I can recommend not to get full with windows xp.. How i see it? I split the windows xp in two periods.. One the beginning xp time period, and Two the later Windows xp period..

I would use windows xp only till 2000 - 2004 period.. Any thing later i would recommending to stick with windows 7 (because its more secure for use on the internet).

Iam using two systems to cope with that..

First system iam going to made would be a dual booted one with windows 98 se and windows xp.. Its fast enough to run the faster win98 se game (2000-2002 period) and the later windows xp 2002-2004 games..

Anything later i would stick with windows 7 instead...

For the first system i would recommend an Athlon XP or Athlon 64 single core build with AGP only..

For the later system i would recommend minimal an Intel Core duo E8500 or E8600 or an quad q9550 or q9650.. But for easier to getting parts i would recommend to build an sandy bridge computer with Z68A or Z77 chipset motherboard.. I self using an Intel 2600K at this moment with a Asrock Z77 Extreme 6 motherboard (the board also support a connector for a floppy drive iam going to use) Iam only using windows 7 32-bit for the moment so i can keep it compatible with the older stuff.. The floppy drive is an easier way to transfer files to my other computers..

Unless this computer is going to be offline I would not use XP. It's a security risk now that it is no longer getting security patches. 😒

King_Corduroy wrote:

Unless this computer is going to be offline I would not use XP. It's a security risk now that it is no longer getting security patches. 😒

Bull crap. This is just what they tell you in order to make you buy a newer operating system. Microsoft Essentials + Malwarebytes + Adblock and you are set. Nowadays even web browsers have built-in phishing and malware protection that will also help. Also remember that most antiviruses software companies will continue supporting Windows XP for a while. At the end of the day, you don't really need any antivirus protection if you know what're doing.

Well you aren't going to see me running Windows 98SE on the internet any time soon for the same reasons. If you don't think that people are doing aren't doing their damnedest to figure out every security flaw in the system to abuse in order to infect the large number of corporate systems still running Windows XP then you are crazy.

As to not using an antivirus, the only thing I trust enough to remain secure without that sort of thing is Linux. Windows I know doesn't take anything to get infected, besides I share a LAN with the rest of my family and who knows what sort of crap they are doing to put security at risk. 🤣

Dreamer_of_the_past wrote:

Bull crap. This is just what they tell you in order to make you buy a newer operating system. Microsoft Essentials + Malwarebytes + Adblock and you are set. Nowadays even web browsers have built-in phishing and malware protection that will also help. Also remember that most antiviruses software companies will continue supporting Windows XP for a while. At the end of the day, you don't really need any antivirus protection if you know what're doing.

I use XP setups on multiple systems, using these adjustments:
- XP POSready registry setting for windows updates till 2019.
- Microsoft Security Essentials engine from late 2013 (no EOL nag), with the current signature database.
- Firefox NoScript plugin. The strongest setting being javascript disabling, unless manually allowed on a per-domain basis.
- Sometimes I setup the OS to run with a non-admin user account. But this is a bit annoying when doing development work.

As to the question "what's the best comp Windows XP will run on?"
XP has driver support for intel Z68-based mainboards with "Ivy Bridge" CPUs, and I read people here found this to also hold true for the intel Z78 series. This is hardware introduced around 2012.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Unless this computer is going to be offline I would not use XP. It's a security risk now that it is no longer getting security patches. 😒

Windows Embedded POSReady 2009. Supported until 2019 IIRC, and basically a reskinned version of XP.

gerwin wrote:

XP has driver support for intel Z68-based mainboards with "Ivy Bridge" CPUs, and I read people here found this to also hold true for the intel Z78 series. This is hardware introduced around 2012.

Interesting. Probably not practical, though, since I'd recommend something like 7 on a rig like that. XP would probably be best fit for something like a P4 or an Athlon XP/64 system. Anything later would be fit for 7.

Only how do we know if the XP POSready route will be OS error running free?

You can try XP, It will work for a while still, you'll get in trouble once firefox and chrome leave it. Pretty much everything you need for regular stuff will work fine for now. But, you'll be stuck with less than 4GB of RAM and hardware that can't be used to its full potential.

I suppose if you stick with updated browsers, Security Essentials, and unofficial POS2009 updates you'll be relatively safe. (key word relatively) Though I am tempted to use XP also, I know when its time to give in and just move on (that said I've used classic shell, 7+ taskbar tweaker, brought back quicklaunch, use the classic theme and the older style network activity indicator to sort of fool myself into a sense of using XP....I also use irfanview, sumatrapdf, 7zip, libreoffice, media player classic, and seamonkey to complete the illusion.)

As for how POS runs, I got it on one of my workstations and it works fine so far. (and I use the "inexperience pack" [or was it "unexperience pack", I forgot], to make it feel more like Windows 2000/9x)

EdmondDantes wrote:

(Sorry, I couldn't tell if this was the right board for this kind of question)

So I was thinking of building a new PC for more modern games--"more modern" for me being like Doom 3, Oblivion or Skyrim, Amnesia the Dark Descent (and hopefully its sequel) and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, with the option (if possible) to play Alien: Isolation sometime.

I recently looked into JUST this 😀

With Intel: Socket 1150 stopped supporting XP. So socket 1156 and 1155 are the latest.

With AMD it seems that current hardware support XP fine but the newest board I have has a 880 chipset and a FX6300. It's easy to find out though, just check the download section of motherboards for XP drivers.

Games up to 2006 are best played on XP, with 2007 many games had DX10 support or received it through patches.

The real question is, what's the latest/best platform with drivers for XP 64-bit? 🤣 I know it's not a very popular OS, but I like it because I'm a huge fan of XP, and I like having the same user experience, but with 64-bit support. 😉

Knock Skyrim out of the list and XP will be fine for an offline machine, and you don't need "the best machine ever for XP" either. A GeForce 7 or 8 and a fast CPU (like an Athlon64 or fast P4) will do all of those games very well, and not cost a whole lot (GF7s can be had under $20 in a lot of cases; I've seen 8800 Ultras for under $50 recently).

Skyrim will run in XP, but Skyrim also requires Steam (and if you dislike things that have to phone home...), and can use substantially more resources than Oblivion, Doom 3, etc (>1.5GB memory footprint is not uncommon - some modders probably are running right at the 3GB Win32 limit). Windows 7x64 (or 8.1x64, or Vistax64, or whatever) with modern hardware would be much more advisable for that title as a result (e.g. 6-8GB of system memory, a high performance graphics card (if it's new enough to do FXAA that'll actually be a nice performance boost)). The truth is Oblivion will also run on such a machine, and I have no reason to believe Doom 3 would not either (I haven't tried that out myself (I haven't had Doom 3 installed in years), but I've actually not come across any DX9-era game that doesn't run in Vista or 7 - FarCry apparently has issues with certain hardware/software/settings combinations (haven't tried that myself either), but otherwise it's smooth sailing).

My overall advice would be to go with Windows 7 or 8 (they cost about the same) on a relatively modern system (Robin4's hardware guidelines are good) - you'll be running the older titles at max settings and still getting multi-hundred FPS, and be websafe for Steam/Origin/UPlay/etc to support newer titles. It's also worth noting that a lot of newer games require DX10+, which requires Vista+, and imho there's no point in owning a 2012+ multi-core machine with DX11 graphics and yadda yadda to hamstring it with max 4GB of RAM, DX9 only, etc.

It's starting to sound like I'd better use Windows Vista or 7... altho, like I said, those have to "phone home" and I'm not sure it's a good idea to have the OS (from the same disks) installed on two separate machines.

I'm not entirely sure I'll ever use this computer for internet stuff, so any game that requires an internet connection is definitely off-limits to me. That means no Skyrim I guess.

As much as I personally love XP, Windows 7 is a better OS for running "modern" games, simply because it gives you full support for things like DX10/11 and 64-bit apps, and a lot of games nowadays aren't even written with XP compatibility in mind. The "phoning home" aspect of the OS may not sound that great, but really, it's rather insignificant. Google and Facebook do their fair share of data mining as it is, and nowadays, I'd say they scare me more than Microsoft, but I still use their products.

The tricky thing about running Windows 7 is the licensing, since it's been toughened up a lot since XP, and there aren't really any *ahem* good ways around it. 😉 Also, it's hard to get a legit copy of it anymore, since Micro$oft in their infinite genius has decided to stop selling retail copies. You may still be able to pick up OEM copies from sites like Newegg, but I do not know for certain.

Now, OEMs are still allowed to sell systems with Windows 7 preinstalled for about another year, so what you could do is go through a company like iBuyPower, and get them to build you a custom rig with Windows 7 preinstalled. It's not as fun as building your own rig, but you still get to choose most of the parts that go in, and it's your surest bet for having a new machine with Win7.

If you decide to buy from an OEM that doesn't provide Win7, what you could do is get a machine with 8.1 Professional installed, then use the downgrade rights to downgrade to 7 Professional. Note that this only works with machines that come with 8.1 Professional preinstalled, NOT if you buy your own copy of 8.1 Professional. Microsoft explains the 8.1 Professional downgrade rights here: http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sbl … ade_rights.aspx

One more thing, if you end up with a machine that has Windows 7 installed, but with no installation discs, Microsoft actually provides officially-hosted isos of these discs. Make sure you have a legit product key before you use them, of course. They don't come with any sort of modifications. http://www.techverse.net/download-windows-7-i … ficial-servers/

I would just obtain a copy of windows 7 (legally or not, police never bothered me) and use it. My current PC used to be an XP system but it was from 2009. And plus, a lot of new games don't support xp. You could also dual boot, but if it were me, I'd stick with one OS. I'm downloading fedora linux as I'm typing, and its free, so I am happy. I've used a few linux distros and this one seems quite sleek.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Well you aren't going to see me running Windows 98SE on the internet any time soon for the same reasons. If you don't think that people are doing aren't doing their damnedest to figure out every security flaw in the system to abuse in order to infect the large number of corporate systems still running Windows XP then you are crazy.

As to not using an antivirus, the only thing I trust enough to remain secure without that sort of thing is Linux. Windows I know doesn't take anything to get infected, besides I share a LAN with the rest of my family and who knows what sort of crap they are doing to put security at risk. 🤣

I've dialed up to the web on 98se quite a few times, within the past year. No viruses yet. I doubt there would even be that many viruses out there for 98 anymore, because only a small % of the US uses it.

EdmondDantes wrote:

It's starting to sound like I'd better use Windows Vista or 7... altho, like I said, those have to "phone home" and I'm not sure it's a good idea to have the OS (from the same disks) installed on two separate machines.

I'm not entirely sure I'll ever use this computer for internet stuff, so any game that requires an internet connection is definitely off-limits to me. That means no Skyrim I guess.

They really don't "phone home" any more than XP does if you don't need them to - they will connect to the Internet to activate themselves (I forget if you can do over-the-phone like XP supports in the event you don't have the Internet at home), and then will use the Internet for Windows Updates just like XP SP2+ does, and just like XP SP2+ it can be disabled (this isn't advisable in general, but it is possible if you, for example, don't have an always-on connection).

Skyrim will require Steam for activation and updates (including the DLCs), but otherwise Steam will allow you to run offline (you have to select "save password" at the log-in and then it can function offline for games that support it); Skyrim doesn't require an active Internet connection constantly in order to work (it has no online/multiplayer component).

As far as Vista vs 7; I'd go with 7 if at all possible, because it has some improvements over Vista that will help performance (like WDDM 1.1), and it still receives full updates while Vista is starting to wind down (for example Internet Explorer on Vista no longer receives updates). You can still purchase OEM Windows 7 from Amazon and other retailers with no problems - http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Premium-System- … /dp/B00H09BB16/ (you do not need "Pro" unless you have a DP machine or need one of the other few "upsale" features that it offers). I've found Vista from smaller computer retailers on ebay without much trouble, and usually for less than ~$100, but I'd still go with Windows 7 if you can afford it.

As far as "swapping" the licence from your Toshiba, depending on how you got Windows for the Toshiba this is either "grey area" or completely legal. Retail and upgrade copies can be legally transferred at will, but eventually will require you to call Microsoft and verify you haven't installed the same copy on a lab of 30 machines. OEM copies tend to have more specific licencing limitations, but because different OEMs can have different contracts it may vary. Of course the licence is generally only for one machine at a time, but remember you're given a 30 day evaluation period if you decline automatic activation during installation (so if you wanted to use the Toshiba's media to test Windows 7 on a new build, and then if you decide you want it, purchase a proper copy for the new machine).

But keep in mind - the games you listed are kind of all over the place. Doom 3 and Oblivion are "old" relative to Skyrim, and will run fine on a Windows XP machine with much less robust hardware than Skyrim requires, so depending on what you really want you may not even need to have the above debate. My advice would be to get a better handle on what games you specifically want this computer to run, and then decide upon the hardware from that list. Dual-booting is fairly easy since Vista - just install XP first, and then install Vista/7/8 to a new/empty partition or disk, and that installer automatically configures the boot-loader with XP as well. However it really shouldn't be required for Oblivion or Doom 3; but there are some titles that are older and may preference XP (for example I've had much better luck with Morrowind in XP).

ahendricks18 wrote:

I would just obtain a copy of windows 7 (legally or not, police never bothered me) and use it. My current PC used to be an XP system but it was from 2009. And plus, a lot of new games don't support xp. You could also dual boot, but if it were me, I'd stick with one OS. I'm downloading fedora linux as I'm typing, and its free, so I am happy. I've used a few Linux distros and this one seems quite sleek.

I use Fedora Linux as my daily driver, I would suggest using something other than Gnome though. Personally I love using MATE but many other people I talk to use XFCE. There are a few things that bug me about XFCE to where I can't stand using it. None that I can ever remember though, but every time I try it it all comes flooding back. 😜

But yeah, Fedora Linux is probably the best distro of Linux I have ever used and I've tried quite a few including their competitor SuSE Linux (Which is terrible btw, STAY AWAY. 🤣).

Well, to make things clear.

Lately I watch a lot of Lets Players, particularly Markiplier, and a lot of the games (particularly the more indie titles--stuff like Call of Duty can go jump in a river) seem kind of fun. The only reason I watch LPs instead of playing is because I don't have any hardware that can run these games. My previous built machine was specifically for Windows 98 and below, so I want this to handle the post-98 era up to now.

I own a copy of Amnesia: The Dark Descent on physical media, but not a computer that will run it. The other games I mentioned (particularly Call of Cthulhu--I should say outright I'm mostly looking at horror titles) are ones that seem really interesting to me, or which I at least want to check out.

Steam games can be run in offline mode! Just got to run them once when being connected.