upgrade?

Plenty of PC's available with XP, if you want.

Try contacting one of our Merchant Members here. This is their specialty.

 

Computers with Windows XP are still relatively easy to get, just don't expect to walk into your local Wal Mart or Best Buy and pick one up that way. Many companies out there, such as Dell and HP, still offer the option for an XP Downgrade through the rights of Windows 7 licensing, but this also comes at a higher cost.

My best suggestion if you wish to remain with Windows XP is to find a custom builder. Not only will you get the exact specifications that you are wanting and many times better overall performance and quality possibilities, but you can select to use Windows XP over Windows 7 at no additional cost.

 

I'm using Flexi 8 & decided to upgrade to Windows 7 so I can migrate to a newer cpu & run 8 gigs of ram. I loaded W7 in 64 bit mode which will be good for Photoshop CS4 to take advantage of too. I don't remember if CS2 can benefit, but I'd think so.

I loaded Flexi 8, and kept the older cpu on the desk for the transition. As expected there was one snag so far, with the software not recognizing the dongle. Advantage said there is a free upgrade that is now on it's way & then I'll know more, but I'm sure it will work & I'll be much more powered up for ripping large format work, as well as crunching some of the photoshop processes leading up to the final prints.

 

Flexi 8.0 and 8.1 were not "designed" to work with Vista or Windows 7, so the free update to 8.1 may not fix your problem. Flexi 8.5 and higher are designed to work with Vista & Windows 7, so that might be an option if the 8.1 update doesn't work. It'd be nice if the update worked though. Good luck!

 

I run XP on my home and work computers and I really have no reason to upgrade. As far as I know the only real reason to upgrade is if you want to go beyond the RAM limit but don't they make a 64 bit version of XP anyway? XP does everything I could really want to do on a computer....

 

A simple fix to run older programs (assuming changing the compatibility mode is of no use) is to set up the computer to dual boot.

There you have 2 OS's installed (sometimes 3) and at boot-up you pick and choose which to use.

Using 64 bit is the real bugaboo as there are a limited amount of programs that are compatible with it. That and finding drivers for older peripherals to as to not have to replace older printers, plotters, scanners and the like.

 

I have a Pro II it runs colorip and i just right clicked said run in XP mode works like a charm i have not run into any issues with W7 in fact i love it the ability to see all my ram and the fact it can handle 8-16-32 and even more ram than that makes upgrading to a super fast PC extremely easy, we run macs here at our shop as well and i was so partial to them when we got into wide format and went to PC i was skeptical at first with windows 7 i can out perform all our macs. All that to say upgrading to 7 was one of the best decisions for us.

follow this link to the windows site.


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/upgrade-advisor


you can download and scan your computer and you will see what will and will not work with 7. However as long as you get the Ultimate edition you can run all your programs that wont run in 7 back in XP mode..


hope that helps....

 

The issue you might be having seeing the hardware dongle in Flexi 8 might not be fixed by an update in Flexi 8, but you should fix the problem by just downloading the proper sentinel/aladdin driver. On the test computer system we set up with Windows 7 and Flexi 8.1, we have a USB dongle which was not recognized immediately for driver installation. I did a google search for sentinel hardware driver, and downloaded the latest version of the sentinel hardware key driver. From there the dongle was recognized and Flexi 8.1 was able to load properly without any issue.

 

Even the latest versions of Flexi do not take full advantage of a 64 bit OS, large amounts of memory or quad core processors (at least on the Windows side).
As far as I can tell it is not large address aware so it will not see the full 4gigs of memory running a 32 bit application under a 64 bit OS would allow.
But, it is still better to be over powered on the hardware side for other programs that will use those assets.

wayne k
guam usa

 

Has anyone been able to get 7.6 v2 with a parallel key to work on a new machine? I have win7/64 and purchased a PCIe parallel card. I've upgraded to win7 pro and downloaded all the XP mode software. I've installed flexi and when it opens, at the very end of opening, it says it cannot find the key and shuts down.

BTW, I can connect a printer to that port and it works fine.

I'd like to get a USB key but I'm being told I must upgrade to 8.6 for $1000 and I have no interest in upgrading.

Thanks for any help.