Does anyone have any strong feelings about how to deal with old computers and modern software? I'm talking about 10 year old hardware, the sort of thing that might've been upgraded to XP when XP first came out.
I'm noticing at this point that even something like Spybot Search and Destroy is too heavyweight for these systems, let alone any kind of resident antivirus software, but those machines are still out there and they're still working, so we still have to deal with them.
Maybe it's just a sign of the times, but I'm seeing a lot of these systems lately, especially ancient notebooks.
Well, I've got 4 boxes in this house sort of fit in that category. I try and find a deal on Vertex Turbos, and put a 32 gig in each one I care about. If it's IDE, I ordered, but haven't got, one of those SSD's Stinker suggested. I then use the old drive as a D drive, and data backup. On the Girl's computer in the other room, I installed an SSD, but retained the Velociraptor as a D drive, with the full operating system intact.
You suggested AVAST, and, that seems to work reasonably well on my server box.
Thanks to David, I now have Windows 7 Ultimate on the Server box, 32 bit version, and, it works great. Using Vuze, Avast, Peerblock can take up to 50% of the processors, but, it's fine for doing that, 24/7.
I've found there are some old games, and programs that won't run on 7, or modern hardware. It's nice to have the machines around for that reason.
Frankly, there are some people who shouldn't have computers, or, should have old, simple computers.
If they won't spend any money on hardware, a clean install of XP 32 bit is an excellent idea.
My strong feeling is that there is a place for old computers, and, I object to the forced planned technical obsolescence by MSFT, Intel, etc. While you might object to the lack of ability to run new software, that does not mean the computer can't be used for what that person uses it for.
Also, it's really nice to be able to use software on multiple machines, vs. the single machine, activation stuff we have now.
Sam, you've mentioned a number of times that your 920 is WAY over the top, as far as what our current computer processing needs are.
I was just thinking that a number of the tasks, and software I use don't use that processing power. A number of programs I use, AnyDVD, etc. are the same speed on my new machine as on the 11 year old server.
I'm really not convinced that 7 is all that much better then XP Pro, or 2003 Server.
Ubuntu certainly flys in emulation on this computer. Does make me wonder what it would be like on some old hardware, but, what about driver problems?