Connecting Past and Present → upgrading the most powerful of my older computers

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My Windows knowledge is rusty and more or less stuck in Windows XP time. At university I was – against my will – responsible for the Windows part in administration and hat to deal with setup of Windows 7 a bit, but I never got warm with it. "I just need my computer to work." is what most people told me when hearing I'm Linux user. "Linux is only free if your time is worthless" and some more rubbish. Well. In my case it is the other way round. As I need my (main) computer to just work as well, I can't deal with Windows and it's pecularities. It just doesn't really work for me. Probably because I'm not used to it anymore.

Finally the time has come to move out of the comfort zone! Not having a single computer fulfilling the requirements of Windows 11, notably TPM 2.0, (no interest in workarounds!) I decided to dive a bit into Windows 10 to learn and update my slightly outdated Windows knowledge.

Installing Windows on an important system is out of question, so this leaves my old computers. But Windows 10 is a new[sic!] and modern, very demanding operating system and most of my stuff is well beyond the 20 years age mark. The only one usable for this is slightly newer: From year 2008. I've installed a few things newer than the machine and increased the RAM to the maximum.
Motherboard: ASRock ALiveXFire-eSATA2 R3.0​
CPU: Athlon X2 5200+​
RAM: 4*2GB DDR2 800​
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GT 640​
HDD: 2*2TB WD Raid Edition​
SSD: Samsung 128GB​

(Slow connection warning: The pictures are not compressed down like I usually do and have about 850KB each)
DSC00285.JPG DSC00286.JPG
DSC00287.JPG DSC00288.JPG

The Motherboard/BIOS had a severe bug making Windows Vista 64 Bit crash (and that would be the case for newer Windows as well), but I've updated the BIOS to last version when testing Vista back then so no problem.

Usually the PC already runs Windows XP. It is my CD/DVD experiment system and has the Plextor Premium drive for the SecuROM New stuff. This machine has the best of both worlds now: LPT, Serial connectors, IDE, floppy controller and floppy drive, older Windows compatible with old software/games and hardware (like my scanner incompatible with Win10). The only thing Athlon 64 bit based machines do not support anymore are the full functions of the floppy controller. This limits the floppy bus to a single 1.44MB 3.5" drive. I would have loved to add a 1.2MB 5.25" drive as well.

Now I've added an older SSD with a zip tie next to the HDDs (not too bad) and installed Windows 10 alongside XP. This makes testing modern Windows software on physical hardware easy and enables me to run pretty much anything when Linux is ignored by somebody (and the 128GB SSD can be backed/restored up in minutes – not much worse than a VM).

Windows 10 64 Bit works quite well on that machine. Sadly the CPU has no hardware assisted AES, so I do get some punishment for using full disc encryption (fastest algorithm is Twofish)
Win10_a.png Win10_b.png Win10_d.png
Win10_c.png

Does anybody read such blog entries at all? If so: Thanks for reading, until next time!
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Comments

InsaneNutter
Interesting blog, its fun to see old hardware updated and kept running.

Do you still burn CD's / DVD's for anything?

Also in regards to old scanners you might want to have a look at VueScan My dad has some pretty expensive slide scanners that never got driver updates beyond Windows XP, let alone for 64bit systems. However he has been using them on Windows 10/11 64bit perfectly fine with VueScan. The initial scan quality was much better than the drivers that came with the scanner for XP also.
 
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KleinesSinchen
InsaneNutter said:
Do you still burn CD's / DVD's for anything?
Click to expand...
:cry: I thought I would get around this question at least this single time by mentioning SecuROM, old games and showing the Windows 10 DVD I've made right in front of the monitor. :cry:

InsaneNutter said:
Also in regards to old scanners you might want to have a look at VueScan
Click to expand...
I don't remember the name but have tried a commercial solution promising scanner drivers for "more or less all old models". What I got was a application screaming "Buy me! Buy me! Buy me! I'm so good. Will you buy me now?"
No driver allowing arbitrary scan software to use the scanner. Just the limited driver+application thing. It successfully(?) scanned something. And the picture was for the virtual trash can. Only thing recognizable was the "Buy me!" watermark.

Honestly: Optic Book 3600 works perfectly under Windows XP. Nice machine for scanning books fast without damaging paperbacks by opening them too far.
 
Latiodile
windows 10 x86+x64? i thought the iso was too big for even dual layer DVDs or did you do some modification?

also do you have cleartype disabled? the fonts in those screenshots are looking extra crispy
 
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KleinesSinchen
Latiodile said:
windows 10 x86+x64? i thought the iso was too big for even dual layer DVDs or did you do some modification?
Click to expand...
Modification? How? I just ran Media Creation Tool and got an ".ISO" file.
Arguably the (much smaller) 32 Bit version is of no real use, but since the 64 bit version is too big for single layer DVD it made sense to fill the more expensive DL disc instead of leaving it ≈40% empty.
DVD.png

Latiodile said:
also do you have cleartype disabled? the fonts in those screenshots are looking extra crispy
Click to expand...
No idea. Unless the debloating script did that… I've not yet done anything with the new installation.
 
DinohScene
I'm using a 2006 mac Mini as a seedbox.
I know the "pains" of running old hardware.

As for your question, yes a small percentage reads these types of blogs.
Keep it up!
 
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  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    @SylverReZ, that game is one of the reasons i met newgrounds bc the full versión of it is in that site
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    Also somebody is remaking it
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    @Xdqwerty, Reason how I found Newgrounds: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/249365
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    @SylverReZ, the other game where I found newgrounds is new york shark
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    Spoke to Tom Fulp the other day, if he can find his old Newgrounds site content like the mini Flash animations from the 2000's that played on the portal.
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    So far no response, but he did say that he'll find them. Wayback Machine doesn't have em.
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    @SylverReZ, atleast the 1999 versión of pico's school is avaliable (the difference between it, the 2006 versión and the 2016 versión is that the speed of the game depends of the speed of your computer and that it had the og soundtrack)
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    @Xdqwerty, Another being Pico VS Bear, the original 1999 version before Jim Henson filed a DMCA takedown.
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    The 2006 versión was made when the flash portal was made
  • SylverReZ @ SylverReZ:
    Many people thought it was lost, but was discovered that he hid it on the same page.
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    https://tcrf.net/Pico_VS_Bear
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    @SylverReZ, although the "secrets" system where the game was has been removed. Also pico vs uberkids had a netplay versión that was shutdown, although the swf file has been found
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    @Xdqwerty, Nope. There are two download buttons on the same page, where you can download the original under a file called "bear.exe". "bear2.exe", however, is the updated game in a Flash projector. P.s. this was on the archived Pico page from 2000.
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    @Xdqwerty, That's been there for a long time, too. People who search for lost media don't look hard enough lmao.
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    @SylverReZ, also the pico 2 demos used to be only for the newgrounds patrons but they are on internet archive too (https://archive.org/download/picos_school_2)
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    Iirc the demos were removed from newgrounds in 2022
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    @SylverReZ, or well only the demo with mindchamber's style was on newgrounds
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    Fun fact @SylverReZ: iirc one of the goals on the fnf Kickstarter stated that pico 2 would be finished but the Kickstarter didnt get enough money for that goal to be fullfiled
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    @SylverReZ its a single player game
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    @The Real Jdbye, Yea but it has a shitton of mods with their own songs and stuff
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    @The Real Jdbye, and quite a lot of people involved in those mods get cancelled
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    Newgrounds wasn't the birth of FNF; rather, it was games where you beat up celebrities and parodies.
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    a_username_that_is_cool @ a_username_that_is_cool: Specifically Ludum Dare 47