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From a programmer's point of view, what may be Windows XP used for, in 2012? And in 2017? I think, Win32 API programming and web page compatibility testing (older versions of Internet Explorer). What else?
Microsoft will stop XP support in the near future, and I've got an old installation disk, so I think, I might install it on a virtual machine and download the updates while they're still available. But I want to know whether it's worth the effort. I'm at university and have no idea of what OS/field I will work on when I finish (2017). --
151.75.35.148 (
talk) 01:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Ok. What set of snapshots would you recommend? What software do you recommend that I preserve? There are a lot of combinations useful for testing: if I save each service pack in couple with each IE version, that's 9 combinations, and more if I consider the OS updates and the applications. Also, I don't know what programs (that I may want for testing/programming purposes) are likely not to be downloadable in XP version in the long future. -- 151.75.35.148 ( talk) 02:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I own a 3TB external hard drive from Seagate, and my OS is Windows XP on a laptop from 2006. I was in an IRC chat, and I noticed, while the chat was ongoing, the phrase "does support 2.2TB+ drives". In Googling to find what that means, I saw many results mentioning a 2.2TB limit, but I have no idea if the combination of the 3TB I own and the fact that I still run XP will cause problems? If I was going to have problems, would I have had them immediately upon first trying to use it (I haven't), or will my problem come some time in the future, perhaps when I reach 2.2TB of used space (i.e. 0.8TB free)? Thanks for your help! -- Tohler ( talk) 03:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
From what I've read about this, the limit is caused by using sector sizes of 512 bytes. However, it is possible to format the drive to something higher like 4096 bytes, and considering this is a 3TB drive it may already be formatted for 4096 bytes sectors. This should increase the limit to 16TB 92.233.64.26 ( talk) 20:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Another quick question while I'm using the ref desk: I prefer XP over 7. However, I know I'm going to have to upgrade to a modern computer (e.g. 2012+) eventually. Is it possible to keep on using XP on a modern computer that would have 7 installed "from the factory" (Dell)? How would I go about doing this, and would I run into any problems or limits? (I think one of them is the limit on RAM 32-bit systems can use) -- Tohler ( talk) 03:35, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
At this point the documentation and tools are available to allow you to make Windows 7 behave exactly like XP basically every way that matters, if that is your concern. http://classicshell.sf.net/ being easily the biggest piece of the puzzle. ¦ Reisio ( talk) 04:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Windows 7 has it own boot manager— Windows Boot Manager, which can handle dual booting with Windows XP including booting from different physical drives. Ruslik_ Zero 18:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I have a Word document that I need to export as a PDF, with its text preserved as text in said PDF. But whenever I go through the appropriate steps, the resulting PDF converts the text to raster images. How can I prevent this? I believe this is something to do with the font I am using, as this does not happen to all the fonts on my computer. Pokajanje| Talk 16:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I've got a UTP cable from a room to the router downstairs. The connection sometimes gets slow, an internet speed test gives 1.62 Mbps download, 2.63 Mbps upload to the closest server (same town). That download speed is one fifth of what I normally get and what I still get on the pc downstairs, so I'm guessing it's the cable. Both pc's are plugged into an old hub before the router btw, so there's an inherent limit regardless of my ADSL speed. Unplugging the one downstairs does not improve the situation. What I really don't understand, is why downloading pdf files is slowed to about 30 kilobyte per second, and why wikipedia pages load slow, mostly waiting for bits.wikimedia.org, after which they often appear with much of the layout missing, I guess because the style sheet(s) didn't load. I presume that doesn't happen to everyone with a connection speed under 1Mbps or maybe 300kbps, so why would a noisy cable cause this? ifconfig didn't show any errors or dropped packets. Ssscienccce ( talk) 19:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Computing desk | ||
---|---|---|
< September 30 | << Sep | October | Nov >> | October 2 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
From a programmer's point of view, what may be Windows XP used for, in 2012? And in 2017? I think, Win32 API programming and web page compatibility testing (older versions of Internet Explorer). What else?
Microsoft will stop XP support in the near future, and I've got an old installation disk, so I think, I might install it on a virtual machine and download the updates while they're still available. But I want to know whether it's worth the effort. I'm at university and have no idea of what OS/field I will work on when I finish (2017). --
151.75.35.148 (
talk) 01:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Ok. What set of snapshots would you recommend? What software do you recommend that I preserve? There are a lot of combinations useful for testing: if I save each service pack in couple with each IE version, that's 9 combinations, and more if I consider the OS updates and the applications. Also, I don't know what programs (that I may want for testing/programming purposes) are likely not to be downloadable in XP version in the long future. -- 151.75.35.148 ( talk) 02:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I own a 3TB external hard drive from Seagate, and my OS is Windows XP on a laptop from 2006. I was in an IRC chat, and I noticed, while the chat was ongoing, the phrase "does support 2.2TB+ drives". In Googling to find what that means, I saw many results mentioning a 2.2TB limit, but I have no idea if the combination of the 3TB I own and the fact that I still run XP will cause problems? If I was going to have problems, would I have had them immediately upon first trying to use it (I haven't), or will my problem come some time in the future, perhaps when I reach 2.2TB of used space (i.e. 0.8TB free)? Thanks for your help! -- Tohler ( talk) 03:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
From what I've read about this, the limit is caused by using sector sizes of 512 bytes. However, it is possible to format the drive to something higher like 4096 bytes, and considering this is a 3TB drive it may already be formatted for 4096 bytes sectors. This should increase the limit to 16TB 92.233.64.26 ( talk) 20:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Another quick question while I'm using the ref desk: I prefer XP over 7. However, I know I'm going to have to upgrade to a modern computer (e.g. 2012+) eventually. Is it possible to keep on using XP on a modern computer that would have 7 installed "from the factory" (Dell)? How would I go about doing this, and would I run into any problems or limits? (I think one of them is the limit on RAM 32-bit systems can use) -- Tohler ( talk) 03:35, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
At this point the documentation and tools are available to allow you to make Windows 7 behave exactly like XP basically every way that matters, if that is your concern. http://classicshell.sf.net/ being easily the biggest piece of the puzzle. ¦ Reisio ( talk) 04:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Windows 7 has it own boot manager— Windows Boot Manager, which can handle dual booting with Windows XP including booting from different physical drives. Ruslik_ Zero 18:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I have a Word document that I need to export as a PDF, with its text preserved as text in said PDF. But whenever I go through the appropriate steps, the resulting PDF converts the text to raster images. How can I prevent this? I believe this is something to do with the font I am using, as this does not happen to all the fonts on my computer. Pokajanje| Talk 16:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I've got a UTP cable from a room to the router downstairs. The connection sometimes gets slow, an internet speed test gives 1.62 Mbps download, 2.63 Mbps upload to the closest server (same town). That download speed is one fifth of what I normally get and what I still get on the pc downstairs, so I'm guessing it's the cable. Both pc's are plugged into an old hub before the router btw, so there's an inherent limit regardless of my ADSL speed. Unplugging the one downstairs does not improve the situation. What I really don't understand, is why downloading pdf files is slowed to about 30 kilobyte per second, and why wikipedia pages load slow, mostly waiting for bits.wikimedia.org, after which they often appear with much of the layout missing, I guess because the style sheet(s) didn't load. I presume that doesn't happen to everyone with a connection speed under 1Mbps or maybe 300kbps, so why would a noisy cable cause this? ifconfig didn't show any errors or dropped packets. Ssscienccce ( talk) 19:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC)