Windows 7, 64 bit is/will become the new standard. XP 32 will eventually become obsolete. I use ScottradeELITE on Vista. It should do wonders when I upgrade to Windows 7.
Am I the only one who thinks that the OP is a very smart way of spamming? I mean come on, the poster is smart enough to build a computer but he is clueless about what kind of OS he should be using? Not to mention without knowing what he trades and how many applications (and what kind) he is running we can't really advice him. But as an advice he might as well just dualboot 2 different Windows systems... But generally, just follow your broker's recommendation. XP should be still fine for 3 years and after that you should get another computer anyway...
Thank you all for the replies. My first post could confuse some buddies because I haven't described the details of my trading. I built this desktop only for trading due to safe and convenient reasons. I don't need to play games or other programs, except trading software, on this machine. I had two choices for the operating system. : XP 32-bit or Win 7 64-bit. The former is the recommended one by trading companies and the latter is more powerful and faster. My daily use computer is a laptop with an OEM edition Vista. Depending on your replies, I think my best choice is XP right now. As Scataphagos, redneck and other buddies said, the safety and functions are the merits of XP. A newbie in stock market doesn't need many advanced software for trading as of today. Win 7 seems too powerful for me. Petsamo, nettecturs and other buddies also mentioned that Win 7 will become the standard of trading software in near future. So I may upgrade XP to Win 7 after I gain much experience in stock market. The major trading companies will strongly support Win 7 then. Thank you all again for replies Jerry
i'd go with WIN7 in a new build because you'll need to eventually so better get used to it now. ps How many monitors will you be driving with this sys??
I think XP is garbage today. I still have it on a few boxes but I've reinstalled it for the last time. It's up to SP3 and a gazillion patches, updates and overwrites. win7 x64 never misses a heartbeat. For the OP doing a new build on a box he's just going to trade lightly through a broswer on, he should be fine either way.
A box is not that difficult to build these days. I built mine in 4 to 5 hours. Software is a harder question. To jliu21 buddy: I have put Win7 64-bit Ultimate on my new box. I use it for TradeStation 8.7 primarily for trading. I did not see any problem so far - for over a month now. Not sure if it would be okay with IB as I don't use that platform. The only issue I had with Win7 64-bit is the PNY Technology FX5200 PCI display card stops working. I checked the FX5200 PCI did not state compatibility with Win7 and their website does not have driver for Win7. I decided not to re-use the FX5200 PCI cards (as I hoped to do) on the new box.
Operating system recommendation is very important. you must know that the operating system u use is well recommended or not.I appreciate the information provided by moogokin.
Hard to imagine this being true. If all of my XP stuff works perfectly, how can it be "garbage"? ... plan to continue using XP, especially for trading and related apps, until no longer possible.
I had used XP for quite a few years. But since then had moved on to Vista, then lately Win7. I think XP is a robust, tried and true OS platform. But it just didn't have some of the nitty things Microsoft put in. Such as... the monitor landscape/portrait orientation support. Only in Win7. Some of the aero peek features - if you are into eye candies. And the Homegroup file sharing. If you just want a workhorse platform that works and works and don't care about the visualization aspect (taking advantage of faster hardware), XP is still a viable platform. I don't know about Win2k and Win95 though.
Whether you can have portrait display mode is partly determined by the monitor and the video card/driver. XP supports portrait mode... I use it on some of mine.