Not sure which O/S to use for which system

[blackrain]

I have 2 systems and am anxiously waiting to load windows 7 ultimate on one of them. Which system would you use windows 7 on and why?

System 1 (HTPC/Heavy Gaming):
Biostar TA790GX 128M
AMD Phenom 720BE
(1) WD Blue 500GB (for O/S and some storage)
(1) 1T (for storage/backup)
Sapphire 4850
4GB memory


System 2 (Office/Light gaming):
Asus P5N-E SLI
Intel E7400
dedicated Video Card (TBD)
2GB memory
2x 120GB WD in Raid 0 (O/S drive)
1x 200GB for storage


My thinking was to do windows xp on both machines since I plan to game on both. And maybe do a dual boot (winxp/win7) on System 1 (HTPC/Gaming) for all of the HTPC stuff. Also, the 4GB ram will be recognized fully in windows 7

Anyway, would like to hear your thoughts on possible arrangements/O/S choices for these systems.

 

[JackMDS]

Win7 x64 will recognize the 4GB RAM.

Dual Boot is a Ticket for trouble.

Put the Win7 on you main computer and XP on the second. If your actual functional finding there after look like the reverse is better, then reverse.

 

[blackrain]

Win7 x64 will recognize the 4GB RAM.

Dual Boot is a Ticket for trouble.

Put the Win7 on you main computer and XP on the second. If your actual functional finding there after look like the reverse is better, then reverse.

Not sure what you mean by "main" computer. I don't think I can put windows 7 alone on my HTPC/heavy gaming PC because of the gaming. That definitely needs windows xp as well. If the dual boot is a ticket for trouble, maybe I should just run windows 7 on my office pc. Is there anything that windows 7 lends to HTPC? is the whole HTPC/heavy gaming combo messing me up?

 

[Gamingphreek]

Not sure what you mean by "main" computer. I don't think I can put windows 7 alone on my HTPC/heavy gaming PC because of the gaming. That definitely needs windows xp as well. If the dual boot is a ticket for trouble, maybe I should just run windows 7 on my office pc. Is there anything that windows 7 lends to HTPC? is the whole HTPC/heavy gaming combo messing me up?

Yes HTPC with Gaming is somewhat of a difficult combination.

Ideally an HTPC is supposed to be small, low powered, quiet, cool (etc...) - whereas a gaming computer is often quite the opposite of that.

Windows 7 Media Center is a significant improvement over XP Media Center (and even Vista Media Center to be honest). Not to mention if you ever intend on adding Blu-Ray support, XP must be patched for support.

If you only have 1 license for Windows 7, I would install Windows 7 on one computer and Vista on another. XP is worthless as far as I am concerned - there is no point to installing it unless you have no other licenses available to you.

-Kevin

 

[RebateMonger]

My "heavy-duty" gaming PC is XP. I have hardware and games that won't work under Vista or Win7, so I have no plans to switch that.

Win7's Media Center IS pretty nice, so I use it for Media Center-only PCs that have video cards that support it. I'm also planning on migrating my main office PC to Win7 in the near future.

Obviously, I'd suggest keepig your XP gaming PC and using Win7 for Office/Light Gaming. There are third-party Media Center applications for XP. Maybe you can find something you like for media playback on your XP box.

If you feel the need to dual-boot, consider picking up a $50 320 GB hard drive and installing Win7 on that. Install the new disk and temporarily remove the XP disk. Install Win7 on the new disk, replace the XP disk, and use your BIOS to control which OS boots. It's much safer than doing multiple OSes on the same disk and doesn't cost much.

 

[blackrain]

How do you use the BIOS to control which disk boots? By the way, I should mention (and will edit my original post) that I don't plan on using my HTPC with windows media center or anything like that. Its an HTPC only to the extent that it is directly plugged into the 50 inch plasma for movie viewing. And gaming is just awesome on that TV as well. I do plan to get a blu-ray drive for the HTPC.

I am debating whether the dual boot is really such an issue because I am going to use separate "O/S" and storage drives for the reason that if the O/S drive craps out, the data on the storage drive is safe....just reinstall O/S (or in this case 2 O/S). I will probably back up most of the saved games folders. And I dual-booted winxp/win98 for years without problems. Are there known problems with dual-booting xp and win7?

I have exactly 2 winxp licenses and got the win7 ultimate at one of the win7 launch events. I can't believe I haven't had a chance to install win7 yet. Not sure if the launch event win7 is x64 or not.

 

[RebateMonger]

Not sure if the launch event win7 is x64 or not.

The provided DVD was x32. A month or two ago on these Forums, I posted an email address for requesting a free x64 disk from Microsoft. Several of us received their x64 disks from Microsoft, but that offer may no longer be valid. If you have an x64 Win7 DVD, you can use your Launch x32 Key to install x64 Win7.

BIOS-controlled boots are a feature of many (all?) BIOSes. On many PCs, you hit F12 to bring up a boot disk menu. Or you can set the BIOS to offer a boot menu for a few seconds before booting to the default disk.

 

[blackrain]

What was that email address for the win7 x64?? Nevermind, I got it

Your idea of loading a different O/S on a different drive is really interesting. I am going to look into how to set that up. Lets say I get my hands on win7 x64. Will my Phenom 720BE get anything more from out of the x64 than my E7400? Just trying to figure out which machine would be better suited or get the most out of windows 7 x64.

one problem I have is that I had to pull the middle drive cage in the HTPC build because my 4850 video card was too long and would run into any HD in that cage. I may have to get a 3.5-5.25 adapter to install an HD in the 5.25 drive bay.

Is the BIOS O/S boot choice affected at all by whether the drive is IDE or SATA?

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I'd put win7 on the 4GB machine and keep XP on the other, i wouldn't dual boot either.

 

[sswingle]

What games don't work on Vista/7? I have no had problems with any I have tried.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I don't think I can put windows 7 alone on my HTPC/heavy gaming PC because of the gaming.

?? Why not?

 

[blackrain]

Compatibility