Back from the Shop...

[admin]

Ok, I now have Win7 Pro 64bit here on my table.

I open this thread since hardware is not really my first love, and I might need a little help in setting it up. There are several plans, let's start with plan A:

Plan A
~~~~
This would be the coolest, and I found evidence in the web that it even might work. The plan is to have Win7 on a stick! I bought the 16GB ultra high speed stick "mistral" to this purpose. Now I want to install Win7 onto this stick, make it bootable, and then run Win7 through VirtualBox from the stick, so that I can quickly switch back and forth between XP and 7. Am I just dreaming or does this sound possible? If the latter, should I mind any important things on the way or just throw in the installation DVD and run it?

[nas8e9]

Ok, I now have Win7 Pro 64bit here on my table.

I open this thread since hardware is not really my first love, and I might need a little help in setting it up. There are several plans, let's start with plan A:

Plan A
~~~~
This would be the coolest, and I found evidence in the web that it even might work. The plan is to have Win7 on a stick! I bought the 16GB ultra high speed stick "mistral" to this purpose. Now I want to install Win7 onto this stick, make it bootable, and then run Win7 through VirtualBox from the stick, so that I can quickly switch back and forth between XP and 7. Am I just dreaming or does this sound possible? If the latter, should I mind any important things on the way or just throw in the installation DVD and run it?

Do you mean your current PC (current RAM 1 GB, max. RAM 2 GB) or did you also buy a new PC? Edited to add:The official RAM requirement for the 64-bit version of Windows 7 is 2 GB, VirtualBox easily consumes a few hundred MB and then there's Windows XP plus your own programs.

With regard to running Windows 7 from a USB stick, I use it to *install* Windows 7 from. The two big problems with USB sticks are speed (even the quickest can't be quicker than the USB 2 connection, which is considered too slow to run Windows from) and limited writes (flash memory has a much lower write limit than HD's; I've heard a maximum of 1.000 writes mentioned): the registry writes alone constitute a huge number of writes per session.

[zer0]

Before we plunge ourselves into the abyss of running Win 7 from a memory stick...here's a question:

Does XP mode -- more details here -- cut it for you as far as switching between XP and Win 7 goes?

[admin]

Yes, current PC. I bought another GB RAM so I have 2 now.

I just need Win7 for testing. Speed is not that relevant, as long as the testing is 100% like the real thing.

You 1.000 writes per what, per second?

[admin]

PS: here is described how Win7 can be installed to and run from USB:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10126

[nas8e9]

Yes, current PC. I bought another GB RAM so I have 2 now.

I just need Win7 for testing. Speed is not that relevant, as long as the testing is 100% like the real thing.

You 1.000 writes per what, per second?

The total lifespan of the stick... Given your current hardware, I'd either get an external USB HD (slow) or, ideally, a second internal SATA HD with an IDE DVD burner instead of your current SATA burner. (Earlier mentioned here.

[admin]

Yes, current PC. I bought another GB RAM so I have 2 now.

I just need Win7 for testing. Speed is not that relevant, as long as the testing is 100% like the real thing.

You 1.000 writes per what, per second?

The total lifespan of the stick... Given your current hardware, I'd either get an external USB HD or, ideally, a second internal SATA HD with an IDE DVD burner instead of your current SATA burner.

Oh oh, that sounds bad. So lets forget about the stick (I will find a use for it).

Second internal SATA HD, yes, that's plan B. So, the 2 GB RAM is not optimal but it would work right?

(Conc. XY mode... the real switch to Win7 will come together with a new PC and LOTs of spare time (unless migrating software can be done automatically in a good way) -- I don't see this coming this year...)

[zer0]

Second internal SATA HD, yes, that's plan B. So, the 2 GB RAM is not optimal but it would work right?

It would work, yes. However, 2GB of RAM is a minimum requirement for 64-bit Win 7. Thus, budget and hardware permitting, I'd suggest going up to 3 or even 4GB. Your Win XP will benefit too

[admin]

Second internal SATA HD, yes, that's plan B. So, the 2 GB RAM is not optimal but it would work right?

It would work, yes. However, 2GB of RAM is a minimum requirement for 64-bit Win 7. Thus, budget and hardware permitting, I'd suggest going up to 3 or even 4GB. Your Win XP will benefit too

I would but my mainboard supports only 2.

[nas8e9]

Second internal SATA HD, yes, that's plan B. So, the 2 GB RAM is not optimal but it would work right?

It would. You may have to limit the number of programs running on the host OS (XP) and I'd limit the number of programs running in the guest (Windows 7) to XYplorer.

(Conc. XY mode... the real switch to Win7 will come together with a new PC and LOTs of spare time (unless migrating software can be done automatically in a good way) -- I don't see this coming this year...)

XP mode, you mean? I hope the arrangement with an additional HD and VirtualBox works out for you. There is one other option: getting a new PC with 4 GB (XP should be able to use a little over 3 GB of that) and *cloning* the HD of your current PC to a HD in your new PC. There are two challenges with that:
1. different hardware necessitating different drivers (the better disk cloning software like Acronis True Image Home can handle this for you);
2. licensing: XP will require reactivation among possibly others like Adobe software. If your XP came with the computer, it may be an OEM license which dies when changing MB's; otherwise it would be a retail license which you should be able to reactivate.

Assuming you'd outsource the building of the new PC, cloning (whether done yourself or by your dealer) should take no more than an afternoon and would leave you with your current OS, apps and data on much more capable hardware that can eventually be used to run Windows 7 x64. It would be my preferred option.

[zer0]

I would but my mainboard supports only 2.

Yep, I had a feeling. It would work, but won't be as fast as a robber's dog. You'll probably need to do some "trimming of the fat" in terms of installed components and start-up programs/services. Shouldn't affect testing of XYplorer though

[admin]

Second internal SATA HD, yes, that's plan B. So, the 2 GB RAM is not optimal but it would work right?

It would. You may have to limit the number of programs running on the host OS (XP) and I'd limit the number of programs running in the guest (Windows 7) to XYplorer.

(Conc. XY mode... the real switch to Win7 will come together with a new PC and LOTs of spare time (unless migrating software can be done automatically in a good way) -- I don't see this coming this year...)

XP mode, you mean? I hope the arrangement with an additional HD and VirtualBox works out for you. There is one other option: getting a new PC with 4 GB (XP should be able to use a little over 3 GB of that) and *cloning* the HD of your current PC to a HD in your new PC. There are two challenges with that:
1. different hardware necessitating different drivers (the better disk cloning software like Acronis True Image Home can handle this for you);
2. licensing: XP will require reactivation among possibly others like Adobe software. If your XP came with the computer, it may be an OEM license which dies when changing MB's; otherwise it would be a retail license which you should be able to reactivate.

Assuming you'd outsource the building of the new PC, cloning (whether done yourself or by your dealer) should take no more than an afternoon and would leave you with your current OS, apps and data on much more capable hardware that can eventually be used to run Windows 7 x64. It would be my preferred option.

Great, so there's plan C ready, thanks.

Actually I own Acronis True Image Home, and I even successfully moved my XP already once to a new mainboard (manually, without Acronis, with the help of a forum member here). There were no problems, although I have just a System-Builder version of XP Pro.

[nas8e9]

Great, so there's plan C ready, thanks.

Actually I own Acronis True Image Home, and I even successfully moved my XP already once to a new mainboard (manually, without Acronis, with the help of a forum member here). There were no problems, although I have just a System-Builder version of XP Pro.

I was slightly confused (what's new...) in that moving a HD image between computers with different drivers, is actually called P2P (physical to physical, as opposed to the likes of physical to virtual). It's dependent on which version of True Image Home you have (the current version requires a Plus Pack, for instance) whether that functionality is included. If your dealer offers to do this, I'd recommend it: it's not exactly for the (hardware) faint-hearted.

Should it become plan C and you'd like additional pointers, please let us know!

[admin]

Great, so there's plan C ready, thanks.

Actually I own Acronis True Image Home, and I even successfully moved my XP already once to a new mainboard (manually, without Acronis, with the help of a forum member here). There were no problems, although I have just a System-Builder version of XP Pro.

I was slightly confused (what's new...) in that moving a HD image between computers with different drivers, is actually called P2P (physical to physical, as opposed to the likes of physical to virtual). It's dependent on which version of True Image Home you have (the current version requires a Plus Pack, for instance) whether that functionality is included. If your dealer offers to do this, I'd recommend it: it's not exactly for the (hardware) faint-hearted.

Should it become plan C and you'd like additional pointers, please let us know!

OK, thanks!

Last time I had asked my dealer and he refused saying it's impossible; then I just did it with the help of user "liquidmantis"... ... OTOH, my preferred way would be that plan B (2nd internal HD) just works and I parallely built up a second real and fresh Win7 system on a second computer on my "weekends" (weekend, what's that?).

[nas8e9]

Last time I had asked my dealer and he refused saying it's impossible; then I just did it with the help of user "liquidmantis"... ...

It may require more hours than they can reasonably bill. Then again, your hours aren't exactly free or not rare either, I suppose...

OTOH, my preferred way would be that plan B (2nd internal HD) just works and I parallely built up a second real and fresh Win7 system on a second computer on my "weekends" (weekend, what's that?).

I can see why you'd go with that. The redundancy it affords alone would probably be worth it.