing more than a $500 square soupcan useful only as target practice...

Jim Koepke
07-29-2017, 2:59 PM
I know how you feel. Mine is on the other side of the OSes. My old Macintosh still runs fine, it is just a lot of the security measures of financial institutions do not work with a 9 year old machine. The newer Mac OSes will not run on my old machine.

For years I have lamented the changing of useful features I have grown accustomed to using.

Oh well, keep marching forward and don't invest a whole lot of money in the best computer available as it will soon be obsolete.

jtk

Mike Henderson
07-29-2017, 3:10 PM
The reason you won't see drivers for many printers and scanners for Win 8 and above is that the drivers are in the operating system already. If you have an old device and they did not do a driver for it in the newer operating systems, you're out of luck. Scanners, especially, were left out in the cold.

But I'd look the opposite way than you are now. I'd figure out how to get modern versions of the software I use so that I can use an up to date operating system.

If the software you're using does not have support for Win 10, for example, that tells you that the software has not been kept up to date and it's time to move to another product.

Regarding being able to partition a drive, I know you can do it in Win 8 or Win 10 because I've done it. In Win 10 you can do it in "disk management", if I recall correctly. I haven't done it in a while so I'd have to review things. Search the Internet and you'll find instructions on how to do it. There are also third party programs that will do it. Again, do an Internet search and you'll find them.

Mike

Curt Harms
07-29-2017, 3:30 PM
How about buying a motherboard and building your own? Every motherboard I've purchased (none since Win8 came out) came with drivers for Windows, I'd expect Windows 7 drivers available. You can check the manufacturer's site (Gigabyte, MSI, Asrock, Asus etc. etc.) to be sure required drivers are available. Windows 7 is extended support 'til Jan. 2020. For a random check I went to Newegg and clicked on the first Intel motherboard that came up, Gigabyte GA-250M-SD3H then checked on downloads. There seems to be full Win7 support as far as drivers go.

Kev Williams
07-29-2017, 4:27 PM
Either building one or getting a good used win7 computer is looking like the only option. Guess I'll restore the win8 to original and see if someone want's to buy it and put win10 on it. I flat refuse to ever have a win10 computer, I simply will not give Bill Gates the keys to my house. And, neither win8 or 10 will run any of my 14 laser and engraving machines, my '05 Quickbooks or my '08 HP 3050 Laserjet office printer. Everyone tells me I should "move forward". First one to donate the $200,000+ it will take to replace my machinery and office equipment will get the pleasure of watching me move forward. Otherwise, I'll continue making pretty good money using perfectly good working long-ago-paid-for-no-overhead machinery and software, run by old decrepit Win98, XP and 7 computers, thank you! :D

(I SAID this was rant) ;)

Alan Caro
07-31-2017, 2:43 PM
Kev Williams,

My approach in the last ten years for systems used in 3D CAD, rendering, and graphic design has been to buy used workstations- Dell and HP. These are designed to run under heavy load for very long periods of time and they have the benefit of OEM operating systems. If you buy a 2011 Dell Precision T3500, you can have a free copy of the Windows 7 Professional 64-bit that was sold with it new. When I bought a used T5500, Dell sent me an original software installation disk free of charge.

Depending on your budget, I'd suggest: at the lower cost end, I really like the Dell Precision T3500: These use the full range OF LGA1366 Xeons: 4-core up to 3.6 /3.86GHz and 6-cores @ 3.47 /3.73GHz. In 2015 I bought a working T3500 for $53 and upgraded to a Xeon X5677 4-core 3.47 /3.73GHz - $55 to me, $1,665 new, 12GB of RAM (DDR3-1333 ECC) and swapped in the 15,000 RPM SAS drives from a Dell Precision T5500 that I upgraded. The T5500 cost $171 and that eventually had two Xeon X5680's - 6C@ 3,33/3.6 and 48GB of RAM. How about:

Dell Precision T3500 Xeon W3565 3.2GHz Quad Core 12gb 320gb DVD-RW Win7 Pro (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T3500-Xeon-W3565-3-2GHz-Quad-Core-12gb-320gb-DVD-RW-Win7-Pro-/292194141775?hash=item440820c64f:g:wv8AAOSwDNdV2iK F) > Buy It Now $129.99

A friend of mine runs his CNC router and an 80W laser off of free Precision T3400's running XP Pro.

Besides Dell Precision Tx500's, the other one that's been very good are HP z-series/ I've had 2X z420 and 2X z620. These use Xeon E5 1600 and 2600 series and improve on the T3500 be having SATA II drives and USB 3. You can buy a z420 with the very good Xeon E5-1620 3.6/3.8GHz for $250 or so as going concern- or it may need a drive or graphics card depending on the demands of use. The HP z-series in particular are very quiet if that matters in your use. Of all the used workstations. I've bought - eight or so, I've never had a single component failure not any data loss. How about:

HP Z420 Workstation XEON E5-1620 3.7GHz 16GB 1TB HDD NO OS (http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z420-Workstation-XEON-E5-1620-3-7GHz-16GB-1TB-HDD-NO-OS-/152639133517?epid=1601913931&hash=item238a00574d:g:O3sAAOSw11ZZeN1T) > $250 < (The OS can be obtained free on this one too)

These are only examples: I've only spent about two minutes searching and haven't studied the listings closely or know anything about the sellers.

My current main system is an HP z620 that I assembled from a combination of new and used parts: new case/ chassis, processor (Xeon E5-1680 v2 8C running at 4.3GHz), and GPU (Quadro P2000 5GB) / used: motherboard, RAM- 64GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered, HP Z Turbo Drive PCI M.2 256GB, + Intel 730 480GB SSD. The cost was probably about 1/8 of the cost new.

If you'd like some exact suggestions- current ebahhh auctions, and/or upgrades to same, send me a PM.

Alan Caro

Mike Circo
07-31-2017, 3:17 PM
I've had great luck ordering refurbished "business level" stuff from NewEgg.com. They currently have a lot of stuff, desktops and laptops, with Windows 7 already loaded.
The business level stuff is far more durable than normal consumer products. I got my mom a Lenovo desktop that's been a dream for her (Windows 7). I got a HP laptop for myself dirt cheap (no OS) and put Linux on it. It has been a reliable workhorse for two years.

Windows 7 can still be had in the dark corners of the internet.

Greg R Bradley
07-31-2017, 3:38 PM
You aren't looking at Computers from HP, you are looking at Consumer Electronics also known as the garbage sold by Best Buy, etc. Going to a place that sells Pavillions is like going to the BORG to buy lumber.

Consumer Electronics is marketed to home users and "small business", which must mean 1-2 computer home office or something. They are low end junk with a SINGLE operating system supported and lots of other reasons to not buy them.

Order a new business computer from HP and make sure it isn't one of the few that have Win10 installed. I buy several a month.

Go to HP.com and look at business computers. You will find MOSTLY Win7 installed, although there is a LOT more Win10 units than there were even 6 months ago. Now if you are limited to Win 7 32bit, that is a different story.

Here is an example of the newest ultra compact units like the latest ones I purchased: http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/business-solutions/hp-z2-mini-workstation--1#!&tab=vao
5 standard units, without customization, and only one that ships with anything other than Win7.

Jerome Stanek
07-31-2017, 4:09 PM
I have bought a few from Walmart.com you can search by OS

John Stankus
07-31-2017, 5:06 PM
One source for used machines (laptops and desktops) is dell financial services. Just google dfs dell. They sell the lease return commercial grade dell set ups. Every so often they have half price sales.

paul cottingham
07-31-2017, 5:16 PM
This is an excellent argument for using open source software.

glenn bradley
07-31-2017, 5:34 PM
As long as the systems are run locally only (no internet access) you really don't care about virus protection or current program capability. Pick up some older machines or newer "consumer electronics" computers like those sold at best Buy or Costco. Load your valid Windows 7 OS onto them and network them locally (or don't unless there is a reason to).

On university campuses I often run into issues with researchers who are operating equipment that was purchased via a grant without ongoing funds. This means the "machine", whatever it is, is controlled by some no-longer-supported program running on Windows 98 or some such. This is not a problem as long as the professor doesn't also want to surf the web or check his email on his (outdated but, functional) dedicated work machine.

This does mean you will have to carry some software from a current networked machine to your shop via portable storage now and again. You will continue to be plagued by a world that focuses on Windows for a lot of things and will not wait around for you to keep current. I find the best methods for me are to be OS agnostic. I primarily use a linux machine for the web, Windows machines for Pandora, the wife's Facebook and TV, Mac OS for things that work auto-magically and don't require getting too deep into the machine.

If your machines use software that runs on Windows, you are pretty well locked in. If they offer "UX" versions, go there and solve your Bill Gates = Big Brother problem . . . I can totally relate to this but, do not cut off my nose to spite my face. I am anxiously waiting retirement so I can flush my "smart" phone and only use a computer when I really, really want to. This happens when you have been using them since they filled a gymnasium ;-)

Steve Peterson
07-31-2017, 7:12 PM
SO- I have the win8, which is an HP Pavillion 500, 4 core, 8-gig setup with a 1T hard drive. I've removed everything of importance off of it, and I'm ready to reformat the drive and install win7 on the thing.

So I go to the HP website, and not only do they not have downloadable drivers for a win7 OS, they don't have any for the win8 that it came with---!?!

I know what you mean about the lack of support for older operating systems. I miss the old days of DOS computers that could be rebooted in 5-10 seconds. What on earth is the computer doing when the hardware is 1000X faster, but it takes over a minute to reboot.

Steve

glenn bradley
07-31-2017, 8:03 PM
I know what you mean about the lack of support for older operating systems. I miss the old days of DOS computers that could be rebooted in 5-10 seconds. What on earth is the computer doing when the hardware is 1000X faster, but it takes over a minute to reboot.

Steve

Easy answer . . . fat, bloated operating systems and applications. Used to be the way to accomplish a goal with the fewest instructions processed, the better. Now the GUI with the most dancing gnomes and spinning fireballs wins. :D

Chris Parks
07-31-2017, 10:30 PM
There are many major companies out there still working with XP and it will cost them a kings ransom to change as none of the hardware will support anything later. Funnily enough because they mostly operate within their own network there are very few problems, at least for the company I worked for.

Kev Williams
07-31-2017, 10:43 PM
I much appreciate the suggestions and where to look-- :)

I just bought this Dell T5400; 8-Core, 3.16GHz, 32GB Ram, 1TB drive...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-T5400-8-Core-3-16GHz-32GB-Ram-1TB-PC-Workstation-PC-/182437074882?hash=item2a7a18d7c2

Hopefully it'll be a step up-- and it has actual serial and LPT ports! I won't know how to act! :D

Greg R Bradley
08-01-2017, 10:15 AM
That is a real Computer (Capital "C"), as in not consumer junk. The quality and driver support will be a huge step up.

However, with dual X5460, it was surely delivered in a heavy CAD environment 7+ years ago. That was pushing the limits of performance when it was new. Lots of heat from two old Xeons, which may not matter in a shop that is making heat from other equipment. It might impress you with the noise of all fans running at full speed if the shop gets really hot.

Kev Williams
08-05-2017, 3:00 AM
New (to me) computer came today!

Holy yumpin yimini-- never picked up just ONE computer that weighs this much! A bit beat up on the outside, but the guts look brand new...

Since I've done 2 changeovers within a month, I didn't have time to forget much and everything went pretty smoothly. A couple of bumps getting the router to give it a working IP address, and I forgot my Gravostyle 5 MUST be installed in XP comp mode...

Been playing with it, wow... 10 megapixel pics pop open almost as fast as I can click the mouse. I have a couple of saved jobs in Corel I hate working with because there's so many objects on the screen that everything is a watch-the-hourglass or that blue circle spin more often than not, even zooming with the mouse is slow and chunky, drives me nuts... THIS computer works in these jobs like they're blank pages! I'm totally impressed. The real test will come when I have a couple of dozen windows open, email downloading while a virus scan is going on... but I'm expecting all that will hardly phase this thing.

Again, many thanks for the suggestions everyone! Best money I've spent since buying the wife (ahem) a Mustang GT convertible... again... :D