Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4... DOH!!!

[Richard8971]

Ugh, I just bought Lightroom 4 and to my horror, it is not comptatible with XP!!!

After the release of Vista, I swore to myself that I would stick with XP (which I really like) for as long as I can. Well after 12 years of faithful XP use, it looks like my travels have come to an end.

Now, mind you I am running a new system (AMD Phenom II X4 965, OC'ed to 3.8Ghz) DDR 3 memory, etc... but I have just resisted upgrading to Windows Vista (Gag! Yuck!), 7 or now even 8 for YEARS. (Call me a rebel...)

Well, that has come to a quick end with the purchase of Lightroom 4. Now, my question is, which is better? Windows 7 or 8? Any thoughts?

D

[jp121]

No idea of 8 but 7 was pretty good.

i chucked it all in and finally crossed over to the mac side.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Ugh, I just bought Lightroom 4 and to my horror, it is not comptatible with XP!!!

After the release of Vista, I swore to myself that I would stick with XP (which I really like) for as long as I can. Well after 12 years of faithful XP use, it looks like my travels have come to an end.

Now, mind you I am running a new system (AMD Phenom II X4 965, OC'ed to 3.8Ghz) DDR 3 memory, etc... but I have just resisted upgrading to Windows Vista (Gag! Yuck!), 7 or now even 8 for YEARS. (Call me a rebel...)

Well, that has come to a quick end with the purchase of Lightroom 4. Now, my question is, which is better? Windows 7 or 8? Any thoughts?

D

Do not assume that your new computer is fully Windows 8 compatible.  They do not sell full versions of Windows 8, just upgrades.  OK, there is a system builder edition, but its renamed because it assumes you are a professional system builder and test/debug your hardware with Windows 8 before going into production.
This is one time where just buying a new Dell XPS for $700 is a good idea if you want Windows 8.
Assuming your hardware will fully support it, get Windows 8.  It is faster and has some features like support for larger hard drives, and GPT format.  This is not trivial, you may have a tough time trying to make copies of a Windows 8 hard drive unless you upgrade other software.  Readup on GPT format, you might not want to go there yet, but its coming sooner or later.
The good news is that you will be good for several more years.
As to the interface, just purchase Start 8 for $4.99 and get the old start menu back.  A relative is a Microsoft Manager, and he uses it on all his pc's.  If you do not have a touch monitor, you need the start menu.
Windows 7 is going to be easier to learn, because the interface is familiar.  I have both.  It took me 2-3 hours to become fairly proficient with Windows 8, but there are just some things that do not seem to make sense without a touch screen.  You will find some software and some drivers that are not updated, and never will be.
Windows 7 is safe, lots of drivers now, but there will be older scanners, etc that are not supported, particularly with 64 bit.  You do want 64 bit!!
 

[Richard8971]

i chucked it all in and finally crossed over to the mac side.

Mac? (*hiss*) I am too far gone to switch to Mac or Linux. Thanks!

D

[Richard8971]

Ugh, I just bought Lightroom 4 and to my horror, it is not comptatible with XP!!!

After the release of Vista, I swore to myself that I would stick with XP (which I really like) for as long as I can. Well after 12 years of faithful XP use, it looks like my travels have come to an end.

Now, mind you I am running a new system (AMD Phenom II X4 965, OC'ed to 3.8Ghz) DDR 3 memory, etc... but I have just resisted upgrading to Windows Vista (Gag! Yuck!), 7 or now even 8 for YEARS. (Call me a rebel...)

Well, that has come to a quick end with the purchase of Lightroom 4. Now, my question is, which is better? Windows 7 or 8? Any thoughts?

D

Do not assume that your new computer is fully Windows 8 compatible.  They do not sell full versions of Windows 8, just upgrades.  OK, there is a system builder edition, but its renamed because it assumes you are a professional system builder and test/debug your hardware with Windows 8 before going into production.
This is one time where just buying a new Dell XPS for $700 is a good idea if you want Windows 8.
Assuming your hardware will fully support it, get Windows 8.  It is faster and has some features like support for larger hard drives, and GPT format.  This is not trivial, you may have a tough time trying to make copies of a Windows 8 hard drive unless you upgrade other software.  Readup on GPT format, you might not want to go there yet, but its coming sooner or later.
The good news is that you will be good for several more years.
As to the interface, just purchase Start 8 for $4.99 and get the old start menu back.  A relative is a Microsoft Manager, and he uses it on all his pc's.  If you do not have a touch monitor, you need the start menu.
Windows 7 is going to be easier to learn, because the interface is familiar.  I have both.  It took me 2-3 hours to become fairly proficient with Windows 8, but there are just some things that do not seem to make sense without a touch screen.  You will find some software and some drivers that are not updated, and never will be.
Windows 7 is safe, lots of drivers now, but there will be older scanners, etc that are not supported, particularly with 64 bit.  You do want 64 bit!!

Thank you for taking the time to help explain some of these things. My gut is telling me to go with 7 for now, mainly because it has been out for a while and most of the bugs have been worked out and 99% of my hardware is comptatable with it.

I will lose my ATI TV Wonder VE capture card because ATI has not yet developed a 64-bit driver for it yet (and likely never will).

Guess I could always dual boot XP with 7.

D

[jp121]

Dual boot or VM.

I have WIN7 on VM.

[jdramirez]

My daughter has 8 on her computer... I don't care for it.  I don't think it is bad, but I'm at the age where I'm not willing to learn the differences and the differences frustrate me.  And I think it is designed to be a good crossover between your windows phone and the computer's os, but I use android... so there are no benefits for me.

[jdramirez]

And it was weird.  my Western digital external hard drive would allow me to simply connect, drag and drop video files to the new laptop.  It was stupid and annoying.

[RustyTheGeek]

Keep your current WinXP PC the way it is and get another PC for your photography with Win7 Pro x64 and run Lightroom 4 on that.  Get a good higher end IPS display for the photo pc.  The Photo PC is just another tool.

[pwp]

Aww that's too bad! However the XP/LR4 compatibility matter is written up in the specs for all to see. XP was released in August 2001 and that's about 1000 years ago. Compatibility and security issues are a daily reality for XP now. It was a brilliant OS but sorry, it's time to move on. It's officially no longer supported by Microsoft.

I skipped straight from XP to Win7. Personally I wouldn't install an OS from Microsoft until it was up to its first Service Pack release. Keep away from Win8 for the time being and install Win7 on your system. The very major changes, some of them inexplicable, have put many people off upgrading to Win8. It's emerging now that Windows7 will be the "next XP" in terms of stability, usability and longevity.

As a OS agnostic, I have two Mac OSX machines and two Win7 PC's. I've got to say I'm enjoying Mountain Lion more by the day. If you only run with one machine, consider a Mac for your core work and install VMWare Fusion http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html. You can transfer your XP install to VM with the very simple Wizard and have access to your Windows programs that you know and love. It's a surprisingly elegant solution.

-PW

[RC]

Keep your current WinXP PC the way it is and get another PC for your photography with Win7 Pro x64 and run Lightroom 4 on that.  Get a good higher end IPS display for the photo pc.  The Photo PC is just another tool.

Excellent idea.  I've been tolerating Win 7 just to run LR 4.  There has not been one positive thing I've gained with Win 7 but instead lots of things that annoy me.  I'm seriously considering building a dedicated Win 7 photo PC while my main PC is XP. 

[Legio]

Ugh, I just bought Lightroom 4 and to my horror, it is not comptatible with XP!!!

After the release of Vista, I swore to myself that I would stick with XP (which I really like) for as long as I can. Well after 12 years of faithful XP use, it looks like my travels have come to an end.

Now, mind you I am running a new system (AMD Phenom II X4 965, OC'ed to 3.8Ghz) DDR 3 memory, etc... but I have just resisted upgrading to Windows Vista (Gag! Yuck!), 7 or now even 8 for YEARS. (Call me a rebel...)

Well, that has come to a quick end with the purchase of Lightroom 4. Now, my question is, which is better? Windows 7 or 8? Any thoughts?

D

I use win7 at home and win8 at work. I actually like win7 more than win8. I do not have any touch screen and I don't fancy the start screen in win8 at all. While my common programs can be placed at the bar in the bottom, each time I need to find something else I find it more tedious than in win7. I wouldn't call this a major issue, but I do prefer win7.

Win8 would probably be supported for a bit longer, and that might be an issue if you don't want to upgrade, don't expect win7 to be around as long as win XP now that win8 is around.

I went over to mac (privately) a while back and use it as my platform for photos, actually I use os x as much as possible and win as little as possible now days. This is a little bit strange perhaps since I have been working as a software developer targeting windows since 1996. My OS X machine has win7 on it as well so that I can work natively or use parallels for starting it virtually.

Both win7 or win8 would fulfill your needs, just make sure that you have the drivers on each.

[Halfrack]

Newegg.com - Windows 7 home is $100 OEM.  Maybe as a VM, but most likely as it's own OS on a drive you swap in and boot off of?

If nothing else - get yourself a SSD to put the OS and LR onto - even if your files are on big sata drives, the catalog will work much better on a SSD.

Windows 8 will cause much pain and suffering - save yourself!

[Marsu42]

Ugh, I just bought Lightroom 4 and to my horror, it is not comptatible with XP!!!

I had the same unexpected experience when trying to install a trial on a friend's older system, and apparently there is really no unofficial way around this limitation

Now, my question is, which is better? Windows 7 or 8? Any thoughts?

They are basically the same except for the theme look and MS' touchscreen tile interface, but you can just ignore that and install a start menu replacement. But when in doubt go for the proven, more debugged system which is Win7, even though it now of course has a shorter "mainstream" support duration.

[degies]

Lightroom 4.3 runs just fine in Win8. However as with most things running it on Win8 you want a SSD and more mem helps. I would not upgrade a pc older than 12 months since Win7 still works pretty well. HP and Dell does not always make drivers available. Stupid, but ... thats hardware

To help you get used to the new design of win8 download Classic Shell 4.6.5 from SourceForge or ninite.com It gives you your full start menu and normal options you are used to in Windows

After years of running windows I actually think it's time to jump ship to Mac. This tile crap from MS is not for me. I want to input and manipulate data on a computer with a pointing device and keyboard, not my fingers. I cannot imagine doing post in lightroom with my fingers