Howdy

[Bay Blues]

Howdy Folks,

I would like to introduce myself, My name is Steven, and I am a musician, I play guitar, a little keyboard and Harp. I hold an Operators certificate for Pro-Tools recording software, and I am in the middle of upgrading lots of stuff in my Studio! My recording software is Pro-Tools 10 and it requires a lot of RAM, To make it work faster the designers have made it so that everything is loaded into RAM so there is no noticeable lag in the process.

So I have traded off a guitar for a computer that was put together, by the man I traded the guitar to, and now I am picking up where he left off.

I found your site looking for help in dealing with some of my problems and have found a lot of answers. Thank You
One of my problems was that I wanted to keep all the programs that was on the computer. I don't have original installation disc

So I found the article by Ed Wood very helpful and when I receive all of the parts and programs that I have ordered I will assemble and load and put his advise to work.

I also sold a truck I had so it is kind of like Christmas, oh that's right it is!! (Except I'm spending the money on me instead of the children, They are grown and out of the house!)

So I am glad to be here, I know enough to get into trouble, I take stuff apart and lots of times I get them back together. I used to build engines , houses, bridges, and such
but now I build great sandwiches!!

 

[TrainableMan]

When upgrading from XP it requires a fresh install including software so you will likely have problems trying to keep your software if you don't have disks. It is possible to download some software from the manufacturers websites, usually trial versions, but you will need your license keys to fully activate so you might install SIW and get as many product keys written down as you can before wiping out XP (Find SIW in the Freeware DB) Because most software requires entries in the registry to work you will have issues with a lot of programs if you simply try to copy the program files folders.

Going from XP (32) to W7 64 you may have programs that won't work (primarily old 16-bit apps) as well as hardware with no 64-bit drivers (printers, mice) so it is a good idea to run the W7 upgrade advisor on your XP machine with all your hardware attached and powered on. It doesn't catch everything but it does give a good start at finding potential compatibility issues.

And for copying over your data and userids you might want to use Windows Easy Transfer.

 

[Bay Blues]

Trainableman,

thank you for your welcome and I want to thank everyone in advance for their help. As I said before I enjoy working on stuff, (most of the time, sometimes I just need to step away for awhile :dontknow and I hope I can be of some help too.

I ran the W7 adviser realize that I will need 64 bit drivers. The program did a very good job of showing which things that I will need find drivers for and who I will need to contact.

Originally I thought I might partition my drive and install W7 on a clean partition,
now I believe I will do a clean install on a freshly formatted hard drive. The article by edawood (member) Quoting Ed: "With this procedure, you can have both Windows 7 and Windows XP on different drives, and boot to whichever OS you want to use". So I can have the best of both worlds.

https://www.w7forums.com/attachment...e-without-reformatting-windows-7-tutorial.txt

My Problem might be as Ed pointed out will be that I might not be able to switch in my BIOS which drive I want to boot from. Hopefully I can do that in the BIOS and won't have to reset the master and slave Manually.

I have just found that the makers of my digital interface and my recording software will no longer support the said interface (M-Box and some of their other interfaces) and they will not even work with my newly purchased software, Pro-Tools 10. So I have done some digging and found a fellow musician that will sell me an interface that is supported, M-box 2 Pro, which is a fire wire devise. My Mother Board doesn't have fire wire on it but it does have PCI Express X 16 slot on it and from what I read I will be able use this for fire wire, I have ordered a cheap fire wire card to try out, cheap I say because I am not sure that it will work and don't want to invest in something that Isn't going to work, can you offer me any advise along these lines? If it does work are there any benefits to be had by buying a more expensive board? Thanks again

 

[TrainableMan]

To be honest, firewire is pretty much dead so I wouldn't move in that direction if you can find an alternative.

 

[Bay Blues]

You are right, I can use a PCI card with all the connections that I need,2 balanced XLR Mic connections with pre amps, unbalanced connections, MIDI, word clock. It also has: Delta Control Panel Software also controls a hardware mixer embedded in the PCI card,software 24bit 96 Khz

The Delta1010 that is 10 in 10 out PCI recording system with 2year warranty life time support, free shipping, it's on sale now for $199.00 that is about what I was going to pay for a used interface with no guarantee! (From a reputable dealer)Is this what you meant or do you have a better solution?

 

[TrainableMan]

I am not into creating music, tone deaf in fact, so I don't feel comfortable making such a recommendation, I was merely saying stay away from firewire.

I will say the Delta 1010 & 1010LT seem to both have good reviews if you search "Delta 1010 reviews".

 

[Bay Blues]

OK then I ordered the card this morning and now I am waiting for my memory, Recording software upgrade, and the Delta1010LT card, then I have to order my Win 7.

On my other computer a Dell Dimension 2350 1Gb of Ram; it came with Win XP home installed, I have all the installation discs. Is it qualified for an upgrade to Win7?

 

[TrainableMan]

XP and Vista both qualify to use the Upgrade disks (you do not need full) but XP requires a complete install so all your programs must be reinstalled as I mentioned before; this can be an issue if you don't have the program disks.

 

[Bay Blues]

So I need to install the XP OS on to the Computer- that I want the upgrade to W7 On.

I have all the discs but; Would I be able to just pull the drive from the Dell computer and install it in my computer with the MSi MOBO, set it as the master drive and go from there?
Or do I need to reformat the drive?
Would I have problems with it being recognized by the different MOBO then the machine I pull it out of?

A while back I bought another drive and used seagate's disc wizard and transfered everything onto the new drive including OP then installed it as the master drive on the Dell insperation but I maxed out the Ram (it would accept only 1 Gb)

The computer I want to install W7 on has XP pro installed on it but I don't have original installation discs.

I sure ask a lot of questions. Hope the don't try your patience.

 

[TrainableMan]

OK the computer that came with XP Pro on it likely has what is called an OEM license. An OEM license cannot be transferred to a new computer (in fact it is even supposed to expire if you replace the motherboard in that very same computer with anything but the same model MOBO). So legally that license can only be upgraded to W7 if it is in that same computer, not if you move the Harddrive. I'm not saying people haven't done it, but legally it doesn't qualify for a W7 upgrade.

Now the fact that you own XP disks likely means that that license is not an OEM copy (unless your disks say DELL or similar) so that license can legally be transferred to any computer you own or build (as long as you only have it on one at a time) and it then qualifies that machine for a W7 upgrade. Note that the XP does not have to actually be on the hard drive, you just need to own the license and not be using it on another machine, however the W7 upgrade disks will need a double install if the XP license isn't on the machine.

 

[Bay Blues]

The discs do say Dell on them and it says "For distribution only with a new Dell computer", So I guess that shoots down that avenue.

Now the other computer is one that was built by the man I traded to so I believe that the OS was installed onto the hard drive that is in this case, with this board, by him; He also installed a wireless network card and a DVD read drive and a CD Read Write Drive, I have the original box that the board came in and the user guide book that came with it.

In my system properties under general tab:
System:Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 3

Registered to: Sean PC
#####-###-#######-#####

Computer:
Intel(R) Core(TM0 2 CPU
4300 @ 1.80 GHz
1.80 GHz 1.46 GB of RAM
Physical Address Extension

It is set for Automatic updates and it says:
Windows Update collects the Product ID and Product Key to confirm that you are running a validly licensed copy of Windows

If I can't upgrade this I will have to buy a new license or stay with what I have, it's only 32 bit
and I won't be able to use all of my memory I have on order, 8 GB.

Can you tell from this information if I will be able to upgrade or not?

 

[TrainableMan]

Well as I mentioned upgrading from XP to W7 requires a total reinstall so it doesn't matter if it is currently 32-bit, you can still go to 64-bit W7 if the Upgrade Advisor says the hardware supports it.

As for that license, I personally don't know without the original disks or packaging and posting the product code online isn't a good idea so I removed it.

 

[Bay Blues]

OK. Thank You,
I just received my Memory and have installed it, I will run the upgrade adviser again. I put in both sticks but system only recognizes one stick of 4Gb, says the other slot is empty.

 

[TrainableMan]

The only thing about memory is that 2GB or less recommends 32-bit, 3GB is recommended minimum for 64-bit, though I have seen 64-bit run on 2GB. So anyway, if upgrade advisor said 64-bit was compatible before then adding the RAM won't change that.

 

[TrainableMan]

I moved your latest post to a new thread HERE.

I'm not a hardware guy and I think your best chance to get some advice on CPU installation & coolers is a new thread.

I do know some CPUs come with the paste.