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Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #20 on: January 26, 2018, 11:51:42 AM »
See https://www.howtogeek.com/197232/microsoft-is-misleading-consumers-with-windows-8.1-system-builder-licensing/ for a potted history.

I've had the misfortune to work for a Microsoft partner up until about a year ago so we had to play by the rules. Unfortunately finding out what the rules were on any given day was more or less impossible.

If you think that is fun, try getting MS to give a straight answer on portability of virtual machines between physical hosts...

And if you think THAT'S fun, try getting Oracle to give a licensing answer to anything other than "What's your annual IT budget? Right, send that to us."
Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #21 on: January 26, 2018, 12:13:59 PM »

Offline ger21

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Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #22 on: January 26, 2018, 01:51:30 PM »
So we're both right.
Technically, you weren't allowed to buy them, but they were readily available for purchase at the biggest online retailers.
Gerry

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Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #23 on: January 26, 2018, 10:53:06 PM »
OK. So I got one of the Dells running, loaded the latest M4 Hobby lathe demo and everything looks to be working REALLY well.
Nothing weird ... at all. Honestly, being the recommendations skipped over VISTA, I was expecting the worst.
I wonder why VISTA was not listed above but is included below to be used with the PP driver.
Does anyone know if the 32 bit Vista will work with the list of "ready" motion controllers ? Or, is that a question for the motion controller supplier ? I'm sort of hoping that it was just a typo in the upper list omitting Vista. All else is really looking good !

Dell Optiplex 740
Windows Vista Business
Service Pack 2
AMD Athalon Dual Core Processor 4400+   2.3 GHz
Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
System Type  32-bit Operating System

On-board video is a bit weak at 128 but I could add a better card.  ?

These were wiped clean and set up fresh by the IT dept and are sharp and fast !

Fingers crossed ..........  :)

Thanks  :)
Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #24 on: January 27, 2018, 04:13:40 AM »
Hi Russ,
I think that combo should be fine.

I run my machine with a dual core Atom CPU with on chip graphics on a miniITX board with 4 Gig. smurph calls the graphics on the Atom 'execrable' and its CPU power
is even less than a single core Athalon XP CPU I used years ago but it runs Mach4 just fine.

smuprh has also experimented with a 'mud' board, a slightly more powerful CPU than mine and he reports that it works fine as well. I think the graphics demand
by Mach4 is very much less than Mach3, at least once the initial draw is done.

Any attempt to redraw while Mach3 was running caused Mach3 to halt with the usual consequences. Mach4 on the other hand has never given me any grief like that.
The only real problem with the Atom is that if I try and load a largish file (about 5M) its very slow to load and draw. The second issue is that with a 32bit OS the CPU
can only address about 2.5 Gig of RAM. As it turns out that has been sufficient for my machine. I recently had to install 32bit Windows 7 onto my laptop after a meltdown
left me without a usable copy of Windows 8. The laptop has 8 Gig installed but only 2.5 usable and I keep running into memory shortages, never thought I'd say it but
I miss Windows 8!

Craig
'I enjoy sex at 73.....I live at 71 so its not too far to walk.'

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #25 on: January 27, 2018, 07:11:37 AM »
Just for information really...

A couple of years back large numbers of Win7 Pro PC’s were being replaced and scrapped here in the UK (government or large corporate concern perhaps). An enterprising trader removed the COA’s before scrapping the hardware.

I am not sure of all the rules here but using the Win10 Pro iso. (legally downloadable from Microsoft website) or an official installation disc, the Win10 Pro installation can be activated with the Win7 Pro key even though the free upgrade offer ended July 2016.
How is this possible? – I really don’t know but I have just done it with this disc and COA.

If you check out ebay, the old COA’s are around £6.00 and the new (unused) scratchable COA’s around £17.00.

Tweakie.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2018, 07:13:38 AM by Tweakie.CNC »
PEACE
Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #26 on: January 27, 2018, 10:11:01 AM »
Thanks guys.
So, Vista has nothing at all to do with it ?  ?
Am I to be the first guinea pig ? (or link to another)
Would love a confirmation from Steve Smurph.
And/or Steve Stallings perhaps ?
Thanks again Gents,
Russ
Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #27 on: January 27, 2018, 12:08:16 PM »
I can't answer for either Steve or indeed for Mach4 but in general, any APPLICATION that runs on Windows 7 will run on Vista.

Typically, when you see that an application is supported on certain versions of Windows it means that the product has been TESTED against those versions of Windows, not that it's KNOWN not to work with versions not listed.

Windows 7 and Windows Vista have very broad compatibility, I'm yet to encounter an app that would run on one but not the other.

Drivers, on the other hand, are another matter. Here you're more likely to encounter issues if a version isn't supported. This is because the framework for drivers gets updated with most Windows version upgrades although they mostly maintain backwards compatibility.

I've had fairly good luck with using drivers certified for older or newer versions of Windows on versions they weren't supported by. That said, if my sound card doesn't work properly it doesn't have the potential to cause thousands of pounds worth of damage so I'd probably stick with supported versions for CNC breakouts :-)
Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #28 on: January 27, 2018, 05:06:41 PM »
Typically, when you see that an application is supported on certain versions of Windows it means that the product has been TESTED against those versions of Windows, not that it's KNOWN not to work with versions not listed.
That is precisely what I am inquiring about. Well said.
So much of this adventure is non-typical.
smurph, Brett and Mr. Stallings would/(do) definetly know the answer.
Might have to try a different posting.
Thanks TommyG,
Russ

Offline ger21

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Re: Suggested OS
« Reply #29 on: January 27, 2018, 05:22:49 PM »
Windows Vista was released 11 years ago. That's a long time ago. :)
Gerry

2010 Screenset
http://www.thecncwoodworker.com/2010.html

JointCAM Dovetail and Box Joint software
http://www.g-forcecnc.com/jointcam.html