Computer???

[John Terefenko]

When things go bad they go bad. Have a computer ??? I am running an old outdated system on my computer Windows XP64. It is no longer supported. It is starting to do wonky things. So I was thinking of upgrading to Windows 10. If i understand that is the latest. I hear some bad things about it but would this be the system to go to?? How hard is it to do this?? What needs to be done?? Will I lose everything that is on my computer now like all the programs that I have such as Photo software as Picture it microsoft word and things like this?? Will I lose all my favorites bookmarked and all icons on my desktop?? I am using Chrome if that matters.

I know nothing about computers so if something goes wrong I have no idea what to do next. If I were to have this done in a shop about what would it cost?? Is there a down side to doing this?? I am afraid when I get a new printer that my old system will not recognize the drivers and I will have problems installing.

Any thoughts??? Thanks

[Edwin Santos]

You might be well served by contacting Geek Squad or someone like that in your area. Last I heard, they can do quite a bit remotely and the prices for a straight upgrade where there are no failures or existing problems should be fairly inexpensive. Whether you use a service or do it yourself, the upgrading process is a lot smarter and better than it used to be. But paying a modest price to have someone knowledgeable handle it for you might be money well spent and avoid taking unnecessary risks with your irreplaceable data.

Also, you will probably need to upgrade the whole system, not just the operating system, depending on the age.

There are some professional network administrators and computer systems engineers on this forum that may have good advice also.
Hope this helps you.

[Art Mann]

Windows XP, and the computers that run it, are very old now. There isn't going to be an upgrade path other than formatting the hard drive and installing a new operating system. It is highly questionable whether this will be possible. Windows 10, and Windows 7 for that matter, require a lot more power than the typical XP system has. I think your best course of action is to buy a new computer - and I am one of those guys that hates to spend money when I don't have to.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

John,

I am running a Dell computer that I bought 6 or 7 years ago. I had it built to handle my wife's love for photography. It is now running a free upgrade to Windows 10. I use Microsoft Edge and it seems to work well. I have and use System Mechanic and McAfee Total protection. I haven't had any problems. You can buy a very similar Dell computer at Costco today for about 40% of the price I paid for this one.

[Art Mann]

XP was released in 2001. That is centuries ago in computer time. Windows 7 was released in 2009 and Microsoft provided a free direct upgrade path as a download. It worked fine on my wife's laptop. AFAIK, there is no such path for XP.

[Frank Pratt]

I have an old Dell laptop that came with XP. I upgraded to Windows 10 & it runs better than it ever did on XP. But if your time is worth anything at all to you, take to a pro to have it done.

[Roy Petersen]

I doubt that the old system will support Windows 10 being installed on it, but it *might*.
Check here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-specifications

One of the first things mentioned:

Make sure you are running the latest version of either Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 Update.

The hardware they mention is not very advanced, but things like graphics cards and CPU may cause problems.
In all honesty, I hated Win10 so much I went back to Win7 and will stay on that as long as humanly possible. 10 is invasive, and you lose all say in what's installed or removed, as well as them limiting what you can install on it (programs *and* drivers).
Just my opinion.

[John Terefenko]

Talk to the Geek squad today and they said basically what you all said and that is not only is some things too old but most need upgrade and best to buy all new. He did say though that I should be able to install any printer on my old computer. So that is what I will do and buy a new printer and leave the computer thing for another day. That is what got me into this because I wasn't sure the new printer would be able to marry up to this computer. Will try and see. Thanks all.

[Alan Caro]

When things go bad they go bad. Have a computer ??? I am running an old outdated system on my computer Windows XP64. It is no longer supported. It is starting to do wonky things. So I was thinking of upgrading to Windows 10. If i understand that is the latest. I hear some bad things about it but would this be the system to go to?? How hard is it to do this?? What needs to be done?? Will I lose everything that is on my computer now like all the programs that I have such as Photo software as Picture it microsoft word and things like this?? Will I lose all my favorites bookmarked and all icons on my desktop?? I am using Chrome if that matters.

I know nothing about computers so if something goes wrong I have no idea what to do next. If I were to have this done in a shop about what would it cost?? Is there a down side to doing this?? I am afraid when I get a new printer that my old system will not recognize the drivers and I will have problems installing.

Any thoughts??? Thanks

John Terefenko,

In my view windows XP was the best operating Microsoft ever made as it had enough features and accessories, but was not loaded down withe fussy animated, transparent icons and etc. If you change the operating system, you will have to reinstall all the programs on your computer and reload your files.

The problem with Windows 10 is that some XP programs will not run properly and some older hardware will not have Windows 10 drivers. Even Windows 7 is not perfect in tat regard. I used Corel Graphics Suite 12 on XP, but on Windows 7 it had problems and I had to buy version X5. There are certainly points at which there will will not be updated drivers for certain hardware, but there are many sites on which to obtain older version drivers so at least they can be refreshed to the last version made.

Before going through all the effort to change to Windows 10, there are some things to try first:

1. Your hard drive might be full. Go into Windows Explorer, right click on the C: drive folder name and click on "Properties". This will tell you how much space in used on the C: drive, and how much is left. Look for a button that says "Disk Cleanup". Click on that and it will list unnecessary files. Click OK to remove them. Check how much space is left afterwards. I did this for my mother's Windows 7 system and her computer had more than 5GB of unwanted files. If your C: drive has less than 20% open space after cleanup, you will need to change to a larger drive.

2. Disk Defragmenter: After cleaning up the disk, run the XP built-in system file defragmenter- especially if you've never heard of it. Over time the files can become split off from other in the program or file or folder and be spread across the whole system. It may take a long time, but it puts the files back into one piece and that means the hard drive can access and read and write to that file quickly.

3. Update Drivers: Secondly: The drivers that run the graphics card should be updated to the latest version.

4. Update the BIOS: this is bit more technical, but if you have a computer from a manufacturer such as Dell. HP, or Compaq, they will have a website that will download a little program to update the BIOS, which is the very basic set of instructions for the computer.

5. If you have the original XP disks, watch YouTube videos on how to do a "repair install". This reloads Windows without disturbing the programs or files. However, be absolutely sure to have a complete backup of all your files before doing it.

6. Look into the amount of RAM memory you have. If programs are very slow and tend to act oddly and crash, they may be running out of memory. Over time, files have become very large and the RAM memory- the temporary memory that the processor uses, needs to be a greater and greater amount. My first computer in 1993 had 2MB of RAM, my 2017 system has 64,000MB...

7. If the computer does not have a dedicated graphics card, consider adding one, as this takes some of the load off the processor.

8. Consider upgrading the processor. I was given an XP system, a 2007 Dell Precision 390 with a dual core Xeon running at 1.86GHz and a change to a four-core Xeon at 2.67GHz transformed the system. Also, the change from 2GB of RAM to 8GB and updating the graphics card (from Quadro FX 550 128MB to Quadro K6000 1GB) and it is now running current at reasonable speeds.

After a point, though it makes more sense to simply buy a newer computer. I used the aforementioned free Dell Precision 390 for two years to run the television, but when changing to a 40" 4K monitor I bought a 2015 HP z420 workstation for $136. this gave me a modern system running Windows 7 Professional with a four-core processor at 3Ghz, a modern fulls speed disk system with 2TB drive for videos, 16GB RAM at 1866 instead of 8 at 667, plus a graphics card (GeForce GTX 660 Ti) that can push enough pixels for a 4K monitor. The total investment was about $250. When you buy a used workstation you can load a fresh copy of whatever the original Windows was on it for free.

What is the system you're using now?

Alan Caro

[Pat Barry]

My opinion is different than that of some others. I would buy a new computer with Windows 10. The thing you will want to save from the old computer is your personal files - pictures, documents, etc. Unfortunately this means buying some new software. That's the price of progress these days. Note Alan has some good tips to get the most out of your existing computer particularly the cleanup and defrag.

[Lee Schierer]

I have several old programs that were from the windows XP era and before and they run just fine on Windows 10. The were loaded on my new computer when I purchased it with windows 7. When I upgraded to Windows 10, all my existing XP programs, documents and photo files came right along through the upgrade. I did have to set up a few icons to readily access the old programs, but they were there and worked.

[Mike Henderson]

My opinion is different than that of some others. I would buy a new computer with Windows 10. The thing you will want to save from the old computer is your personal files - pictures, documents, etc. Unfortunately this means buying some new software. That's the price of progress these days. Note Alan has some good tips to get the most out of your existing computer particularly the cleanup and defrag.

This is what I'd do, also. Any computer running XP is old and more than likely underpowered. Buy a new computer and get someone to transfer your stuff, if you don't feel confident doing it yourself.

If you want it to really fly, get the new computer with an SSD (solid state drive).

As Pat said, you may have to buy new versions of some of your software.

Mike

[John Terefenko]

Alan Caro thank you for that in depth review. I do some of the things as you mention, defrag, clean disc and so forth. I think alot has to do with my dsl that powers the computer so I changed a modem that was giving me problems and that helped some. I will keep the computer for now if I can get a new printer to load to it.

Do have a question for you computer guys though. I talked to the geeks as I said today and they mentioned that there are 2 versions of Windows 10 out there. The more common version that everyone uses is basically full of spyware that can not be disconnected. It monitors every keystroke and web site you visit. I understand the pro version these systems can be deactivated if you know what you are doing. Any truth to this???

[Curt Harms]

Alan Caro thank you for that in depth review. I do some of the things as you mention, defrag, clean disc and so forth. I think alot has to do with my dsl that powers the computer so I changed a modem that was giving me problems and that helped some. I will keep the computer for now if I can get a new printer to load to it.

Do have a question for you computer guys though. I talked to the geeks as I said today and they mentioned that there are 2 versions of Windows 10 out there. The more common version that everyone uses is basically full of spyware that can not be disconnected. It monitors every keystroke and web site you visit. I understand the pro version these systems can be deactivated if you know what you are doing. Any truth to this???

Not a Windows expert by any means - haven't used Windows much since XP. Windows 10 Pro still has monitoring active and there's no way I know of to disable it. You can reduce the amount of information sent to Microsoft but there's no official way to turn it off. The version you can control telemetry is Enterprise and that cannot be purchased at retail AFAIK, Win10 Enterprise is a volume license situation intended for larger businesses. There are registry hacks to limit telemetry but I don't know how well they work and they're sometimes re-enabled when installing updates.

I think I understand why Microsoft instituted 'forced' updates. People would turn off automatic updating because they or someone they knew had problems due to a Windows update. Eventually they'd get hit by malware and blame Microsoft. It tuns out that Microsoft had released a patch months ago to prevent that malware but because the user never updated their machine they never installed the Microsoft patch. I don't know that anybody outside Microsoft knows how much information is sent to Microsoft - or to 'other interested parties'.

[Roy Petersen]

Eventually they'd get hit by malware and blame Microsoft.
Like any malware, it tries to prevent other malware from taking over a machine it's already infected. Windows 10 is that malware.
- It installs things you don't ask for
- It shares information about you and your computer with the controlling person(s)
- It only lets you use it in one particular way
- It updates itself without allowing choice
- Originally it was installing in sneaky ways (like seeing a window with a choice to "install now" only, and clicking the "x" to dismiss installed anyway)

Just saying. ;)

[Rich Engelhardt]

Windows Pro - the one they want you to buy - has the ability to join a Windows domain. (& partake in Bitlocker, Group Policy, Hyper-V, Remote Desktop & some other domain only stuff)

Windows Home - the one they badmouth - can't join a Windows domain.

While it's technically possible to monitor & record & store every keystroke of every PC running Windows 10.....stop and think about the amount of storage needed.

[Alan Caro]

John Terefenko,

You're very welcome.

There are some more actions to speed up a computer in disabling programs and services at startup. Checking just now, I see that my computer is running 81 processes and at the moment I'm only using the browser. This disabling is done in msconfig, but needs some amount of care to avoid turning off items that are necessary.

There are three good reasons to retain XP: 1. Windows 10 is written for high performance use of current high-speed disk controllers, UEFI BIOS, large quantities of high speed DDR4 RAM memory, USB 3.1, increasing multi-threading of high core-count processors, new solid state drives such as M.2 and NVMe memory, 3D applications, heavily animated and themed pages, plus a lot of accessory services. These are useful on a current system, but can bog down an older systems as the BIOS can not recognize many of these devices and therefore can not configure them. 2. Some programs you're using on XP are may not run or run well on Windows 10. This is more likely though on more complex programs such as graphic design. As mentioned I had to buy a new version of Corel Graphics suite, toss out my beloved Epson laser printer, and an Audiowerk soundcard when changing to Windows 7. There were decisions by MS when Windows 10 was written to phase out a number of "legacy" sub-programs. 3. As Curt Harms mentioned, Windows 10 does have a lot more in the way of reporting information. I was suspicious when MS was pushing the free Windows 10 upgrade so strongly. There has to be a motivation to spend the hundreds of millions it must require to publish a new operating system. On a significant level, this reporting back to HQ is genuinely to collect data on system performance so as to make improvements, but I don't like the idea of a lack of control over the extent and content of what information is collected. The lack of privacy of an Internet connected system is already near total.

Sawmill ought to have a wood computer (https://www.google.com/search?q=wood+computer+case&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiYr8fu6LvYAhUCneAKHYsBBswQ_AUICygC&biw=1567&bih=779&dpr=1.5) competition.

Alan Caro

[Rich Engelhardt]

An alternative to sifting through all the services and crud that Windows seems to accumulate would be to just backup your files and reformat the drive and reinstall XP and all the software from scratch.
Or - create a virtual machine & reinstall all the software onto that.
This gives a beginner's look at a virtual machine. (https://www.howtogeek.com/196060/beginner-geek-how-to-create-and-use-virtual-machines/)

[John Terefenko]

Alan again thanks. Your Geek speak shows that you are into computers and you are light years ahead of anything I know. I will try to keep this computer as long as it still runs. For what I do it is fine. Not a gamer so no need for real fast computer. It is scary though knowing that anything and everything you do today can be recorded. It is the world we live in.