With all the issues I have been having getting either my Vista or 7 machines to connect to the system I have to program for work, I decided I had to roll back to XP. First off, what a PITA. Didn't know all the issues that could arise from going from Vista back to XP. Anyway. I am just wiping out Vista altogether and replacing with XP. the Windows 7 machine I am going to dual boot. I have 7 64 bit, and believe the copy of XP I have is 32 bit. Can they both run on the same computer?

 

Oh, and while I will have some computer geeks here, let me ask another question. The older machine, the one going from Vista to XP runs really hot and shuts itself off. I was wondering if there was a virus or something that is causing it to overclock and run hot, but it just shut down during the install process after Vista was wiped. The fans work on it. Any idea what could be causing it to run so hot. It's an Acer Extenza by the way.

 

First things first, can you put a vacuum up to the air vents on the back? If the vents are clogged with dust, cat hair, etc... the machine may run really hot. DON'T use compressed air, since you will be blowing it all right INTO the computer guts...

You may have a bad stick of RAM or the fan/cooling mechanism directly connected to the processor may be failing. You will still hear the case fans in the back of the laptop...

 

I will try putting a vacuum up to the vents and see if it makes a difference. I do have a golden retriever so it would not be unthinkable that it could be clogged up with hair that I cannot see. Thanks for the suggestion stogie.

 

Laptops CAN be a bitch to open and properly clean. I don't have any experience with your model so I can't say.

Does your computer show the same amount of RAM as there are sticks inside it? If not, you may have some bad RAM.

 

I think it does. It is actually loading XP up right now so I have to wait for it to finish to check.

 

my friend's laptop was getting so hot that it was shutting down too. Ends up her system was to maximum performance power plan and it never went to low power mode. I configured her laptop to use balanced power plan and that stopped the shutdowns. Also you may have a bunch of unnecessary processes running in the background that are putting your processor under load that's adding to the heat.

It's better to install 7 after installing XP but install this program on Windows 7 to configure the dual boot capability

http://www.intowindows.com/download-...for-windows-7/

 

That makes sense I suppose as to why it would get so hot, but it got hot during the formatting of the drive during the XP install and shut down. So I don't think that is it, at least not the only thing causing it. I have to check the tutorial I have to see what process it suggested using to dual boot with Windows 7 already installed. I wanted to get this older machine wrapped up first. However I do want to know if a copy of XP (32 bit) can run on the same machine as 7 (64 bit)

 

Yes.

 

for the dual boot, i have the same setup xp 32 bit, win 7 64 bit.

set your partitions
install xp first.
install win 7 second and it automatically sets up the dual boot. I'm just using the default windows 7 boot manager and it works fine for me.

I did the dual boot because I never liked (or used on my own comps) Vista and I wasn't sure if I would be able to use 7 with every device and program I need to. I hardly boot into my xp partition now.

This thread reminded me to install continue install windows xp mode on my win 7 pro installation. If you have Pro, you should check it out. I spent about an hour using it on another person's machine and I want to use it to install a demo of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne which does not support vista or 7.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/vir...t-started.aspx

Here is a guide i used to do my dual boot, but it should be self explanatory: http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_w...rst.htm?page=4

 

for the computer that shuts down...

I def recommend vacuuming the dust up.

otherwise to try figuring out what's hot, have the case ready to bust open
once it shuts down open it up and touch stuff. if the hard drive is burning up that could be it. if the cpu heatsink is burning up, that's in issue. cpu / mb should shut off automatically when too hot.

 

Well 7 is already on the machine and I do not have the Windows 7 disc as it came preloaded on the computer and it didn't come with any discs. The tutorial I have says it does not matter with that method which is loaded first. This is what I will follow:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...dows-7-xp.html

 

Her pc did the samething and if I left it running without power management then it shut down

You can try vacuuming out the dust but I don't think dust is your issue. I think your pc is a pos. Is it and AMD processor or pentium 4? Maybe they put too much thermal paste on the CPU during manufacturing and now the heatsink can't cool it well enough

For example

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/ther...ase-theory/187

 

Why don't you just upgrade to 7 professional and install xp mode and run xp in a vm? That's your best option

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...indows-xp-mode

 

Glad I could help...

 

Since it came pre-loaded, there's a partition somewhere that'll say recovery and that'll allow you to make backup disks. If not, it should be in the Programs folder of your Startup menu. That should include the programs that came with your laptop along with your OS.

 

Dual booting in a pain in the ass if you need to switch a lot.
Have you considered running XP in a VM? You can get virtualbox for free.

 

I haven't considered it to be honest. I would not be switching back and forth all that often. I would basically be using 7 only when I have to use software that is not compatible with XP. Ever since I got 7 I have had a lot more issues with the computers performance then I ever did with XP. Right out of the box, if I load any programs, I cannot immediately start working in it. I have to wait a minute or it whites out and says "not responding" for a minute or so. This happens even longer with Quickbooks which I need to get into quickly sometimes when a customer calls to go over an order.

 

There's alot of different things that could be causing your performance issues but one thing that might help is to disable some of the visual effects which I think are useless. Here's how I run mine.

 

Visual effects should be handled by the GPU now ever since Vista so that shouldn't help.

There's no reason that 7 should slow your system down. it's something you've got running on 7 that's slowing it down. What Anti-virus software are you using?

 

^^ Untrue. Make those changes, you will see a difference if you have an older machine.

 

This.