Choosing An Operating System

A

Alexi

Drench Audio
VIP Junglist
Joined
May 21, 2007
Location
Bristol/Southampton
Just bought a new computer for music production, was a good deal because it doesn't come with monitor/mouse etc but neither does it come with an operating system.

So was looking for some advice from anyone who knows about the compatibility, reliability etc of each OS.

It's going to be strictly for music production, so doesn't matter about graphics or anything.

I've got a copy of Windows XP that I got with a computer that's never been on the internet, so could use that.

Or, as I'm a student can get the Windows 7 Pro. for £35 or Ultimate for £55. I've done some googling and there doesn't seem to be much difference. But as they are upgrade edition I'll need to install a previous version of windows first.

I'll be using Ableton Live and various vsts etc.

And the specs are:

AMD AM3 Quad Core X4 630
4GB DDR2 RAM
nVidia GeForce 8200TC 1GB

Any advice is much appreciated, cos this kinda stuff ain't my area of expertise.

Cheers
 
As long as all your software and interface etc work well on it, and should be better than your previous PC. I wouldn't worry too much tbh.Windows is windows at the end of the day..
 
i too would like to upgrade to 64 bit, and from what i hear 7 works fine with most audio applications. just make sure that all plug ins do work in 64 bit, and also check that there are similar drivers for your hardware. it'll be sad to see my egosys go when i go 64, but you know, cant make an omelette without breaking heads etc
 
cheers for the responses people

I wasn't sure about 32 or 64 bit because I've got a laptop with 4gb of ram and that came with 32bit vista installed on, and often the FAQs on plugins say they do not work with 64 bit.

I've done a bit of googling and seems it's probably better for my spec however, so I'm probably going to install xp home, the upgrade to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and hope for the best
 
I dont like the idea of 64 bit for the fact that you have two program files and ive had vst's fail on me
i had 2GB of ram and was running xp 32bit with no problems
now im on 64bit 7 and some freeware plugins fail to load in ableton
 
Indigo said:
I dont like the idea of 64 bit for the fact that you have two program files and ive had vst's fail on me
i had 2GB of ram and was running xp 32bit with no problems
now im on 64bit 7 and some freeware plugins fail to load in ableton
Click to expand...

thrown a spanner in the works there mate
 
mate of mine who does film production really rates windows 7... says it pisses all over vista! i would be inclined to agree, as although XP is a solid workhorse, when you go back to it it does seem somewhat clunky!
 
I use Windows 7 and it works great for pretty much everything.

My only issue with Windows 7 is that it is almost too new for it's own good, sometimes I run into compatibility issues due to the fact that certain programs/applications were designed to run on previous versions of windows. This problem has been relatively minor but occasionally quite annoying.

Other than that, Windows 7 is awesome .
 
right so I went with windows 7 64 bit

However some plugins don't show up at all even if they're installed in the 32 bit directory

I can't even install some common programs like itunes

On system properties it says only 3.5gb of ram is usable rather than 4?

Any 64 bit users care to shed some light on this? Cheers
 
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