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**AudioCraZ** · 06-02-2010, 01:02 AM

Re: sister withdraw

Don't do the dual boot, just install the XP Mode for Windows 7. Unless she needs anything with video acceleration, it should work fine. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir.../download.aspx

**bgavin** · 06-02-2010, 08:22 AM

Re: sister withdraw

1gb is not enough memory.

**kaniki** · 06-02-2010, 09:36 AM

Re: sister withdraw

The reason that i was thinking about doing the duel boot was this way when she starts buying stuff that does not support XP and only 7, It is an easy switch and do not have to worry about her bringing the PC back to have it reinstalled. saves me work later. and one other thing.. my sister is not always the most electronically inclined person around.. that goes with OS's too,. She is used to XP. I dont need to hear from her time after time trying to get used to 7. This way she does it at her own speed and a lot less hassle for me..

as for the 1 gig ram. that depends on what you do. IF all you do is play small online games, read email and browse the net, then that is fine to start off. Like i said, it is 1 stick so she can upgrade when she gets the money. I am trying to keep my costs down while still giving her something somewhat decent to start off with. I could have went cheaper with a smaller hard drive, less ram, slower processor, or even just a basic ROM instead of a burner, etc. but i already put that extra into it for her. For what i have coming in, I think I am pretty dang nice for doing this much.

**bgavin** · 06-02-2010, 07:09 PM

Re: sister withdraw

If she disables the Aero interface, she can drop the idling RAM consumption from a gig down to about 700mb. That 300mb will let her surf, etc, without hitting the paging file.

**washu** · 06-03-2010, 03:20 AM

Re: sister withdraw

Actually 7 can go way below 700 megs idle on a 1 Gig machine. It realizes when resources are low and adjusts accordingly. I have it on a couple of machines with 1 gig and it uses about 400 megs idle. With some tweeking you can get that down lower. I've even tried on 512 MB just to see what it does, it went down to just over 200 MB idle.

Also, if you have a real video card then Aero has a very minimal impact on memory. 7 doesn't buffer windows in system RAM like Vista does, everything is put in the video RAM.

**kaniki** · 06-03-2010, 12:21 PM

Re: sister withdraw

I loaded windows 7 on my laptop. It ran at about 1 gig ram with my antivirus running plus the basics loaded (flash, shockwave, java, etc.). Also dont forget that even if you have 4 gigs of ram and are only using 1 gig, it still loads stuff into the pagefile by default.. all the stuff that it sees loaded but estimates that are not going to be used. that can be a couple hundred megs so it is not like the 1 gig is really maxing out the system bad. that is why i did not want to go with under 1 gig.

I once remember my friend got a new PC. It came with vista multimedia edition (or whatever it is called) and only had 512 MB ram in it plus had a integrated video card on top of it.. that ran like crap.. My first thought was shat idiot decided that it only needed 512..

**mutant** · 06-05-2010, 05:11 PM

Re: sister withdraw

Hope it works out. She'll see a big difference.
I think I would have spent the extra 15 bucks for a stick of 2 Gigs of ram especially if she does more than email and web surfing.

**kaniki** · 06-05-2010, 11:33 PM

Re: sister withdraw

I know that she does MS office stuff, email, online games (small ones) and views pics (digital camera). Beyond that I dont think much else.. One thing I should have also said.. I live off of disability which is not much a month.. She has kids but works for the state in a prison as a teacher.. the main reason that she is in the situation that she is in now is a combination of her husband (soon to be ex) and stupid decisions on her own end (does not have her car paid off and takes out a new loan to get an almost brand new car) etc. So the way that I look at it, she has a heck of a lot more coming in then I do. I am doing this to help her out right now, but she can pay for any additional upgrades..

so yes.. I could have paid the extra 15 for 2 gigs of ram, but then again i could have gotten a decent video card for it for 35 after rebate too and spent the extra 10 or 15 so she has 2 roms and an extra 10 so she has a memory card reader for her digital camera and.. well you get the idea.. but every "well.. i could.." leads up to more money and then next thing you know, you are looking at $200 later.. Like I said.. she makes multiple times more then me a month.. she can pay for that stuff herself.. she is just dang lucky I am being this nice..

I think you can now see why I stopped where I did.. Not to mention, My fastest PC has a single core 2.5 gig AMD athlon processor, so what I am giving her is sooooooo much faster and bigger then what I even have.. Did I mention just HOW lucky she is that I am being nice????

**stj** · 06-06-2010, 10:12 AM

Re: sister withdraw

Originally posted by kaniki

I know that she does MS office stuff, email, online games (small ones) and views pics (digital camera). Beyond that I dont think much else..

and the joke about that, is that a 1gig athlon or p3 with 512-1g of ram running Linux and open-office would do all that without any problem.

microsoft doesnt specialise in software, they specialise in marketing.
most people dont realise that they are doing the same stuff now on a quad-core with 4 gig of ram, that they probably did with a 486,
the only real difference is the eye-candy.

**kaniki** · 06-06-2010, 12:01 PM

Re: sister withdraw

I cant argue with that.... and if that PC that she is using was hers then i would probably not say much. The thing is her PC went to her soon to be ex and the way that I was looking at it, she has 3 kids.. 14 (boy) 12 and 9 (both girls) and if they do decide to want to play something on it other then really cheap games, this would give them the option to. I dont foresee her getting a new PC for quite a few years after getting this one so it will last her for a long time. that is a good thing.

I forgot to add.. the PC that she is using now is a 1.1 gig but also has 1.5 gigs of ram and a Nvidia 6200 series vid card.. but like i said, that is what she is borrowing from me.

you know.. after building this new system, by speed, my systems seem so old, but by looking inside, it just looks like something is really missing in there.. I am used to PC's that have a bunch of stuff in them. Sata cables take up so much less room, no to mention, no expansion cards and a mico board. just really looks like something is missing.

and I did get it. It is up and running. Did a triple partition. 200 for XP, 200 for 7, and the rest for storing files (she had that on her last PC but not sure if it was her choice or someone else's).

**avatar2** · 06-14-2010, 01:26 AM

Re: sister withdraw

Maybe 1 GB is good enough memory!

**Wizard** · 06-14-2010, 09:52 AM

Re: sister withdraw

Go 2GB or more and use windows 7 home permium 64 bit.

That what I have now on my current home PC (2 years old E5200 stuff). Had to do this as windows XP failed in a way I could not access the stuff with keyboard or mouse. Pointer is frozen.

Also I could not get firefox bookmarks to transfer to my new windows 7 install from old that I got from firefox's bookmarks while in XP home safe mode. Firefox is all current version.

Help?

Cheers, Wizard

**kaniki** · 06-14-2010, 01:32 PM

Re: sister withdraw

Well, the PC is gone.. I decided to tell her about the PC while she was here.. I told her that I did some stuff to make it faster.. She was like "WOW" that really did make it faster.. what did you do? whatever you did, it worked... while still completely clueless that it was a completely different PC.. It was at that point that i told here what i did.. She told me to get another 1 gig stick and put it in. I got one off ebay for about $16 and she said to get a second drive for it too. I also added a Nvidia 7200GS w 256MB ram on it, video card so no built in video card (got it for $10 off ebay). She gave me the money for both. I also ordered (ebay from china) a 3.5" memory card reader that i will put in when it comes in too (about $2.80). She is completely happy with it. well, i did my good dead for the year..

Originally posted by Wizard

Also I could not get firefox bookmarks to transfer to my new windows 7 install from old that I got from firefox's bookmarks while in XP home safe mode. Firefox is all current version.

Help?

Cheers, Wizard

All you have to do is copy the contents of the bookmarksbackup folder from one to the other. there should be about a half dozen files with the extension .json .... here are the paths

XP:

"root drive"\Documents and Settings\"user name"\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\x0x9xemz.default\bookmarkbackups

The "x0x9xemz.default" part (XP) and "9xoy9vhs.default" part (windows 7) may very

7:

"root drive"\Users\"user name"\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\9xoy9vhs.default\bookmarkbackups

On XP and 7, make sure that view hidden files and folders is on..

after that start up firefox, click on "bookmarks", then "organize bookmarks" in the submenu, "import and backup" at the top of the box that just opened and then "restore" in the submenu and choose one of the dates in the list that comes in the submenu.

you should then have all you bookmarks back.

**Uranium-235** · 06-14-2010, 06:56 PM

Re: sister withdraw

remember that xp mode is only for win7 professional or above. you can get it to work with home, with some pita hacking though

**ratdude747** · 06-15-2010, 07:58 AM

Re: sister withdraw

oh no... not a card reader from china. plan on buying a new one within the year... they are the WORST quality... they ones branded DYNEX that best-buy used to sell were nice, my main rig has one in it, still chugging a long to this day...

**kaniki** · 06-15-2010, 09:16 AM

Re: sister withdraw

most of the ones being sold from the US are the same as the ones from china.. just a price mark up.. at least on ebay that is true.. and if it dies after a year, for less then $3, I am not out much.

I do agree that a lot of the stuff that comes from china is a piece of junk... but lets be honest, where did you say that the dynex one was made?? China anyone??? and i have had dynex stuff before before. They are very cheaply made things. I had a network switch. That almost felt like it would fall apart or break if bumped. trust me when i say, it had the worst quality of a case that I had ever seen in my life. and if the quality of the outside was that bad, then the inside could not be much better. Do a search on dynex keyboards.. see how many complaints there are about them not working. I have never seen a dynex brand anything that I thought was even halfway decent made.. sorry but i stay away from them.

as for that switch.. only used it a short time and then it went into a box for parts. so for long term use, i can not say if they do last. the only reason i got that one was that my last switch died and it was all i could afford at that moment. I went out and got a linksys switch a short time later. that one feels made about 100 times better.

I think that the dynex brand was probably made and designed by geeksquad. they are pretty close to equal. I have never heard anyone that went to geeksquad for PC work that left happy.. If you just want a stick of ram installed, you are fine.. just dont ask them to do anything harder then that.

**blowing_in_the_watts** · 07-13-2010, 09:57 AM

Re: sister withdraw

when you get it replace all the caps through the entire system for $20 to make sure it lasts more than 3 years?

j/k

seriously, 1gb ram is not enough for anything
chugalugahug pzerrrhph!
waiting....

well yeah i remember i had whopping 8mb ram on a 286 33mhz once
man i was blazing fast learning my ibm dos

**mockingbird** · 07-13-2010, 10:57 AM

Re: sister withdraw

Women initiate 75% of divorces in the US.

Oh yea, and take a case without the PSU. The one the Rosewill will come with will be garbage.

**ratdude747** · 07-13-2010, 01:56 PM

Re: sister withdraw

ditto on the rosewill psu comment^. too crappy to power your computer (well), too light for a doorstop.

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