Two things to help me decide

[hellnoire]

Firstly: I'm debating about dropping my i5 into the server role for my network, and my old P4 for my gaming machine. As it stands, if I do this, I lose one game and gain nearly 40 more, as well as getting better abilities out of my GT240. I will also be upgrading the P4 to be 3.5 gigs of RAM and buying a Blu-Ray player for my P4 IF I go this route. Windows 7 64bit does not play most of my games and the 32bit version of Windows 7 is a joke: runs some of my games but most of them it gives me hell for anyway. So I'm thinking XP would be best for me, at least for the moment. I'm very tempted to jump all of this Windows crap too and go directly to Linux, do not pass go, etc. I'd like to hear a debate about this if possible, because I am becoming a gamer but I do know Steam DOES work in Wine. Not all the games do most likely, but I no doubt could get them working in time.

Secondly: does anyone have any way they can think of I could LEGALLY (I will not deal with any cracks or any rule breaking here) run Windows 7 until about September, or about 180 days. I know the rearm trick should work, but that goes for 120 days, does it not? I need something for another two months, at least until I'm back at school.

Thank you to anyone who replies to this thread.

[Raymond]

My question on P4 with blu-ray, would it be too slow to process and play blu-ray disc?
Go back to XP if you don't like Windows 7 and run STEAM from there. Surely it's more stable than running in WINE as Steam is made for Windows.

As for Windows 7, I have some technet keys. Try to go online on MSN so I can pass it to you there.

[Bearcat]

Personally, I prefer using XP to run my games, because like you, I have found they just don't work on Win 7. I haven't tried them on Linux, so I can't speak to that, but IMHO XP would be the easier way to go.

[Boyfriend]

@hellnoire: If you are unable to play old games because games are not aware of multicore processor (Core i5), then try again using some core affinity software (like Core Affinity Resident) to bind games to one core only (like P4 single core). I have few games that crashes often on dual core system, but works find on P4 due to unawareness of two cores. I can play them fine after setting affinity manually via Process Explorer on each execution.