They clone back-and-forth OK. Only issue I can think of is "partition alignment" if using XP (supposed to be automatic in W7).. and even if you're missing that, it's not a killer.
"(You're likely not to know it failed until you need it... and then it's too late.)" Very good point. Thanks.
you have to understand ET bunch..most of us are old folks,who hate any changes. even changes on our Pc's desktop. plus-like i said above-trading is a business and like in any other business-you have to keep your expenses low. XP works with your software? so keep it running. otherwise you might get into endless loop of changing\updating software,hardware,network ..whatever..that never going to end. everyday there is something new. i might like it,but it doesn't mean i need it. plus-everything is getting more and more complicated. switching might be fine,but learning where everything is and how it works-it's a pain in the ass and time consuming exercise. like i said about security-i know every single process in XP. all i have to do is look into task bar,if i have suspicion,that something is not working right. on top of that-i have 4 PC's running,each for separate system\account. changing OS's on all of them not only time consuming,but also expensive(at least to me). i never understand lines around wireless service boutiques.. wft people do? why you have to change your phone every few months? i got mine for free,works fine and delivers exactly what it suppose to-basic phone call. i have it for 5 years,i'm happy with it.. that's all i need. same rule i apply to my trading business. i still coding on VB6,even when i have all latest database and .net top of the line edition soft. for very simple reason-it would take for me probably a year or so to learn .net and to convert and test all my soft that i wrote. so..do you want trade and make money or waste your time to get your s**t up to date(for no reason whatsoever)?
Drives finally dropped enough that I bought some for my latest machine. 2x1T SATA 3 7k/64gb RAID 0, and figured I might as well try Win8. Set it up last night. I like it so far. It's really fast (not sure how much is from my 12gb/sec RAID and how much is pure OS). I was running Win7 and liked that as well. No way would I run XP again if I had a choice.
Or people who don't want change for just change sake. When support for XP stops in 2014, I'll be switching to W7. W8 is a horrible OS for PCs, the ridiculous tablet interface makes no sense and is unusable and a waste of time, operations that before required 2 clicks require at least 4 in W8 - if that is "change", I don't want it. Seems like MSFT does one okay OS followed by one dysfunctional OS.
You do know that the start button brings up the metro screen which is essentially a very large start menu. You can also customize this to the point that you can make icons large or small, group them, show certain ones (or not) and also customize the look and feel of it. When I first installed the DP (Developer's Preview) version about a year ago, maybe more, the very first thing I did was get rid of Metro. it's easy (Google it). Today, I'd say that it's worth the aggravation to learn how to use it. It's much easier once you get used to it. The only other thing I'll say about W8 is about the apps - sometimes it's a pain to learn how to close them or exit out of them so they don't always run in the background. If you click on them and then hit Alt+F4 will close the Window. Alt+F4 will close any open window/application (that is active) going all the way back to the days of XP. Open Internet Explorer and then once your home screen comes up press Alt+F4. Same thing will happen on W8 when a metro app screen comes up that you want to close but don't yet know how. I was joking about the politics thing but I'm going to have to disagree about W8. Once you get used to it and give it enough time that you learn how to customize it, the metro screen is actually going to be faster and easier than the old start menu. It's going to be less clicks, not more. Windows 7 isn't a bad OS at all. It's leaps and bounds better than XP and Vista - but with W8 they really got a lot of things right that either should have been incorporated into W7 or that the market (people) weren't yet ready to see (like all the bitching about Metro). Just for reference that screen that everyone hates (the new start menu) is even included on the new Windows Server 2012 operating system, both Standard and Datacenter editions. It's not just a home/tablet "looks nice" screen. It's actually productive. (in my opinion of course)
WinstonTj, would you make the same recommendation if the proposed OS is going to be running *inside* a VM? Host is OSX running VMware.
You will need more than just an SSD to go to Win7 you need a faster processor and a whole lot more RAM. Don't do it on a puter built for XP bad idea. By the time you upgrade you could just buy a Win 8 machine make sure it's backwards compatible to Win 7, check the drivers, and go that route. I just found out the hard way my Win 8 machine has no drivers for Win 7 I am screwed.
That really is the way to go white list the apps for trading computer only then there is no need for antivirus at all and put yourself behind a router with NAT and SPI firewall good to go. I run plenty of security on my computer on the XP machine with light apps running in the background not that Norton junk and they take very little resources because I have watched them in task bar for enough time to know that. And let's get real folks. Anyone can be hacked it's like locks on doors they just keep the honest people honest. Do you really think you are a big enough swinging dick to warrant someone hacking you really. Why would a hacker or a group target you when it makes much more sense to target a bank, a credit processing bureau, the DOD, etc. You are not worth their time. The black hats I know wouldn't even waste their time with anyone on this board, including me. Reward vs. risk just like trading.