Windows advice!

Anyone care to tell me which version of windows I ought to get so that I get a bit of stability wrt audio software and midi hardware driver support etc

I have a dead iMac that I’m going to replace with a Mac mini and i’d like to dual boot that - i don’t need any mac/osx advice

Would there be an issue for a guy who likes to tinker with settings for me to get the ‘home’ version of the software, i don’t want any annoying restrictions on how i configure things, also is windows 8 stable and supported or is it going to slow down a rather pacey mac mini (quad i7) compared to 7

any pointers appreciated, i may do this in slow time by leaving a partition free on the mini, but ultimately amongst other things i’d like to run the Nord Modular editor and maybe load some mail archives i have from xp a few years ago, it’ll let me test windows max/msp compatibility with the stuff i do on osx, i just don’t want to spend too much as it’s not going to be my main OS (by a long way) what’s a sensible but compact partition size for windows

oh yeah, will i be able to disable the internet for virus protection if i get a home version, it’s not overly restrictive is it !?

thoughts ? - no flame wars please

To be honest, the differences between Mac/Windows in terms of efficiences and ease of use have largely been reduced to next to nothing. Windows has just had to deal with the label it was given years back when iMac’s took off. It’s mostly people who made their choice years ago who end up doing the whole “flame” war thing - it’s like a grown up Xbox vs Playstation debate (or Nintendo vs Sega, hell, even C64 vs Speccy if old like me!).

I’m on Windows 8 and from a music writing point of view have had no issues with it since I took the plunge more or less on release day. The system is fast, can multitask very well and I very rarely have any crashes in my DAW of choice (Live). I guess the problem with a Windows system is that there is little hardware consistency from one machine to the next which is a benefit to Mac users.

Window’s firewall and the likes is actually pretty decent. Again, I have had little issues with it.

The one problem I do have is with Windows updates. These are fairly regular and can build up (I refuse to set things to automatic as I want to know what is being updated). I have had issues with applying a number of updates simultaineously - it refuses to do it! But if I manually pick one or two at a time it works fine.

Latency with I/O devices has been very good too for me and my x-station and x years old Novation drivers.

In short, I find Windows 8 (and previously 7) fine platforms to run your music software/hardware from.

Edit - due to being on an old IE I didn’t have your post to refer to in the background so went off on one a little there with irrelevent chat! I don’t have experience with a dual boot within a Mac but can vouch for the stability of Windows 8.

I´ve since some months ago switched from win XP to Win 7 Pro in my old Lenovo T60, just for the specific purpose of being able to run the Nord Modular G2 editor.

Since I am using the same computer for everything else too, I needed to be compatible with other (newer) programs as well. And XP was starting to become unstable anyway. Prior to my choice, when searching info, win 8 seemed to be seen as a no go in general. But it might have changed according to the poster above.

Have had no issues with win 7 pro yet (knocks on wood).

imo, with modern computer hardware and for your tasks it might be worth looking into running it from inside OS X, e.g. using Virtualbox.

a guy who is good with computers told me that the 'box virtualization is actually very close to the metal, basically giving semi-native access to the hardware etc… if this turns out to be good enough, you get some advantages like OS state snapshots etc.

After my macbook died, I went back to Windows 7 Pro 64bit and never look back.
Check out optimiaztion guides like this one

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/pc-optimization-guide-for-windows-7/ .

They will sort out quite a lot of problems, especially when working with firewire devices.

Regarding your question about the Internet connection… as long as you don’t use pirated software it really doesn’t matter.

Cheers,
C

thanks, lots of good encouraging advice there, ideally i’d have the dollar to go the virtual route (i have experience of vmware with xp and it was amazingly stable and seamless) so really i guess my only outstanding query is regarding the home vs pro debate, i’m not in need of many windows pro features, but it’s the undocumented restrictions of a home version i’m slightly wary about - also, is it risky to get an oem version ?

thanks all

fwiw - wrt Nord editor, i’m talking about G1 editing, so it may be more problematic on latter windows versions, so any good news there welcome

Most OEM versions of Windows are licensed only for use on the hardware they came on which means you are not supposed to use it in VMware.

There shouldn’t be any restrictions in “Windows 7 Home Premium” or “Windows 8” that would have any impact on the kind of software you’re planning to run.

Wikipedia has a good overview of the difference between versions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8_editions

I think the Nord G1 editor only runs on Windows up to XP. It might be a good idea to run this in VMware with internet connectivity to the virtual machine turned off. :slight_smile:

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 x64 is going to be your best bet. Just make sure that you disable any unneccessary background services. http://www.stoufis.gr/blog/topics/1079. Also installing some sort of background memory cleaner well help things stay speedy. http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Memory-Tweak/CleanMem.shtml

After that, run Ccleaner every once in awhile and it Windows should run great.
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

And the number one thing I’d recommend is to disable windows updates, and only install the service pack as a single download install from microsofts website. I’ve never had a security problem (I run a firewall like everyone should) and the updates only seem to bloat and slow the system.

It’s been said that Windows 8 can be slightly faster but it really is the same core as Windows 7 with a hideous GUI on top of it. I know 7 SP1 is stable and see no reason to upgrade (word on the net about Windows 8 is generally not good, and I shouldn’t have to patch my OS just to get a desktop view).

I’ve been using Windows 7 Pro 64-bit for quite some time now (at least a couple of years), and have had next to no problems with any audio applications or MIDI. I did have some issues on my old laptop computer, but that came with all kinds of bloatware and shit that caused it to slow down. Built my own computer a couple of years back and been running Windows 7 pretty much flawlessly (knock on wood) since. :slight_smile:

thanks folks, lots of good info there - i’ll do more research and follow those leads, the G1 news may dictate where i go with this - i.e. it may just be simpler to pick up an old xp laptop for less than an OS, i can forego sonic adventures on windows, but the only viable G1 editing route is windows based, i have an os9 backup on a 600px screen, so it’s a chore to put it mildly ! i can’t afford the virtual route unfortunately

are you sure that the mac mini will support bootcamp into xp? i’ve heard that different models have different cut off OSs - although this might have only started with the new pro.

i have not had good luck with the g1 editor w/ virtualization, but other people have. (i’ve also heard more good things about 7) i guess a lot depends on your MIDI interface. my same unitor that works with os9 didn’t work with VMware or parallels…although maybe i should’ve searched out drivers. lol i’m so spoiled by modern OSs. :slight_smile: i’m going to try fusion at some point, but it’s time consuming to install windows.

someday, i’d like to do something like get the raspberry pi running a virtual windows and attach that to the nord g1 MIDI editor ports permanently. :slight_smile:

nah, i know that the new minis will only play with win7, so that already starts to dictate my solution concerning G1 compatibility - i’d no idea until i cancelled an order at the 11th hour that finding a working webcam that plays nicely with all mac s/w would be such a hassle, it seems to be a minefield unless you settle for generic support - a few of these revelations have stalled the purchase and i may have to look north to an iMac although i was well up for the flexibility of the mini on so many other levels. arghhhh, decisions

I will give a few of my own opinions here as most of the feedback seems to pretty positive.

As has been said already, with a bit of optimization Win 7 will work fine for audio/MIDI needs. I can’t speak for Win 8 as I’ve never used it.

I have been using Windows for audio/MIDI since about 1998. Early Win OS were pretty basic. Windows XP was pretty good for the most part (probably the most stable I can remember). Vista I never used because I heard so many bad things.

I have built a few PCs in that time. I built a real nice one bout 2 years around an Intel i7 2600k CPU. I had it running Win 7, which up until that point I had never used before. I sold it all just a few months ago. There’s just a couple of things about Win 7 that really irritated me. If you check any Windows forum you’ll find most of these problems are common enough

In the Windows 7 Explorer you can’t check the size of a folder by looking at the size column. ??? Even though the column is there, nothing is listed. You have to hover with the mouse or right-click for properties. This means you can’t organize folders by size when you’re looking see what’s taking up HD space or just quickly tidy up files.

Folder types. If you put a bunch of audio files in a folder, it will auto make it an “media” folder which has annoying column headers different from regular folders. You will need to access folder properties to revert to normal folder

Copying or moving files and folders. I don’t know what’s going on here but sometimes it takes a stupidly long time to copy or move folders containing sub folders to another location on the HD. The copy/move progress indicator frequently shows that it will take hours to copy or move folders of even just a few gigs in size. I often had to crash the explorer, copy/move the files to an external drive and then move them to the new location on the HD.

If you plan on moving files between the two OS, you will need a drive formatted to FAT32 which I thinks has some kind of limit on the size of the individual files (4 Gigs or something like that)

As mentioned the updates are pretty ridiculous. There will be a ton of them there if you leave it a few weeks and then half of them will fail when you try to install. On one occasion a set of failed updates caused all my external ports to stop functioning and I had to boot from the Win DVD and repair the drivers.

Also, it wouldn’t wake all ports/devices after waking from Sleep. Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and often USB devices wouldn’t function until I fully shut down and restarted the system. Basically rendering the sleep mode totally redundant and pointless

You will need to revert to the Legacy Firewire Drivers if you are using any external Firwire stuff. I’m fairly sure you’ll have to do this every time you install new updates

Also Win 7 doesn’t have a killer app like the Audio MIDI Setup on OSX. You will need to find one yourself

You can’t delete Internet Explorer to stop it from opening system based web links. It’s kind of hard-wired into the OS. You can disable parts of it, but then if you click on a system based link, you can not view it.

Then there’s always BSOD. Can happen anytime, even when the CPU is not under any stress.

These are just a few of the things that irritated me.

I picked a MacBook Pro and using OSX since 2008 (which still works perfectly) and I have never once encountered any of these irritations. I bought a second hand Mac Pro 4,1 with the cash I made from selling my Win 7 PC. Needless to say it is absolutely rock solid.

Funnily enough, I did used to run Win XP through Boot Camp on the MacBook Pro and that worked really well.

^yep - a few of this things would drive me potty too, i vaguely recollect discussions about the differences between pro and home and i suspect it’s the dumbing down aspects and lack of control that would grate - windows choice is now not such a driver now because i’m limited to xp for my primary usage so i may have to look for an alternative solution - if only getting the mac side was painless, really need a solid firewire provision - it wouldn’t even be that straightforward if money was no option

all the above advice is knowledge in the bank, i may well still do a dual boot just for the sake of it

The Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter works absolutely flawlessly and might even provides lower latency compared with using the built-in Firewire port on some older Macs.
The only issue is that Thunderbolt provides slightly less power than FireWire did which means you might need to use the mains adapter for some devices which you could power from Firewire only previously.

maybe you’re lucky with your firewire gear, i have externals, powered externals and a MOTU, all FW400, some also FW800, so adaptors and adaptors and no daisy chaining and possible issues leaves me cold to thunderbolt, i’m sure it’s not as bad as you frequently read
thanks for the affirmation though

a lot of the usage benefits came from just plugging stuff in without psu
problems with target mode usage would bother me too, yet more research !