XP Pro 32-bit v. Windows 7 64 bit

[edong]

I'm interested in buying a PC kit with Phenom X4 9850, 2GB RAM. I'm assuming it's 64-bit.

I want to save some money and use my old XP Pro (32-bit). Will there be really a noticeable difference (in speed) between using an XP Pro 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit as far as video rendering is concerned? I will consider buying a second hard drive if that will speed things up a bit. Thanks.

[aedipuss]

a second or third hard drive would make more of a difference. all my rendering machines use 4 h.d.s - o.s. dirve, scratch drive, source drive and destination drive.

i don't notice much if any speed diff between winXP and win7 except for boot and shut down times.

[Megahurts]

I have a dual boot XP Pro 32 bit and Win7 64 bit. I did a test with RipBot encoding a small HD video and the results were 25 min encoding time. The XP was 7 sec faster.

So far, the only advantage I see is Win7 recognizes 4 gig of ram vs 3.2 with XP.

[edDV]

You may find some software or hardware drivers have trouble with 64 bit. So, it makes good sense to have a dual boot.

[edong]

Thanks, guys for the quick response. That really helped.

[Bonie81]

Software compatibility might be major issue in Windows 7.0.
At this moment of replying this post, I am not pretty sure how many of Video Free Tools and Commercial Softwares are fully compatible with Windows 7.0, run smooth and flawless without XP Mode in Windows 7.0. This is the main reason I am still using XP in-spite of having Lic Win7.0 with PC with legit SN.

I can appreciate more comments from Windows 7.0 user.

[edDV]

Software compatibility might be major issue in Windows 7.0.
At this moment of replying this post, I am not pretty sure how many of Video Free Tools and Commercial Softwares are fully compatible with Windows 7.0, run smooth and flawless without XP Mode in Windows 7.0. This is the main reason I am still using XP in-spite of having Lic Win7.0 with PC with legit SN.

I can appreciate more comments from Windows 7.0 user.

I have several Vista and Win7 32 bit installs. So far no problems with older apps and most older hardware. I have an Epson scanner that only works with XP.

The problems come with 64bit (XP, Vista or Win7). If you purchase Win7 as an upgrade, you get both 32 bit and 64 bit install discs. I'm saving the 64 bit discs for a future update when 64 bit makes a difference. I can reinstall as 64 bit at any time using the same key code.

[MOVIEGEEK]

One thing I have noticed with new laptops and desktops is they only come with 64 bit, last year they you a choice(32 or 64 bit).

[Noahtuck]

W7 has been better to me so far than Vista.

I am still a big fan of XP Pro and the only reason i went to W7 & Vista 64 bit was because of the amount of ram i am using and plan to go up to 8g's.

The one thing i really LOVE about W7, is you can download XP Pro virtual machine from M$ for FREE and whenever i want or have the need i can run XP Pro on my W7 desktop!!


As i have some older apps and things that work best in XP, or at all.

[El Heggunte]

One thing I have noticed with new laptops and desktops is they only come with 64 bit, last year they you a choice(32 or 64 bit).

I confirm that. As for Windows 7 itself: I'm still trying to get used to the damn thing. Windows Explorer is still "unusable" to me, and the built-in firewall keeps sucking At least Windows Defender works (so far).

[lingyi]

FWIW...I've been running Vista X64 for over three years now and *knock wood* have been completely happy with it. There's a few cranky programs that won't work, but nothing that I haven't been able to find a comparable or better solution for. As for freeware video apps...*knock wood twice*...haven't had a problem.

The only real glitch I've come across is hardware. I recently got a Epson 900 that can print directly on CDs/DVDs, but the print software is only for XP. No problem, since I got a couple of cheap P4 desktops ($50 for both of them!) and use that for the printer.

I long ago realized that rather than spending the money on the latest and greatest (I'm running a Q6700 Quad Core with 8GB of RAM), I'm better off getting a second cheap PC and dedicate it to conversion. Uses a bit more electricity, but I can happily work / play on my main PC without any slowdown. When I upgrade my current PC, I'll make it my secondary machine. My guess is that for less than $100 you can easily get an old P4 or better desktop (with Windows XP), 1GB of RAM and a video switch or KVM. I turn on my XP PC only when I need it and use VNC software to view and remote control it.

Finally, the best thing about going X64 is more RAM! I've been running 8GB since I built this PC and haven't had to look back since. I don't have to worry about a fast page file because I've turned it completely off (really think twice and read up on doing this before you try it).

[neomaine]

W7 has been better to me so far than Vista.

I am still a big fan of XP Pro and the only reason i went to W7 & Vista 64 bit was because of the amount of ram i am using and plan to go up to 8g's.

The one thing i really LOVE about W7, is you can download XP Pro virtual machine from M$ for FREE and whenever i want or have the need i can run XP Pro on my W7 desktop!!


As i have some older apps and things that work best in XP, or at all.

Ditto everything above.

VPC is the best of both worlds without having to worry about dual boot. Much easier to deal with. Create virtual HD for the OS and simply mount the other drives in your system. . Most current (last few anyway) CPUs have special instructions to assist with Virtual PC. I was very pleasantly surprised how seemless it all works.

Though I must admit that the one piece of software I use it for, I don't use very often anymore. Everything I use for enconding runs quite happily in 64bit or through Wow64 (for 32bit apps). Now that I think about it I've got a W2KPro and a WinXPPro VPC running. May be time for some cleanup...

Note: To use Virtual PC you'll need an install disk and a valid key.

Note 2: Virtual PCs have their own MAC address so if you do MAC filtering on your router you'll need to take that into account. This one burned me for a couple of days since I (badly) assumed it would use the physical PCs MAC. If you assign static IPs, you'll need some for them too.

[Jim44]

Software compatibility might be major issue in Windows 7.0.
At this moment of replying this post, I am not pretty sure how many of Video Free Tools and Commercial Softwares are fully compatible with Windows 7.0, run smooth and flawless without XP Mode in Windows 7.0. This is the main reason I am still using XP in-spite of having Lic Win7.0 with PC with legit SN.

I can appreciate more comments from Windows 7.0 user.

Nearly everything that I use works just fine on Win7x64 (Home Premium), including the old Canon scanner and even older Olympus digital camera. I'll note that all of my video tools are 32-bit, because not all were available in 64-bit, so that's just easier. But I've had zero problems in 8+ months.

The only piece of SW that I currently have to run in a VM (VirtualBox) on XP is an automotive parts catalog. But I access it so infrequently that it's not a big deal, plus supposedly there's a way to get it to work under Win7 but I just haven't been motivated enough to work on it - I've probably only used it once in these past 8 months of Win7 use.

Oh, one other: CapDVHS didn't work under 64-bit. But it does work under 32-bit Win7 on the laptop, and that's easier to use to capture from the DVR anyway (versus the 30-ft of firewire cable ). But like the parts catalog, I don't use it a whole lot, so it's worth mentioning but not really a "minus" as far as I'm concerned.

[Edit: FWIW, I jumped from XP Home 32-bit to Win7x64, skipping over Vista entirely.]

[ranchhand]

Been running W7 Ultra for over a year, I have not had one video program not run. May as well bite the bullet, I predict that by next year this time the only Windows OS available for preinstalled computers will be 64 bit. 32 bit has been given the death sentence. I am dual-booted with XP Pro/32 but I haven't been using it for anything. Everything from CorelDraw to Photoshop to Audacity (etc. etc.) runs fine on my 64 bit.