Which version of windows to get? Advice needed
 

Guys,

Just got a Dell Precision Workstation 390 from my work as no longer required.

It has come with an XP disc, but that's only 32bit and the PC has 8GB of RAM, so is obviously only seeing 3GB!

My question is, do I buy a copy of XP 64bit, or go windows 7 or 8 64bit?

The HDD sounds like its eating itself so I'll get a new HDD - anything to avoid there?

What is the better OS to be on? And any links to the cheapest place to purchase would be great - I'm a bit out of touch with it all these days

Cheers :)

XP is no longer supported, which means Windows Update may stop working for it soon.

So I'd advise you to go with Windows 7 32 bit, unless the CPU is 64bit supported.

Can I use all 8GB ram with W7 32 bit?

no, just up to 4GB

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...mits_windows_7

According to http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...ecn_390_en.pdf - it states that it supports 64 bit so you can get Windows 7 64 bit.

However, please confirm this first before buying a copy!

It is unsupported as of 8th April next year!

Given this you still would not want to buy it, no 32 bit OS can address more than 4GB RAM, so you will need a 64 bit OS, that PDF markets it with 8GB RAM, therefore the CPU is 64 bit.

Martin

Win7 or Win8.1 (64bit). However the only real advantage with win8.1 over Win7 is its sata3 driver enhancements. Your workstation 390 dont support sata3.0 anyways so really no need for Win8.
And I mean sata3.0, not sata2.0 - 3,0gb/s. Sata3.0 = 6gb/s bandwidth.

Win 7, and if you are buying a new drive get a small SSD as well for the OS. It's amazingly quick, and not too much money.

Cheers guys, got it up and running on XP 32bit for the time being, seems pretty quick so far! (seeing 3GB ram)

The HDD seems a bit quieter now!

I'll quote and ask another couple of questions now :cry:

Do you mean have 2 seperate drives? An SSD for windows install, then a normal one seperate? I usually partition, put windows on the smaller partition

I'll post a pic of the HDD soon!

So it seems that Windows 7 64bit seems to be the answer, best place to buy?!!

Nope just remove the HDD and insert a SSD!

They are not as reliable so keep a backup, but they make an old PC/Laptop Very fast!


Adam

BTW - Windows 7 64bit IMHO

That's pretty impressive tbh! :eek:

Just to update guys - bought an SSD and SATA cable last night, will update with progress :)

Running on an SSD with Windows 7 - impressed :cool:

Good man! I rate this combination!