Re: Do we actually need XP support?
- From: Harry Binswanger <hb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 19:59:04 -0400
Why is W2K superior to Win7 32-bit (which runs Xy with NTVDM just as XP does).
Regards,
Harry
I'm very much looking forward to your step-by-step instructions for VMWare.
I hope to get that done in the next few days, but there isn't any rocket
science. It's all very easy and quick.
If I decide to go that route, using Win 7 or Win 8.1 as my main OS,
what's the advantage of using W2K as the virtual OS rather than XP, which
has the benefit of long familiarity?
Lynn, I too would have been more comfortable selecting XP, but I blindly
took Kari's advice on this, and haven't regretted it. Some of his reasons
are that it is lighter, faster, less of a memory hog. An enormous thing I
love about W2K is that it doesn't require activation, so can never get
egregiously unactivated. To be free of that detestable XP and post-XP
activation mechanism is a great blessing for me. I hate activation.
One of the major problems with running older operating systems natively is
lack of modern video driver support. VMs counter this by providing their
own up-to-the-minute video drivers. So, for example, with VMware, W2K
operates perfectly with my 3200x1800 screen, even though that resolution
was scarcely available on even the most high end systems when W2K came
out. That is one of the reasons I prefer VMware to VirtualBox. With
VirtualBox, setting up screen resolution, especially for high-resolution
screens, is much more fiddly.
I was looking for a solution that would get me to stable XyWrite with the
minimum of fuss. That's what I found with VMware and W2K. Please note that
the way I set it up, W2K does not communicate with the internet. That's
what I wanted: it saves me having to worry about attacks, viruses, etc.
The host operating system (Win 7 or 8.1) provides all the internet access
I need, and as I pointed out to Henry, all you have to do to cut and paste
is press Ctrl-C in your Win7/8 program, then alt-tab to XyWrite, and
right-click to paste. It's as simple as that, with the proviso that, as we
all painfully know, pasting an upper ascii character (like a true
apostrophe or an em-dash) from Windows to the DOS program drives XyWrite
mad with grief. Manuel on this list has documented his system for dealing
with that (getting XyWrite onto a Windows codepage) but I have yet to
implement this, though it's on my to-do list.
I am sure Kari has a lot of other reasons for boosting W2K in this context
- - I felt there was no point in not taking advantage of his considerable
experience, and I really didn't have to know the details. Lack of
activation and semi-official-retired-and-therefore-free status is enough
for me. Add to that, convenient ISOs are available (I will be providing
links) so no worries about messy CD media.
Above all, it's known that it works, period, with XyWrite, and that counts
for a lot.
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