On 10/17/2011 11:27 AM, John Ferrell wrote: > On 10/17/2011 10:11 AM, Mark Hanchey wrote: >> I once used windows xp for development but had windows 7 on my desktops. >> It seemed to be a good OS overall so I then put windows 7 on my >> development computers as well. Lately though I have been annoyed by >> several things that I didn't encounter with xp. IDE applications that >> have access violations and close, programs that once worked but now >> don't due to things like inability to access the parallel port and just >> general bugs and errors here and there. Some applications will not run >> at all and just close because they were written for windows 98 and >> unfortunately the creators are no longer around or don't have new >> versions. I tried compatibility options but still some don't work. >> >> I can work around most of these, but I was wondering what others are >> doing. Are you staying with an older OS for compatibility or are you >> toughing it out slowly changing to a newer OS ? I am at the point of >> considering going back to xp for my development pc but I hate the idea >> of going to an OS I know will not be supported in the future. Curious >> what others are doing here . >> >> Thanks >> Mark >> > Bear in mind that I am retired and most of my work is for my own purposes= .. > > If you want to continue to use all of your tools you must have both W7& > XP (Pro). > > I am discovering that in some of my tools used on XP have reduced > function sets even with new versions for W7. > W7 does not permit the flexibility that XP allowed. Usually the reason > given is security issues. > For some of my old software it is more economical to keep a couple of > XP's than to even try to find a W7 replacement. > > Whatever XP hardware you like may be getting scarce, so I recommend you > hoard what you find essential! > My treasured Logitec FX Trackball does not have a W7 Driver available. > Most W7 MB's have little PCI hardware support. > > Maybe VMWARE will provide some relief, I have not got to that yet. > KVM switches and Remote Console support are getting more available to > deal with multiple machines. > I've run into issues since upgrading to a 4 core AMD desktop PC. I=20 also "upgraded"[1] from XP to W7 Home Premium. I just learned that=20 to use MPLAB on W7 with old projects, I need to "run this program as=20 administrator", else I get permission problems. Joe W. [1] I read Russel's warning, but I still need to question Micro$oft's=20 philosophy in operating systems. The major problem I have is with the=20 file explorer, which wants to default to "Libraries" which I never use,=20 and otherwise seems to suck when expanding trees. Also, some older=20 hardware doesn't have drivers, but I suppose I should blame the hardware=20 vendors for that. I've been looking into VMWare and VirtualBox as a=20 bandaid, but am also considering spending $100-ish for an upgrade to a=20 higher edition (Pro, Enterprise, or Ultimate), which is needed to run=20 M$oft's XP Mode. As far as permissions problems, a solution might be to learn more about=20 Windows security settings, but I wish it were more straightforward. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .