Windows 7
 

Spent the last eight hours getting the new Win7 machine with Office 2010 up and running.

Not too pleased at giving up all of the practices that were clearly understood with XP and Office 2007 for the last 10 years, but............ life goes on............MS gets more difficult.

Since this is a 64bit machine, why does the machine offer an MS-DOS command prompt when none of the 32 bit programs will run under that shell?

Do I understand it correctly that they will run if I manage to get the XP virtual machine setup and running?

It has the virtual machine on here but it apparently needs quite a bit more to set it up properly to function.

The CMD shell does everything in Win7 that I used it for in XP. I'll agree that the ribbon in Office 2010 is kind of annoying, however I find that Win 7 runs a lot better than XP did. Very much so when you've got lots of applications going at once (which you can do now that you aren't capped at 4 GB of ram!). If you have ever had to use Vista, you'll know how much of an improvement 7 is.

There are only two 32bit apps that won't run in 7 64bit for me (The Mercedes EPC, and the VW EPC (ETKA)). In that case I just fire up "Windows XP Mode", the free virtual machine you were talking about. Since I don't use those apps all the time it's hardly a bother.

What isn't running for you?

-J

I agree that it's fast............with 8 gig, I won't suffer the annoying slowness that XP develops when the browser hogs 700 MB.

I still have a few very old DOS programs that I use periodically. I'd like to get them to work in the virtual machine if I can.

Any benefit of a command prompt on the Win7 side? I can't see how anyone can use it?

Getting them to run in the XP VM would be very easy. Are you sure they won't run on the 7 command prompt? What apps are they specifically?

Like I said I use the 7 CMD prompt the same way I used the XP one... ipconfig, tracert, pathping, dir, and del :P

-J

I have one called "shortmort", a mortgage calculator. It definitely won't run.

I have Flight Simulator 98. It definitely won't run.

And I have E-schwab, an old DOS program from Schwab that keeps the stock lists. It certainly won't run.

The machine knows they are 32 bit programs and immediately stops the install. With FS, it will load but the buttons are all screwed up.

Check out the program called "Dosbox"

http://www.dosbox.com/

Ancient software that certainly will give more problems than it's worth.

I'm sure the virtual PC will do the trick.

Dosbox is pretty good actually. Being emulation though sometimes it requires a beefy computer. For a mortgage calculator though, you should be fine. As for Flight Sim, im assuming you played around with the compatibility settings? Under "compatibility" when you right click the executable and go to properties. Try turning off Aero and play with the color settings, and use the windows xp compatibility mode.

Windows 7 is the most solid version I have used so far. XP was pretty good, 7 gives me awesome power.

Yesterday I began running a program to combine 17 lidar data sets into 1. I had all 12 processors running at up to 98% and used up to 12 Gig RAM. Meanwhile I read and edited stuff, read email, and IM'd colleagues.

I shifted to W7 late last year. I think I had a couple of program crashes (ArcMap 10.1 using Stereoanalyst). I am almost certain it's an ArcMap problem with memory allocation. Not W7 per se.

Microsoft has a solid product. Finally.

As y'all know, I'm a Macdrone at home. I have had Apples since Apple ][+. It looks to me like Apple is on the opposite trajectory from MS -- Making the Mac increasingly counter-intuitive.

The primary reason for the Mac (IMO) was the superior interface for the user who doesn't want to get under the hood. Apple is slowly losing that superiority, mostly by its own actions.

Windows XP VM under Win 7.

Note: the computer must have hardware that supports virtualization. Other than that, the setup will it'll take about an hour or so...

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7

I have no problems with running the EPC on any of my 64 bit windows 7 machines. The EPC from EPC-net Online right?

Didnt Office 2007 have the same ribbon as Office 2010? Most nearly?

Yes Dosbox is actually pretty nice. It seems, to me, like a better solution than running a VM or another PC or something.

With Windows 7 and Java 7 the EPC gives me a certificate error. I haven't bothered trying to fix it.

Perhaps something like I had not too long ago:

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/3150036-post44.html

I got the VM setup fairly easily.

However, unfortunately, due to certain technology that it does not have, it cannot run the older games. The controls are all wrong.

So, I might try this product from Oracle:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Documentation

This allows one to install a true Windows XP operating system on the machine without the need (PIA) to reboot under the second operating system each time access to one of the 32 bit programs is required. Apparently it's a virtual machine that uses a true Windows XP operating system (or any other system for that matter).

Seems like a good solution???????

Brian, I heard virtualbox is pretty good. I use VMWare in our enterprise environment so the VMWare workstation is pretty decent. If you need an XP ISO to build the image let me know.