Windows 10 downgrade to 7 or XP options?

[jimdaug]

I have a PC that I built in college around '07 with XP 64bit. at some point I updated to 7 and then I moved on to another PC a couple years ago and I was using it as a file server until the PSU failed and I just pulled the HDDs and left it under my desk. I hadn't logged into in a long time and I thought it was still windows 7, but when I replaced the PSU this evening it booted into 10 so apparently I caved at some point and updated.

So what are my options to get XP or 7 going?

A friend at work thinks he has some iso's and I did try running WSUS Offline Update on my other PC but it didn't complete and did a restart. That PC has been randomly doing that recently though so it could be unrelated. I'm going to try it on my laptop next and see what happens.

It's an abit ab9 pro motherboard and a core duo quad core but I forget the exact chip.

Thanks in advance

[jimdaug]

I couldn't find an edit button so scold me if you must.

Update: Apparently the SSD has given up the ghost. So I did some digging and now have a Win 7 x64 install USB. Now, what is ideal hard drive scheme for OS?

Small partition for OS and large storage partition? One large partition and capture to C: drive? Separate Drives? HDD or SSD?

All options are open at this point.

Thanks

[billct97]

When running through the install screens you should get to one that, assuming the HDD isn't new, shows a few already configured partitions. Delete all of them and then just click next until Windows gets installed. Hopefully Windows 7 is smart enough to identify the drivers for all of the hardware in your PC. You should check Device Manager for any yellow "?" which indicates drivers you may need to locate and install manually. This ain't Windows 10/11 unfortunately. If you went with XP it's even more effort! As for HDD's, just use a single partition for the OS. I capture to C:\temp (XP) with VirtualDub 1.9.11 with no problems at all although I do copy off to a pair of drives for moving to W10 for processing and a 2nd backup copy. I'd network XP but SMB1 isn't secure and moving the drives isn't a big deal.

One more comment... I tried Windows 10 and 11 and had varying results with different capture cards. Eventually I went back to XP for capture and basic VirtualDub clipping and lossless compressing (old Lenovo T500 Core 2 Duo P8600 laptop). Copy the avi's from XP to the external USB HDD's and process on W10 (Lenovo Yoga T380 i7 laptop running VirtualDub2, AVIsynth or Hybrid). FWIW, I still have a ton to learn but every day is an adventure!

[jimdaug]

I have a 1TB new SSD and a couple of old 500GB HDDs. I have heard of issue capturing to SSD and the age on those HDDs is concerning. It's been a while, but that PC was running XP64 and windows7 x64 so theoretically I should be able to get either or both up and going. I'm going to start with 7 and go from there. I just wasn't sure if it was preferred to have a designated partition or separate drive or if it matters.

I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around what card to get to capture lossless AVI at 59.94 (edit: err, I guess you're still capturing at 29.97fps and then de-interlace to 59.94 after, I'm still learning) though. Otherwise, yeah the plan is to move those to my laptop with all the horsepower and encode for my media server. Something else to make decisions on, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.