Msg: Re: Reasons to prefer W2K [was Re: Finding W2K was Re: La Machine Est Morte, Vive La Machine!]

And then there is (presumably) the matter of being able to make use or the U2 library, which continues to be a serious stumbling block for any Nota Bene option. Not to mention customized Xy keyboard files and some other things. I also count access to running Xy fullscreen as an important consideration.

Jordan

From: Bill Troop
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 5:41 AM
Subject: Reasons to prefer W2K [was Re: Finding W2K was Re: La Machine Est Morte, Vive La Machine!]

The last VBox I tried was the latest about 3 months ago. Things change rapidly, and it's easy enough to experiment with multiple VM systems, so long as you remember, as Kari reminds, not to run them simultaneously. My subjective impression at that time was that VMware was faster with Xy4. I think a lot depends on the quality of the VM's video driver for the given guest OS at any given time.

Regarding reasons to prefer W2K over XP and Win7-32: I think Kari has pointed out that W2K is not only smaller but is faster. In my experience Xy4 under W2K is palpably faster than under XP, and I imagine that Win 7-32 is slower still, though I have not yet tried virtualizing it. It doesn't matter if you have the drive space and the memory. The larger, more complex OS's still seem to work more slowly to do the same thing, even when it's something as simple as running XyWrite. I am inclined to say that XyWrite runs better for me under virtual W2K than under _native_ Win7-32 or XP. My sense is that Xy4 under virtualized W2K is the best Xy4 experience I have had since W95. What do I mean by best experience? The sense of having no perceptible lag, ever, in Windowed Xy4, no pauses, etc. etc.

My testing is not extensive yet. Others need to test these different solutions on different hardware and record their impressions.

At 25/07/2014 03:55, you wrote:

Hi Bill,

How recent was your version of VBox, where this was still the case ? The one I downloaded the other day was v. 4.3.14-95030. (I guess I could locate the changelog.) The version of VMWare player I downloaded -- in early May -- was v. 6.0.2, which may not be the most recent. I'm getting closer to trying out one or the other of these, but if your observation still holds that might tip the balance back in favor of VMWare. Of course, if I went for 32-bit Win 7 as the Guest, this could all be moot. But I doubt I have enough hard drive space right now to accommodate that. Might have to upgrade / replace the other hard drive first, and there could be some other reasons for doing that anyway.

Jordan

From: Bill Troop
To: xywrite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 3:57 PM
Subject: Re: Finding W2K was Re: La Machine Est Morte, Vive La Machine!

Just so long as you're clear, Jordan, that, using Win2K as the guest, VBox will not (in its current version) allow XyWrite to display directories of your host drive, but VMware will. That is the main reason to prefer VMware at this time. There is no reason why this should not be fixed in the future, but it is possible that no bug report has been filed.

At 23/07/2014 17:15, you wrote:

Thanks Kari, this is good to know. Given that Virtualbox seems to have received the better reviews here -- for more flexibility in certain areas -- it would be good to find out about any equivalent VM 'snapshot' or backup facility it may offer.

Jordan