Recommendation: Editing software program for my old computer

John from PA wrote in post #18934644
I totally disagree on this although I might have agreed with Windows XP and earlier. There are utilities built into Windows 7 (and later) that make reliably disc cleanup painless. In addition the Windows install option of keeping your old apps, settings, etc. have come a long way. Having done about a dozen or so upgrades I can speak from experience that the process works exceedingly well. Many of the updates/upgrades I have done have involved just going to an SSD and moving Win 7 to Win 10 on both HDD's and SSD's.

I can remember many years ago people recommending that every couple of years you should format a drive and reinstall Windows. Why I will never understand except it was written by people that wrote web content and magazine articles. Having said that it was lucrative in my sideline business. But back 15 years ago people purchased things like Office and got the product on a CD. These days, all too often the product is delivered electronically with a product key that gets lost, often requiring a repurchase.

I agree that Windows has come a long way and it is nothing like it was in the W7 days, but just from my last install the Windows directory shrunk from 7.54g to 6.85g with the bulk of the savings from system32 and syswow64 but others as well. Boot time was reduces as well. It's probably not as necessary as it was with W7, but it does start clean and gets rid of things that accumulate over time.

I'm back and here are my PC's spec; nothing special. My old C is a SSD and I have 3 other external HDs
Just dumped 9.97 GB onto an external HD and it took my PC 3:29 minutes, 384 files half of which were RAW. My JPGs are usually between 15-17MB and RAW are around 47MB
Here are 2 screenshots with specs and performance

gjl711 wrote in post #18934699
I agree that Windows has come a long way and it is nothing like it was in the W7 days, but just from my last install the Windows directory shrunk from 7.54g to 6.85g with the bulk of the savings from system32 and syswow64 but others as well. Boot time was reduces as well. It's probably not as necessary as it was with W7, but it does start clean and gets rid of things that accumulate over time.

This is what Microsoft states about doing a clean install. It is not a procedure for the faint of heart and in the long run, especially for the person not intimately familiar with computers, can create a mountain of additional work. That is why I state that electing the option to update (or upgrade; I forget the exact wording) is far simper. Everything in the way of operating applications seem to be retained, all bookmarks, settings, etc. Truly a painless way to move to Windows 10 from Windows 7 especially. I have done 15 to 20 of the updates, I speak from experience.

Microsoft intends a clean install to be a last ditch repair effort when everything else has failed.

No doubt, it's more work and it does require someone to know a bit about windows, have legal licenses for all installed software, and be wiling to take a few hours reloading everything, but when done, you have the latest image of all software without years of patches applied, all malware/spyware is gone, all startup programs that you have forgotten about are gone, all add-ons that you have forgotten about are gone, any processes that have been enabled over the years are gone, you just end up with a nice, clean, brand new machine. If you don't feel comfortable doing it, by all means, use the built in upgrade utility or just clone your drive. But if you are experiencing performance issues and have done all the cleanup you can, a scratch install is a great way to get a clean machine.

gjl711 wrote in post #18934859
But if you are experiencing performance issues and have done all the cleanup you can, a scratch install is a great way to get a clean machine.

I agree with this, at the same time that I also agree with John.

I attempted a very roundabout way to attempt an 'upgrade' from XP to 7 some years ago,
and that attempt failed miserably: All registered file-types opening with something like
Paint Shop Pro 7, etc... Yeah, it was a failure.

StarlingGirl, allow me to suggest this:
In all of the discussion here about your situation, there has not yet been mention of
replacing your computer system. There have been suggestions about transferring
what you'd like to keep after 'clean' installations and so forth, and the advice has been
rather solid, but what about just plopping down a hundred or so bucks for a refurbished
system which is more recent? There are many online vendors who offer such bargains,
lots of them offering free shipping. NewEgg is one such example, providing warranties
with purchase.

You'd likely get a far more-current system than you have now,
probably getting past the headaches you may be experiencing.

Just a thought...

Spencerphoto wrote in post #18934498
For a "beginner", you're shooting an awful lot of pics before downloading them, even allowing for shooting JPG+RAW!!!

I would suggest that you're bringing home too many at one time, considering you're trying to learn:

1) a new camera,
2) how to process images, using unfamiliar software,
3) photography in general.

Give yourself a break. Slow down a little and think a bit more about the whole thing

As has been suggested, given your hardware limitations, I would shoot RAW only (if you're determined to post-process).

Looking at your shots, do you see lots of duplicates and/or "why did I shoot THAT?" images? If so, work at reducing the number of shots per day, perhaps by being choosier. Also, if you take shots then immediately realise they were probably no good, check and delete them on the fly.

Finally, it's always worth culling your really bad shots before you go start processing, and then again, after processing, be ruthless about which are keepers and bin the rest.

As a guide, albeit only MY usual practice, I would bring back ca. 700 shots from a 2-day event but, after culling and processing, end up with maybe 150, of which only 50 or so might be 'perfect' (to me).

Hi Spencerphoto,

Thank you so much for the suggestions. I'm not sure how I ended up with so many pictures, and I don't use continuous. I went out on 2 excursions for a couple hours each, and a few inside when all the 'parts' finally arrived. I'm mostly interested in birds, so as you can imagine, I had lots of things to consider. I shot on manual mode the whole time as recommended. Believe me, it was excruciatingly slow playing around with Aperture, Speed, light meter, focus, ISO, composition. It's hard to tell outdoors on the small camera screen whether it's a good picture or not -- especially when I'm not sure what defines a 'good' picture yet. It is overwhelming. I wanted to 'post-process' because I wanted to be able to view my pictures to see how each setting affected the shot. Again, I can't tell on the little screen. I"m sure I'll get better as I go. The interesting thing I learned was in the post process, an underexposed photo was brightened up to reveal a perfectly (IMO) exposed photo. WOW! I was floored. So now I'm thinking I shouldn't delete any photo in the field.

I think only shooting RAW is the way to go as you suggest - for now anyway. It'll definitely save me space.

Thank you Spencerphoto for your thoughtful response!

John from PA wrote in post #18934632
Do you know anyone that is a “geek” (your word)? Upgrading that hard drive to an SSD would make your existing computer (a desktop as you’ve described) considerably faster. There is probably no singular thing you can do to a PC that can yield the performance improvement of changing to an SSD. The same size (500GB) Crucial drive is about $70 but I would suggest moving to a 1 TB SSD for about $110.

Even if you don’t know a geek, the manufacturers of SSD’s have made the process simple from a software standpoint. Most drives come with software that create a mirror image of your existing drive and then you would open the case and change out the old drive with the new drive. I just did this a week ago on a 10-year old Lenovo desktop. After the SSD was installed and checked out the old 256 GB HDD was left in the machine for additional storage, backup, etc. as the owner could chose.

Hi John from PA: (MD here)

I was indeed thinking of adding SSD and more RAM by the recommendations of another. AFter watching youtube , I would even attempt it myself. Then another suggested that the graphics card of my system wouldn't support the editing software so I sort of pushed that idea aside. Now that I think about it: I am now able to run Canon's DPP with my current graphics card so maybe I need to rethink it again.

Like I said it took me 5 hours to transfer about 700 photos - 9.5GB. I'm wondering what was causing the slow down. Was it the limitations of the SanDisk, the HD, and/or whatever is physically between those two, including my CPU? In other words, would it be enough to increase my RAM and SSD to get faster speeds? Would I be throwing good money into a old system or should I buy a new system? So many questions. I don't expect you to answer them, but these are now the questions I ask myself.

When you upgraded your system, what benefits did you see?

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

gjl711 wrote in post #18934639
I've always found that a fresh install, OS and Apps, yields the best results. It cleans up all the crap that one accumulates over the years. Then pick up one of those disk enclosure boxes for $10 and usb the old drive to copy the remainder of the files you want to keep. This leads to the best results performance wise. Cloning a drive brings over all the trash as well.

Hi gjl711,


I think I will indeed do this! Do you happen to know if I reformat the hard drive does it wipe out the OS too? I'll have figure out how to do that. I don't think I have a copy of the OS. That'll slow me down too.


What is a 'disk enclosure box'?

Thanks.

StarlingGirl wrote in post #18935820
Hi gjl711,

I think I will indeed do this! Do you happen to know if I reformat the hard drive does it wipe out the OS too? I'll have figure out how to do that. I don't think I have a copy of the OS. That'll slow me down too.


What is a 'disk enclosure box'?

Thanks.

I would never do this to an existing drive but a new drive only, and keep the old drive intact until you are 100% confidant you have everything. As John mentioned, a scratch install does have it's challenges as you are, well, starting from scratch. EVERYTHING goes and must be brought back. Having the old drive available is a insurance policy that at minimum, you have a copy of everything.

StarlingGirl wrote in post #18935820
Hi gjl711,

I think I will indeed do this! Do you happen to know if I reformat the hard drive does it wipe out the OS too? I'll have figure out how to do that. I don't think I have a copy of the OS. That'll slow me down too.


What is a 'disk enclosure box'?

Thanks.

A disk enclosure box simply hold the old drive in an enclosure and provides a connection for a USB cable. They work well but may have some limitation due to your specific USB port speed (USB 1, 2, 3 or 3.1). But it is good use for an older drive. You can see several at https://www.orico.shop …ge/hard-drive-enclosures/.

itsallart wrote in post #18934836
I'm back and here are my PC's spec; nothing special. My old C is a SSD and I have 3 other external HDs
Just dumped 9.97 GB onto an external HD and it took my PC 3:29 minutes, 384 files half of which were RAW. My JPGs are usually between 15-17MB and RAW are around 47MB
Here are 2 screenshots with specs and performance

Hosted photo: posted by itsallart in
./showthread.php?p=189​34836&i=i153170171
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Hosted photo: posted by itsallart in
./showthread.php?p=189​34836&i=i207007027
forum: RAW, Post Processing & Printing

Just based on your screen shots I first of all would try to move off some files from "C" onto another drive. Having "26 GB Free (168 GB Total)" is not a good situation for the drive where your OS resides. My personal feeling is, with respect to where the OS is kept, strive to have about 1/3 of the drive capacity free and preferably 1/2 the drive capacity.

As far as the speed of transfer, you also need to consider the speed of the various ports that are used. Many external drive connect via USB and whether your machine supports USB 1, 2, 3 or even 3.1 is a key factor is doing transfers.

John from PA wrote in post #18934644
I totally disagree on this although I might have agreed with Windows XP and earlier. There are utilities built into Windows 7 (and later) that make reliably disc cleanup painless. In addition the Windows install option of keeping your old apps, settings, etc. have come a long way. Having done about a dozen or so upgrades I can speak from experience that the process works exceedingly well. Many of the updates/upgrades I have done have involved just going to an SSD and moving Win 7 to Win 10 on both HDD's and SSD's.

I can remember many years ago people recommending that every couple of years you should format a drive and reinstall Windows. Why I will never understand except it was written by people that wrote web content and magazine articles. Having said that it was lucrative in my sideline business. But back 15 years ago people purchased things like Office and got the product on a CD. These days, all too often the product is delivered electronically with a product key that gets lost, often requiring a repurchase.

Hi John from PA,

You have my attention. This novice thought it was a good idea too. I'm not sure I have the product key either. I do have a Windows 7 (need to upgrade to W10) and my backup, and system image (which I guess is part of the backup) is so large. I did a disk clean up and still end up with only 28.9GB of free space on 'DATA' drive. My D: (DATA) disk is 0% defragmented, while c: drive is 1%. I cannot account for why it is so high! Do you think it's normal?

Hi ItsAllArt,

Thank you so very much for the upload of your specs. Mine is a little older processor. Acer Veriton X2631 Desktop Computer - Intel Core i5-4440 3.10 GHz 4GB DDR3 500GB HDD Windows 7 Professional - DT.VKCAA.006

You have much more RAM and Disk Space. We have same Graphics Card whichi is good to know. Maybe I can get away with simply increasing RAM and adding SSD rather than putting out for a new computer! I may have to look at this more closely. I hope I can get close to your transfer speeds!

Thank you again. I really appreciate your thoughtful responses.

Hi John from PA.

It looks like I would need that 'geek' (term used affectionately) to do a reformat. It's likely out of my league. Is there a utility that does what you are talking about? I too need to upgrade to Windows 10 and am concerned about what it's going to do to my RAM, processor and HD 'space requirements.

thank you so much.

StarlingGirl wrote in post #18935819
Hi John from PA: (MD here)

When you upgraded your system, what benefits did you see?

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

First of all let me state that I've upgraded numerous systems to SSD's so the response varies, but I can positively state that a noticeable improvement was attained in all cases. This is unlike the common recommendation of say perhaps 10 years ago where you went to the trouble (and often considerable expense) to upgrade RAM and when you got all done, the perception of a change just wasn't there.

So, specific examples, on one Windows XP laptop, specifically a Dell D620, with 8 GB ram and an HDD...the boot time to the desktop screen was probably about 2-1/2 to 3 minutes. On that machine only DPP 3.x would run well; DPP 4.x had issues with XP. The machine was updated to an SSD (still 8 GB RAM) and the boot time was brought down to about 30 seconds. I later upgraded this machine to Windows 10 and the boot time is about 20 seconds and DPP 4.x runs fine. The client still brings the machine to me every month or so and for a minimal fee I maintain an "off site" backup.

The most recent machine, a Lenovo desktop (Win 7 Pro 64-bit) about 10 years old, was updated to an SSD initially. Boot time went from probably 1-1/2 minutes to about 45 seconds, as best I recall. With the soon to be end of Microsoft support to Windows 7, the client brought the machine to me for the Windows 10 update, which I did about a month ago. I did not elect the clean install option and the client was very pleased that absolutely nothing had to be reinstalled. In fact one printer that the client used, a Canon BJC-85 has no Windows 10 driver, but it still works properly!

I see elsewhere you are considering "clean install". I would not do that if you have a functioning Windows 7 machine. Keep in mind you need the installation software for everything you now have. That will mean things like Office may have to be repurchased and reinstalled. Do you like an older version, like say Office 2010 as opposed to the newer "cloud" based version. Do you run Outlook and are you willing to lose all your old email unless you take precautions. All this is retained with the update as opposed to the clean install.