Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Check your processor before upgrading to Windows 7!

THe more I read about Windows 7, the more I find out how about I am not ready for an upgrade for at least a couple of years.

I first thought that VirtualPC will be needed to run WinXP compatible programs -- which sounded ridiculous, I'l leave it at that, to spare sarcasm. Today, I read that this support for virtualization is far more native to the processor you are running on than earlier VirtualPC versions. This means, that the VirtualPC that ships with Windows 7 requires either an Intel processor with VT support OR an AMD processor with a V tag, where V stands for virtualiation in both cases. This gives user having such a processor the advantage of running Windows XP applications just like a normal Windows 7 application, without having to bring up VirtualPC or anything. This is a more interesting proposition than I earlier thought...BUT....the requirement for a specific Intel model puts the plans to rest for good.

My laptop processor, a Core 2 Duo one, does not support VT.

So, even if I would have been wooed to upgrade to Windows 7 going by rave previews and post-release reviews, this one disability would undo all of my wilful enthusiasm.

So, until something really nasty happens to my laptop, I am not looking at Windows 7 for some time to come...

3 comments:

Sandesh said...

Just like I couldnt successfully run Fedora 11 on my machine. ext4 filesystem is way too slow on IDE HDDs.

Unknown said...

i've not been in touch with linux for a long while now...after reading your comment, I took a look at what's going on there...a lot! but i've become pampered with windows and have no urge to poke around linux machines partly due to lack of time. how do you like it?

Sandesh said...

Its pretty good. Only thing is that I gotta upgrade my machine to make full use of it. Hehe! =)