New PC - old image or fresh start?

[Redrobes]

No one really talked much about the file transfer. If I had an old machine that had a lot of stuff on it then I would definitely definitely go out and get a LAN and set up your two machines so that they can each see the others files. If you have internet access via ADSL or some broadband then its even more compelling.

Buy a router (even if no internet access) with a built in 4 or 8 port switch + firewall. Almost all of them have a DHCP server built in and that will simplify setting up your LAN immensely. Plug in the router to your broadband on the WAN side if you have that and plug all of the computers to the LAN side. With some pretty default settings the DHCP server will setup all of the LAN PCs with proper settings and you can get the internet on any of them instead of just one machine. Also you get file transfer at about 10 Mbytes per sec which means a few minutes or maybe an hour to transfer a hard drives worth of data.

If you really don't want to go down a LAN route (god knows why...) and you have firewire on both machines then that is also an easy way to transfer large stuff quickly.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

No one really talked much about the file transfer. If I had an old machine that had a lot of stuff on it then I would definitely definitely go out and get a LAN and set up your two machines so that they can each see the others files. <snip>.

Thanks. I do have a router currently set up (wired and wireless). My old machine has two harddrives in it. One drive I will likely install in the new machine as a slave... it is the larger of the two and has most of my pure data on it. The second drive has my windows partition.. I will probably use my LAN to transfer any needed files from this drive to my my PC.

 

[Thanee]

Why not just use your old XP? If you already have one, there's no need to buy another one.

With that regard, I would definitely get Vista, so you have both licenses.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Rackhir]

I just used a program called PCMover from Laplink to transfer settings, files and programs from my boss's old laptop to a new one and it worked shockingly well. It's not entirely glitch free, but it has saved me several hours worth of work at a minimum.

If you're looking for something to minimize your hassles with transfering stuff from an old machine to a new one. I'd give it a recomendation.

 

[Bront]

Vista has an option to transfer settings even from XP.

I'd go Vista. It's only slightly slower than XP, and it's getting all the support, so why not?

 

[Jhamin]

As for Vista vs. XP, a couple things to keep in mind...

-Vista is a "big" changeover in OS's, don't think of this as 95->98 or 2000->XP, think 3.1->95 or NT->2000. This means that alot of your old software won't work as well. A bunch of stuff has changed "under the hood" and software needs to change to reflect that. The real benefit of Vista won't show up until the 3rd party manufacturers put out Vista versions of their software and the hardware guys put out Vista drivers so you don't have to kludge drivers across OSes. (98 drivers don't work all that well in 2000, yet people expect XP drivers to work in Vista?)
-On the other hand, the hardware and software you buy three years from now will assume you have Vista. Many of the games coming down the pipe in 12-18 months will need Vista.
-A bunch of the PCs that are being sold right down do not meet the reccomended Vista requirements.

I was into Retail PC support when 95 came out, and almost everything people are saying about Vista vs. XP is what they said about 95 vs. 3.1. Yes, it takes up more resources, yes your 5 year old programs don't work seamlessly. At this point there doesn't seem to be much of an upside. When the first flash/disk hybrid harddrives and DirextX10 video cards come out Vista will seem like a better idea.

If your main concern is that all the stuff you have now works with no upgrades, then absolutely go with XP.
If your main concern is that your new PC will take advantage of all the new toys that come out over the next 5 years, you will have to make the transition to Vista.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Why not just use your old XP? If you already have one, there's no need to buy another one.

With that regard, I would definitely get Vista, so you have both licenses.

I'm just starting to deal with this subject. Just bought a new gateway laptop at Best Buy. naturally, nothing is available now WITHOUT Vista. Of course, I immediately found that none of my old software is going to work with Vista. For my old systems I only have recovery CD's with XP. They're not going to work on a new laptop. At least I don't think so.

My own intention is to buy a version of xp from a discounter online. Download all the driver updates I'll need and put them on a CD - then blow out the nice, USELESS FREAKING Vista crap and freshly install xp. In fact, I found an OEM copy of xp pro with office 2003 for $70. It chaps my ass to have to jump through these stupid hoops, but that's Microsofts fault right down the line.

I agree with Thanee, BTW. If you have a retail copy of XP already, use that. Otherwise, buy the cheapest copy you can find and drop your old drive into your new system as a slave. You can then transfer all your old data, and re-load software onto the new drive at your leisure.

Just DO reload the software onto the new drive. Don't delete it from the old drive - keep it as a fallback. But don't RELY on the old drive. The newer drive will likely have better performance and reliability.

This is a process that EVERYONE must deal with when moving to an all-new system. It's a PITA but it's half of the POINT of getting a new system - ceasing to rely primarily on the old hardware.