oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

my 10-12 year old computer lost is mind yesterday.
Its days are numbered.
Who is a good go-to hogger for basic questions on upgrading for photography?

cmc65

oldtigger Loc: Roanoke Virginia-USA

Ok, we got it narrowed down.

I want windows, PC, 8 gig ram, 2.6-3 G processor. at least Core 2 Duo. Serial drives
Prefer XP Pro but understand i may have to get something later.

Not interested in Mac, 4/5 K, 32 gig ram, solid state drives or raid arrays.

Gene51 is a possibe go-to, any other suggestions?

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

If you've been working on a 10 year old, anything on sale at Costco, Best Buy, Office Depot or B&H will blow your socks off!

You will have to do some looking for Windows 7 if you can't deal with 8.

Jay Pat Loc: Round Rock, Texas, USA

HP did have windows 7. They may still offer it.....
You can custom order items on the HP site.
If you end up with windows 8, you can go back to the "old desktop". Just a few simple steps.
I do have HP desk top (windows 8) and laptop (windows 7).
Have not had any problems, so far.
Pat

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

XP Pro????? Dead and gone.... Windows 7 if you really look, beg and plead... otherwise, your gonna be stuck with that crappy Windows 8.1 junk...

mdorn Loc: Portland, OR

Oh my gosh!! Prepare yourself for everyone to give you advice. I think every hogger falls under the "computer expert" category. I would give you my advice, but I don't want to have to defend every fricken suggestion I make. No worries... there are plenty who will. Good luck. :-)

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Your best hope for XP Pro is Goodwill or a pawn shop ( with some luck) - it is what I use - I refuse to board the "upgrade" train !

Jay Pat Loc: Round Rock, Texas, USA

Just got an email...
If you want to stay close the XP world, here are some Window 7 options.
http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryListingView?catalogId=10051&categoryId=162553&langId=-1&storeId=10151&in_jumpid_HolidayDesktop1207#!&TabName=vao

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Don't wait very long.

If you want a modern(ish) Windows PC with a similar experience to Windows XP and the capability to do good photography work I would recommend a system (desk or laptop) with a Windows Core i3 or i5 processor or similar and Windows 7-64. It is very stable, very similar to Windows XP and will be supported by Microsoft for some considerable time.

I've just bought one to replace my wife's laptop (that died) at a very reasonable price from Dell, although they are getting scarce. It came with Windows 7-64 installed together with an upgrade disk for Windows 8.1, which I consider to be a useful piece of shelf-ware. It may be useful for future upgrade purposes, but for now will live on the shelf beside my copy of Windows Vista!

People are beginning to talk about Windows 10, but that is unlikely to be available until next fall.

I wouldn't wait long if you want a Windows 7 machine. Windows 8 is "controversial" and makes significant changes to the UI which some people like and some do not.

You can always add more RAM or SSDs if you wish (I like them) but a decent main drive and a few optional terabytes of internal or external spinning disks seem to do the job. I would say that the OS is probably the biggest deciding and urgent factor right now.


Good luck

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

Computer guy here. Been a hobbyist since the late 70's and have had my own computer repair and networking business since 1997. If you have to get a PC with Windows 8.1, get the free shareware "Classic Start" menu, it will let you boot to a desktop and is a reasonable facsimile of the Windows 7 Start menu. I put this on all of my customer's new computers who are 50 years of age or older. Old dogs don't like new tricks. I've been running Windows 8 and 8.1 since before the public got them (since I'm a Microsoft Partner) and both are stable, perform as well as XP and I've had very few compatibility problems. I think Windows 8 is a victim of trying to change too much too soon and perception, which many times is more important than reality. For the record, I also use Android, Chrome, Linux and Apple machines and have no ax to grind. My 2 cents based on much experience.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

This also seems like good advice (from a professional!), although if you have other devices like printers or other things that are important to you, a bit of diligence on device drivers may be helpful. There are solutions to many things, but not to them all...

Mr. PC, your thoughts?

Wallbanger Loc: Madison, WI

Take a look at the Lenovo ThinkCentre Workstations. If you'd like a quote on anything send me a PM, my company is a Lenovo dealer. Usually we can offer it at a bit below the advertised price on Lenovo's website. They have a lot of options, but I'd stick with the "Think" lines, as they are the professional machines that don't come loaded up with a bunch of crap ware.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/workstations/thinkstation/p-series/?menu-id=p_series

Personally, we deploy the P300 series for our employees.

These machines can still be ordered with Win7 Pro for the moment, and include upgrade rights to 8 when you're ready.

That said, in all honestly, if your buying a brand new machine, I wouldn't install a 6 year old OS on it if you want the best performance. Make the jump to 8.1.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Lenovo does build some good machines, my company laptop is one, but they also build lemons. I am $1500 out of pocket personally with one and their support has been atrocious. It was one of the first Ultra-books and they just abandoned it. I will never touch them again.

I also work in the industry, and have some pretty high level access and they will not get another recommendation from me. They simply did not even want to respond, even when I pulled my connections. I can't describe what those are for professional reasons.

Every company has product issues, but in this case I was completely appalled.

Wallbanger Loc: Madison, WI

Just curious, was this the business or consumer line? Business class machines are the "Think" line.