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Windows XP or 7?

garirry

garirry

macrumors 68000
Original poster
I have a Windows PC that absolutely must be reinstalled, since it became to glitchy and it keeps restarting when it wants. It's a Compaq Presario SR1265CL with AMD Athlon XP 3200 2.2GHz and 1 GB of RAM. My graphic card DOES NOT support Windows Aero. Should I reinstall Windows XP or upgrade to Windows 7?
 
Windows XP would run better on that machine, but remember that it will be end of lifed in April of next year.
 
Well, I will reinstall XP on this machine. And for the XP end in 2014, I don't really mind because I will get an new iMac before this time.
 
Though XP will officially be "dumped" next year, Windows releases don't tend to follow OS X releases in that they are generally still highly developer/community/user supported for years afterwards. I mean, just recently have some of the most popular programs begun to dump 98/2000. Considering how long of a retail lifespan it had and amount of market share it still retains, I wouldn't worry about being left out in the cold for a while yet to come.

That said, if you like to keep up with the latest and greatest; Windows 7 is quickly becoming the new standard for the cutting-edge and new feature software, and is certainly more future-proof.

I don't think your machine would have too difficult a time running 7, but XP is what it was designed for and will run best.
 
If the video card supported Aero, Windows 7 would be a good choice. It functions surprisingly well with low RAM. But in this case it does make sense to go with the positively ancient Windows XP 😉
 
garirry said:
Well, I will reinstall XP on this machine. And for the XP end in 2014, I don't really mind because I will get an new iMac before this time.
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Good Choice, XP will be supported by developers for years to come.

Thats the one nice thing about keeping a decent PC around, Mac developers end support like crazy, PC developers go for decades.
 
G51989 said:
Good Choice, XP will be supported by developers for years to come.

Thats the one nice thing about keeping a decent PC around, Mac developers end support like crazy, PC developers go for decades.
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Mac developers do almost everything Intel-only now. That's why they stop PPC, because it has a different CPU architecture. As for Windows, same old hardware, same those big square boxes. I'm not sure, but I think Microsoft is making some updates that all they do is slow down XP, so we would upgrade to 7, which we obviously won't upgrade.
 
XP is very outdated. Windows 7 might work better than you think on that old machine. I have a very outdated "white box" computer with a Pentium 4 CPU running Windows 7 Ultimate surprisingly well. It isn't exactly going to kill 3D gaming or anything but for the type of usage you expect to do on that sort of machine (basic browsing, email, music, etc) it works fine.
 
I'd go with 7 if all things were equal. Consider XP if you need it for better performance. On 7, "Aero" MS's fancy graphics can be turned off to reduce load. See this MS Support article.
 
If your graphics hardware doesn't support it, Windows turns Aero off by default anyway.
 
Installed Windows 7, now I'm just thinking: WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY PC? Everything is my computer's fault. Don't know if it's the bios, or there's a serious hardware problem, because nothing works! W7 keeps showing me the blue screen of death and it barely works. I have an older computer, cheaper and lower in specs than this one and it worked both XP and 7 way better than this one. WHY?
 
Sounds like you got a major hardware problem - maybe with the motherboard or power supply. That's probably also why your old system went bad. It doesn't look like there is much sense trying to fix a ~10 year old PC, so get your data off the disk and put the old machine in the recycle bin.
 
Definitely a hardware problem. I agree with Berlepsch - throw it away. Your motherboard's probably screwed and for a machine that old there's no point fixing it. You can buy another old machine with better specs for under £100 easily anyway.
 
0dev said:
Definitely a hardware problem. I agree with Berlepsch - throw it away. Your motherboard's probably screwed and for a machine that old there's no point fixing it. You can buy another old machine with better specs for under £100 easily anyway.
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Well, yeah I wanna do that but for now, I MUST have a Windows machine primarly for iTunes since the one on iMac G4 doesn't sync with iPod Touch 5G.

I will buy a new Mac, and I will destroy my PC in parts, just like I did with the older one that was identical in design.
 
I'd dump that old computer and get a new one--and make sure you get it installed with Windows 7, NOT Windows 8. I myself run Windows 7 on both my laptop, home desktop and work desktop machines and love it for its familiarity and excellent stability. 🙂
 
SactoGuy18 said:
I'd dump that old computer and get a new one--and make sure you get it installed with Windows 7, NOT Windows 8. I myself run Windows 7 on both my laptop, home desktop and work desktop machines and love it for its familiarity and excellent stability. 🙂
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I'm not getting a PC, I'm getting a Mac! Probably I will use Windows on VMWare on my Mac.
 
just get a copy of xp as cheap as you can to tie you over until you can get a newer system. Doesnt sound like you want to be spending any more cash than you have to on this one
 
If all you need is a Windows PC, there are lots of options. I bought a small netbook a few years ago for the purpose of running iTunes. 250 gig hard drive, Windows 7, and it was well under $200.
 
notjustjay said:
If all you need is a Windows PC, there are lots of options. I bought a small netbook a few years ago for the purpose of running iTunes. 250 gig hard drive, Windows 7, and it was well under $200.
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I second this; my HP mini has been a great little knock-around machine that will handle simple tasks like iTunes and web browsing, chatting, etc. with ease. Not to mention that these days, it's a breeze to find one used in good condition for close to or at $100.
 
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