Windows 7

[mcnamara9]

With the commercial release of Windows 7 this week, have any of the LOR staff addressed loading LOR2 on this operating system? Will it work?

Does it matter if you purchase the 32-bit v. 64-bit OS for LOR2 to work properly on a Windows 7 machine?

(I apologize in advance if this has already been discussed, but when I attempted to search the discussion board, my query returned an error message so I couldn't find the answer on my own.)

[bob]

We have heard from several people who are using LOR under Windows 7, without problems, but we do not officially support Windows 7 yet. We plan to look into it in the near future.

[mcnamara9]

Thanks Bob, will LOR be supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit OS's?

I'm not a real technical computer guy, thus the 20 questions. I'm not even sure if 32 v. 64 impacts software like LOR or if it relates to something else.

[bob]

Thanks Bob, will LOR be supported on both 32-bit and 64-bit OS's?

That's the plan, but sorry, I cannot officially say yes or no at this point.

[mcnamara9]

I understand and don't want to paint you in a corner :-)

Last question, does 32. v. 64 bit impact LOR?

[bob]

Again, I can't really say at this point. This is part of what we are going to look into. Speaking unofficially, I suspect not. I believe that the 64 bit OSes are supposed to have a built-in means of running 32 bit executables; I know this is the case in Vista, and I suspect it is the case in Windows 7. But I don't know. And there could always be strange new quirks that we won't know about until we see them. I don't know. Sorry.

[cmoore60]

For your reading pleasure.

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum72/19913.html

Chuck

[mcnamara9]

OK Bob, I appreciate the quick responses. Thanks again for supporting a great product! I start my first customer install of LOR equip and lights tomorrow so I can't wait!

Have a great weekend.

[mcnamara9]

Thank you Chuck, I just read all of those links. Appreciate it.

[jerryb721]

bob wrote:

Again, I can't really say at this point. I believe that the 64 bit OSes are supposed to have a built-in means of running 32 bit executables;

Last night after I bought my Windows 7 upgrade I thought to myself I better maker sure LOR works with it.
I have both the 32 and 64 bit of Windows 7 RC on my computer so I installed LOR on both versions.
Both worked with no problems, as far as the sequence editor went.
I did not register either so I did not control the lights. (I was worried about using too many seats). The hardware utility did find the serial port and I could control the lights through it, but since it is not registered I could not control the lights from the sequence editor.

[mcnamara9]

Thanks jerryb721 for the info! I'm feeling much better about upgrading to Windows7 now.

It's interesting that our Christmas lights "hobby" not only dictates our Nov./Dec. social calendars, but also our PC purchases as well as a million other things.

[redsea300]

I had new desktop built approx 1 month ago. I also bought a laptop to run the show. Both came with upgrades when Win 7 comes out. i decided to wait till after Christmas before I upgrade. I would hate o run into a problem at this point.

[JEFFREYM]

thank you all who replyed ..after visiting my local Best Buy Store I was told that win 7 ultimate or pro version is xp compatable there for if it works with xp you are good to go I WILL give it a try... jeffrey

[friskybri]

I think I am going to wait till after the holidays to upgrade to windows 7. XP works just find for this season. Don't want to have glitches during December.

[Don]

sandiegojeffrey wrote:

thank you all who replyed ..after visiting my local Best Buy Store I was told that win 7 ultimate or pro version is xp compatable there for if it works with xp you are good to go I WILL give it a try... jeffrey

Here is a really good article from the New York Times about upgrading to Windows 7. Note that in your case (XP) you are going to have to do a clean install of the operating system. There is no 'in place' upgrade option available for XP users.

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/qa-which-windows-7-full-or-upgrade/

[Don]

Jeff Millard wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it possible to leave the XP intact and dual-boot the new OS? I can't recall what I read about this... Not that it's an acceptable answer, I had one machine dual boot XP and W2K because there weren't any XP drivers for the TV card in that system. After a few months I got wise and spent the money on a new TV card with XP drivers and did a new install of XP...

Jeff

I would imagine that it's possible to dual-boot any system. However, I don't have experience with it, and can't really say for sure.

[jerryb721]

Don wrote:

Jeff Millard wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it possible to leave the XP intact and dual-boot the new OS? I can't recall what I read about this... Not that it's an acceptable answer, I had one machine dual boot XP and W2K because there weren't any XP drivers for the TV card in that system. After a few months I got wise and spent the money on a new TV card with XP drivers and did a new install of XP...

Jeff

I would imagine that it's possible to dual-boot any system. However, I don't have experience with it, and can't really say for sure.

Yes it is possible.
You can partition the hard drive or install a new hard drive.
When I install a new operating system I always go down and buy a new hard drive so I can save the old one, just in case.
My recommendation is to buy a new hard drive partition it into two, copy your XP on to one partition, then install W7 on the other

I have XP. Vista, W7 32bit and W7 64bit on my computer.
If you install all on one hard drive when you start up you will have a boot menu to decide which one you want to choose.

[DavidPeterson]

sandiegojeffrey wrote:

thank you all who replyed ..after visiting my local Best Buy Store I was told that win 7 ultimate or pro version is xp compatable there for if it works with xp you are good to go I WILL give it a try... jeffrey

Ok, here's the deal with Pro and Ultimate. Those have an XP Mode, which basically means you launch an XP program and a virtual machine boots in the background that is XP. Only Pro and Ultimate have that feature. However, your processor has to support it was well (and it has to be turned on in the BIOS.) Now, you can run XP in a virtual machine on Home Premium, it's just not seamless, you run it in a Virtual PC Window.

The big benefit of Pro/Ultimate is seamless, and you don't need to use an XP license. Downloading Virtual PC (free from Microsoft) and installing XP means you need to use an XP license. If you only had one copy of XP, and you used an upgrade copy of 7 to migrate, you can't use that XP license.

I believe even with standard Virtual PC, the processor has to have virtualization support. There are tools out there that will tell you if yours does, even in the same model of processor, some do, some don't.

[DanglinModifiers]

I've been running LOR on a 64-bit Windows 7 desktop since this summer. I'm still running the RC, I haven't gotten the official release version yet.

The only issue I've run in to is in returning from sleep mode.

I'm running LOR 2.5.6.

I have a simple animation sequence I'm using to wrap my arches. It has all lights one for 3 minutes, does a 2 minute chase, then repeats. If the computer enters sleep mode while the sequence is running, the sequence stops. When I wake the computer, LOR thinks the sequence is still running, but none of the lights are on.

Half the time, I'm able to stop the sequence, hit play, and have everything return to normal. The other half of the time, LOR freezes when I click stop. I can't close the program, and killing the process doesn't work. I have to restart the computer.

To be fair, I've never had good luck with any programs returning from sleep mode. I usually disable it, and plan to on this PC when showtime comes around.

Other than that, LOR is running great on Win 7. I actually have the machine dual-booting with XP, and find the animation runs much smoother in 7.

[HowardShank]

DavidPeterson wrote:

sandiegojeffrey wrote:

thank you all who replyed ..after visiting my local Best Buy Store I was told that win 7 ultimate or pro version is xp compatable there for if it works with xp you are good to go I WILL give it a try... jeffrey

Ok, here's the deal with Pro and Ultimate. Those have an XP Mode, which basically means you launch an XP program and a virtual machine boots in the background that is XP. Only Pro and Ultimate have that feature. However, your processor has to support it was well (and it has to be turned on in the BIOS.) Now, you can run XP in a virtual machine on Home Premium, it's just not seamless, you run it in a Virtual PC Window.

The big benefit of Pro/Ultimate is seamless, and you don't need to use an XP license. Downloading Virtual PC (free from Microsoft) and installing XP means you need to use an XP license. If you only had one copy of XP, and you used an upgrade copy of 7 to migrate, you can't use that XP license.

I believe even with standard Virtual PC, the processor has to have virtualization support. There are tools out there that will tell you if yours does, even in the same model of processor, some do, some don't.

Home premium has the ability to run XP compatible (Virtual PC) also, but you have to download and install it. It is not included by default. One of the primary issues with Virtual Machines is USB support in a virtual machine does not always work correctly 100% of the time.