As Spice, GoldWave, Groove Mechanic, and SoundEasy do a pretty good job of bringing my current XP to its knees, I was looking for a new desktop. Just took a first look at Win 8. I guess Microsoft is trying to make me buy an Apple. That has got to be the worst desktop environment I have ever seen. Ever. Going to go for the Win 7 downgrade Microsoft is offering.
Microsoft has even stated they think desktops and laptops are dead. Somehow they think an iPad will replace my twin head desktop for spreadsheets, word processing, and engineering. No way in (that place) will a pad be able to render the kind of graphics gamers want over the internet from a utility cloud in the next 10 years. It is just that darn speed of light problem. It is amazing how they have been so wrong so many times and still make money. Linux anyone?
No more Firewire ports built in. Good thing I have an old 4-port one lane card so I can plug in my backup drive and M-Audio Profire.
Microsoft has even stated they think desktops and laptops are dead. Somehow they think an iPad will replace my twin head desktop for spreadsheets, word processing, and engineering. No way in (that place) will a pad be able to render the kind of graphics gamers want over the internet from a utility cloud in the next 10 years. It is just that darn speed of light problem. It is amazing how they have been so wrong so many times and still make money. Linux anyone?
No more Firewire ports built in. Good thing I have an old 4-port one lane card so I can plug in my backup drive and M-Audio Profire.
Absolutely agree with you. I´v had Win 8 installed for the last year (yes) and I just don´t like the interface, but I have to say that it is stable as Win 7. Ubuntu is also working in a new interface, let´s see. Kubuntu with Amarok is nice, and there is a plain linux distro also from Cannonical that is easy with hardware.
RGDS
Pemo
RGDS
Pemo
The second HP support rep now says WIn 8 does support FireWire if you put in a card. Several threads on other sites say they dropped the drivers. RC vs ship? Don't know what the facts are now. The MS compatibility checker says my Office 2000 is incompatible. Well, I run Office 2010. It did not see any of my perferials, but said a printer that does not exist was just fine. Useless like all MS support.
I saw a note a company is selling a "start button" add-on for $5.
One thing for sure, you sure can't get straight technical answers any more. I asked HP what model hard drive was in their PC and was told "the 2TB one". I asked the "expert" in a red sign office store how many slots it had, and he said " 4 USB". He did not know what an internal PCI slot was. This was the expert called over by the department sales clerk! My wife was a fine arts major and she knows more about computers than these moron kids, but can't get a job. (female, white, old)
Unfortunately, if your PC is connected to a network, you really should run a current OS due to security problems. The reason there are so many botnets out there is people who don't manage their systems responsibly. 95 was pretty decent, but can't support multi-core, slow, crashed, and can't support 64 bit apps. As the world switches to IP6, you will be forced to upgrade or stay off-line.
If I remember: 95 was a 16 bit shell, on an 8 bit OS, designed for a 4 bit processor, by a 2 bit company, that did not give 1 bit for the customer.
I saw a note a company is selling a "start button" add-on for $5.
One thing for sure, you sure can't get straight technical answers any more. I asked HP what model hard drive was in their PC and was told "the 2TB one". I asked the "expert" in a red sign office store how many slots it had, and he said " 4 USB". He did not know what an internal PCI slot was. This was the expert called over by the department sales clerk! My wife was a fine arts major and she knows more about computers than these moron kids, but can't get a job. (female, white, old)
Unfortunately, if your PC is connected to a network, you really should run a current OS due to security problems. The reason there are so many botnets out there is people who don't manage their systems responsibly. 95 was pretty decent, but can't support multi-core, slow, crashed, and can't support 64 bit apps. As the world switches to IP6, you will be forced to upgrade or stay off-line.
If I remember: 95 was a 16 bit shell, on an 8 bit OS, designed for a 4 bit processor, by a 2 bit company, that did not give 1 bit for the customer.
I like Windows 8. Start button = Full screen Tiles - too much aido about the Start menu. I am an PC enthusiast but my wife a casual user likes as well. Very stable, performs very well. A bit of a learning curve on the UI but nothing real difficult. Did you try to call M-Audio for support on your Profire 610? It would be there responsibility to provide drivers for Windows 8. With Windows 8 Hyper-v, you can run Ubuntu as a virtual desktop if you like. MAC OS in Hyper-v is possible in theory, but not legal from Apple licensing
You can't call M-audio. Everything is a third party paid support. You can get ignored on their user forum for free. I like their products, but their support is worse than Microsoft. In contrast, you can get to a real person at e-mu only to be told they know they have a driver memory leak in the 1616 and it crashes if you have on-board video and they have no intention of fixing it. Basically, "up yours". That is why I went M-audio. At least it works. BTW, after M-audio's their buyout, they no longer support any of their USP products. I was over on Sweetwater's WEB and there are some very good looking units from companies that don't have an attitude yet.
A virtual desktop still requires a base OS (or hypervisor) that has the hardware drivers. There are some DSP apps I would like to run that are Linux, so I look forward to that.
As I said, I played with the new tile screen. Fine for a phone, terrible for a business desktop. It takes too many actions to do things. Basically, they put in a fix for problem they don't have. Hidden off-screen phantom buttons and translucent drop downs you can't see if you are over the age of 10. Nope, bad design. At least they are reasonably open, not like Apple, so third parties can provide a fix. I sure hope I can find something that works like PrintKey2000. That's probably the best utility I ever downloaded since DirectoryFreedom in the pre-windows era. Such a simple thing, works so well. Original Paint. Use it all the time as it is simple and stupid.
A virtual desktop still requires a base OS (or hypervisor) that has the hardware drivers. There are some DSP apps I would like to run that are Linux, so I look forward to that.
As I said, I played with the new tile screen. Fine for a phone, terrible for a business desktop. It takes too many actions to do things. Basically, they put in a fix for problem they don't have. Hidden off-screen phantom buttons and translucent drop downs you can't see if you are over the age of 10. Nope, bad design. At least they are reasonably open, not like Apple, so third parties can provide a fix. I sure hope I can find something that works like PrintKey2000. That's probably the best utility I ever downloaded since DirectoryFreedom in the pre-windows era. Such a simple thing, works so well. Original Paint. Use it all the time as it is simple and stupid.
As far as I understood it, the main difference of W7 to W8 was the introduction of the metro interface
(that you don't need to use) and then the removal of the windows start button in desktop mode and the introduction of something else. This something else basically a tab that pops up and includes your most used programs etc and then anything you've pinned to it. As this is all I use my start button for in W7 anyway, I can't see it as a huge issue. Or have I missed something?
I'm not exactly thinking of a move to W8 as there's nothing wrong with W7 and none of the W8 features really appeal to me, but they don't turn me off either, it's just seems different.
(that you don't need to use) and then the removal of the windows start button in desktop mode and the introduction of something else. This something else basically a tab that pops up and includes your most used programs etc and then anything you've pinned to it. As this is all I use my start button for in W7 anyway, I can't see it as a huge issue. Or have I missed something?
I'm not exactly thinking of a move to W8 as there's nothing wrong with W7 and none of the W8 features really appeal to me, but they don't turn me off either, it's just seems different.
I bought a copy of Win 8 to play with. After a long ugly experience with Vista, I will not install it on my prime machine. I'll put together a Core i3 box to play with.
I have two EMu PCI products. I paid a bunch of money for their flagship 1820M. It worked good in my Core II Duo XP box. That PC died (motherboard) so I built a Core II Quad with Vista. As stated the EMu Vista driver is broken, but I somehow got the XP driver running. The system still goes unstable at random, but I don't know if it is Vista or EMu. I have to reboot a few times to get clear audio, but it is usually OK once it starts up right. I got someone at EMu that told me that all PCI (not PCI express) products have been discontinued and no longer supported. OK, so I spent several hundred bucks and now my 1820 box is usless. No more EMu/Creative products for me.
I had an old M-audio Audiophile 2496 (10 year old date codes). I downloaded the Win 7 drivers and it works great. I now have 3 M-audio cards and they work with XP, and 7. The old 2496 will go in the 8 box as soon as my Newegg order gets here. I will be running Cakewalk Sonar X2 which will NOT run on the Vista/EMu system. Neither will Sonar X1. Older versions run OK.
I have two EMu PCI products. I paid a bunch of money for their flagship 1820M. It worked good in my Core II Duo XP box. That PC died (motherboard) so I built a Core II Quad with Vista. As stated the EMu Vista driver is broken, but I somehow got the XP driver running. The system still goes unstable at random, but I don't know if it is Vista or EMu. I have to reboot a few times to get clear audio, but it is usually OK once it starts up right. I got someone at EMu that told me that all PCI (not PCI express) products have been discontinued and no longer supported. OK, so I spent several hundred bucks and now my 1820 box is usless. No more EMu/Creative products for me.
I had an old M-audio Audiophile 2496 (10 year old date codes). I downloaded the Win 7 drivers and it works great. I now have 3 M-audio cards and they work with XP, and 7. The old 2496 will go in the 8 box as soon as my Newegg order gets here. I will be running Cakewalk Sonar X2 which will NOT run on the Vista/EMu system. Neither will Sonar X1. Older versions run OK.
I would not be upgrading from XP-64 except I am buying a new system. Passmark says it should be about 10X the speed, so that will help the Spice runs a bunch.
The e-mu 1616m driver loaded just below the onboard video. After some time on playback, it would crash the video. Memory leak. I even found a reference on a site down under admitting it.
Ironic; I bought the full external M-Audio Profire so I would not get obsoleted due to internal buss issues. What a surprise everyone just dropped Firewire.
The e-mu 1616m driver loaded just below the onboard video. After some time on playback, it would crash the video. Memory leak. I even found a reference on a site down under admitting it.
Ironic; I bought the full external M-Audio Profire so I would not get obsoleted due to internal buss issues. What a surprise everyone just dropped Firewire.
Interesting. At the time I abandoned XP-64 EMu had only beta 64 bit drivers for their cards. I couldn't make one work, so I got the Audiophile 2496.
I can't say for sure what driver I am currently running on the Vista 64 box, since I had to jump through a few hoops to make it work. It is still unstable....sometimes it takes 1 or 2 reeboots to get audio, or remove the stutter, but once it is working it is usually OK. The 1820M is a cool tool when it works though. I can plug my turntable into the phono inputs and rip vinyl to 24/96 WAV. I can also record 8 microphones simultaneously in Sonar or play back 8 simultaneous tracks.
I tried everything I could to make it work in 7 to no avail. I tried 3 different computers and a dozen or so hardware combinations.
Firewire never really took off on Wintel like it did on Mac. I use some vintage HP equipment at work that runs Firewire so I keep an old Dell XP32 box under my desk.
What I don't understand is this:
I run GoldWave, Spice, Photoshop, ARTA, HOLMImpulse, Audacity, Video Editing and many other programs on my XP machine. It's just a Dell tower with dual 1.6 GHz processor and 2G of RAM. No trouble at all. Maybe I don't hit it as hard as you do?
I have no problem in running them in KVMs under CentOS 6.3, what is the purpose of paying money to Microsoft for running more advanced OSes on top of it?
I am not a big fan of VM's. Mostly because of inefficient use of resources. You will lose 20% off the top and more for socket to socket, As much as 60% if your VM spans chassis, and that is for the rare HV that can. Why should I buy a 6 core chip when all I wind up with is a 2 core VM? Their big advantage is flexibility. That is truly a big deal. I am more about performance. Very impatient you know. I will take a bare metal grid over a VM based cloud any day.
At home, I want a physical for gaming for graphics performance, audio but it I nice to have a secondary Vm of Ubuntu or Windows Server for testing. Beats have 3 chassis under my desk with kvm liked the old days using 500+ watts. I did not need to heat my office in the winter.
At work, I oversee 1300 servers - 90% virtual. It would cost millions more if we needed to be all physical. Power consumption savings are huge. Most applications do not need physical. Oracle and high-end SQL are the few exceptions. Developers will say they need SSD, high GPU, etc. but the numbers do not justify their need for "performance". No VM hypervisor spans vms across hosts (chassis) - VMware, Hyper-v, XenServer but they can move between host with little impact. Inefficiency would be running 1300 physicals with less than 5% cpu utilization.
At work, I oversee 1300 servers - 90% virtual. It would cost millions more if we needed to be all physical. Power consumption savings are huge. Most applications do not need physical. Oracle and high-end SQL are the few exceptions. Developers will say they need SSD, high GPU, etc. but the numbers do not justify their need for "performance". No VM hypervisor spans vms across hosts (chassis) - VMware, Hyper-v, XenServer but they can move between host with little impact. Inefficiency would be running 1300 physicals with less than 5% cpu utilization.
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