M6300 Win XP - Windows 7 Worth it?

[Anonymous]

I have an Dell M6300 running Win XP Pro. looking for opinions on is it worth
the time and effort to wipe and reinstall all my programs?
The Core 2 Duo T7700 will run 64bit correct?

Programs I use
- Inventor 2010
- Photoshop CS2
- PCDMIS 4.3 connected to a Romer Infinate 2.0
- All the usual office/email stuff.

[Anonymous]

First things first

1) How much memory do you have now or will have after upgrading. If less
than 4gb, I wouldn't waste my time with an upgrade, since you gain too
little unless you get 64 bit, and the only advantages to 64 bit revolve
around extra memory. Some things got better in 7, some things got worse,
but the net result is somewhat improved. Weighing that against the
effort necessary for the upgrade and I wouldn't do it unless I went from
32 bit to 64 bit.

2) Can you get all the drivers you need for your hardware? Especially
look at your plotter since that, because of price, may be the oldest
thing you still need. If there is a Vista driver then that will work for
7. HDI drivers work but not well.

Paul wrote:
> I have an Dell M6300 running Win XP Pro. looking for opinions on is it worth
> the time and effort to wipe and reinstall all my programs?
> The Core 2 Duo T7700 will run 64bit correct?
>
> Programs I use
> - Inventor 2010
> - Photoshop CS2
> - PCDMIS 4.3 connected to a Romer Infinate 2.0
> - All the usual office/email stuff.

[Anonymous]

I have 4gb ram, the main reason for updating would be the switch from 32bit
to 64bit.

[Anonymous]

The only reason to go 64-bit is to access more than 4Gb of ram. If you're
never going to get more than that, then you gain nothing with going 64-bit.

Remember that you don't gain speed from a 64-bit OS (at least, not enough to
really notice at only 4Gb ram), only larger memory address.

However, that M6300 can be upgraded to 8Gb. If you ever plan to upgrade
past 4Gb, then 64-bit is a must.

[Anonymous]

On Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:58:33 +0000, Paul wrote:

>I have an Dell M6300 running Win XP Pro. looking for opinions on is it worth
>the time and effort to wipe and reinstall all my programs?

If you are moving to a new OS, e.g. Win7 x64, yes.

>The Core 2 Duo T7700 will run 64bit correct?

Yup. Just make sure you max out the RAM.

>Programs I use
>- Inventor 2010
>- Photoshop CS2
>- PCDMIS 4.3 connected to a Romer Infinate 2.0
>- All the usual office/email stuff.

Inventor and Photoshop are available in 64-bit versions.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com

[Anonymous]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:30:10 +0000, Joel wrote:

>The only reason to go 64-bit is to access more than 4Gb of ram. If you're
>never going to get more than that, then you gain nothing with going 64-bit.

This is not true.

One of the best reasons to move to a 64-bit OS is the fact that many older,
"large address aware" 32-bit apps can now access a full 4GB of RAM instead of
being limited to 2GB as per Windows XP limitations. For example, I know that ACA
2008 absolutely FLIES under a 64-bit OS.

http://bilbroblog.com/wow64/hidden-secrets-of-w0w64-ndash-large-address-space/

Matt
matt@stachoni.com

[Anonymous]

I stand corrected. I wasn't thinking about the 2GB limit issue that's
avoided. I was only thinking of all the talk I always heard that you don't
really get a noticable benifit using a 64-bit OS unless you go to 6 or 8 GB
of ram.

And, while one could use the 3gig switch, that too can cause driver
problems - not always, but it can happen.

[Anonymous]

But Matt, if you don't have 4gb of mem or more, the 64 bit ability to
allow 32 bit large address aware software to expand to the larger
address space is moot since you don't have the memory space for it to
expand to. Has anyone tried using 64 bit Windows installed on a 3gb
computer and compared performance?

Matt Stachoni wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:30:10 +0000, Joel wrote:
>
>> The only reason to go 64-bit is to access more than 4Gb of ram. If you're
>> never going to get more than that, then you gain nothing with going 64-bit.
>
> This is not true.
>
> One of the best reasons to move to a 64-bit OS is the fact that many older,
> "large address aware" 32-bit apps can now access a full 4GB of RAM instead of
> being limited to 2GB as per Windows XP limitations. For example, I know that ACA
> 2008 absolutely FLIES under a 64-bit OS.
>
> http://bilbroblog.com/wow64/hidden-secrets-of-w0w64-ndash-large-address-space/
>
> Matt
> matt@stachoni.com

[Anonymous]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:45:08 +0000, Joel wrote:

>I stand corrected. I wasn't thinking about the 2GB limit issue that's
>avoided. I was only thinking of all the talk I always heard that you don't
>really get a noticable benifit using a 64-bit OS unless you go to 6 or 8 GB
>of ram.
>
>And, while one could use the 3gig switch, that too can cause driver
>problems - not always, but it can happen.

That I think is the primary reason to move to 64-bit; the /3GB switch is a
horrible kludge that usually causes more problems than it solves.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com

[Anonymous]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:57:32 +0000, jg wrote:

>But Matt, if you don't have 4gb of mem or more, the 64 bit ability to
>allow 32 bit large address aware software to expand to the larger
>address space is moot since you don't have the memory space for it to
>expand to.

No, it doesn't matter how much physical RAM you have.

Each process can access up to 2GB of physical memory + virtual memory (your page
file) in 32-bit Windows, but 32-bit Large Address Aware apps have access to 4GB
of PM+VM.

>Has anyone tried using 64 bit Windows installed on a 3gb computer and compared performance?

Yeah. Me. On a 2GB system. And ACA 2008 worked much better than under XP x32.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com

[Anonymous]

That seems to settle it then. MS documentation (at least the
documentation aimed at the user) never addresses the possibility of
using it that way. Seems that they really never think that people might
be using workstation software on budget limited systems.

Matt Stachoni wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:57:32 +0000, jg wrote:
>
>> But Matt, if you don't have 4gb of mem or more, the 64 bit ability to
>> allow 32 bit large address aware software to expand to the larger
>> address space is moot since you don't have the memory space for it to
>> expand to.
>
> No, it doesn't matter how much physical RAM you have.
>
> Each process can access up to 2GB of physical memory + virtual memory (your page
> file) in 32-bit Windows, but 32-bit Large Address Aware apps have access to 4GB
> of PM+VM.
>
>> Has anyone tried using 64 bit Windows installed on a 3gb computer and compared performance?
>
> Yeah. Me. On a 2GB system. And ACA 2008 worked much better than under XP x32.
>
> Matt
> matt@stachoni.com

[Anonymous]

Ran the windows 7 compatibillity utillity. Everything seems workable, but
the graphics card
Says" You current graphics adaptor wont support the windows aero UI"
What is a Quadro FX1600M missing? Its DX10, got 512Mb Turbocache(256
Dedicated)

[Anonymous]

Not on their compatibility list maybe. Since it supports OpenGL, which
MS wants you to dump.....

To give you an idea of how I don't expect much from the "compatibility
test" or "User experience rating" I originally was running on the
computer I use at work on-board Intel graphics, and it had a pretty
decent user experience number but I use proprietary software and 3d
rotates were unusable. Couldn't get a new card (no budget and very weak
power supply) however I had an older pci-e video card that isn't even
supported by ATI any more, and was a low end chip when it was new (all I
wanted was support for dual screens.) It runs circles around on board
video but dropped my user experience rating 2 whole points! That is
because it is probably stuck at dx8 or 9 and Intel is at dx 10 but
can't do it at decent speed.

Paul wrote:
> Ran the windows 7 compatibillity utillity. Everything seems workable, but
> the graphics card
> Says" You current graphics adaptor wont support the windows aero UI"
> What is a Quadro FX1600M missing? Its DX10, got 512Mb Turbocache(256
> Dedicated)

[Anonymous]

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:48:09 +0000, Paul wrote:

>Ran the windows 7 compatibillity utillity. Everything seems workable, but
>the graphics card
>Says" You current graphics adaptor wont support the windows aero UI"
>What is a Quadro FX1600M missing? Its DX10, got 512Mb Turbocache(256
>Dedicated)

The FX 1600M will certainly work with Aero; it's based on the G84M, which is a
high-end GeForce 8 Series GPU. Just make sure you have the latest Windows 7
driver from nVidia.

Compatibility tests are usually kind of wonky anyways.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com

[Anonymous]

Upgraded my M6300 from Vista 64 to Windows 7 x64 last week.
System is much faster.