I drive an old truck. I like it. It smells bad and looks old, but it's mine, paid for and comfortable as an old pair of jeans and tennis shoes. We look at our equipment the same way. My office computer was 9 years old when we replaced it last week. We bought it with a lot of horsepower so it wasn't terribly obselete even until recently. But the time came for buying some new field equipment (RTK) and so, dominoes fell one by one until we found ourselves purchasing new computers and software. I even updated to the latest version of our DC software, just to make sure everything was all up to date. Our total stations are the only major equipment to survive the overhaul (even after 10 years and 6 years, respectively, they still turn angles and measure distances reliably).
Over the past week and a half, we've done little surveying while wrestling with printer set up (one driver recognizes the two paper trays, one does not), network configurations, convincing Win7 that it's okay for me to see hidden files and manipulate other files, importing old database files into our new Access software, setting up new Word templates, and that doesn't even begin to cover the 2.4 million CAD settings in the new survey software. I'm remembering one of the reasons we haven't upgraded in 10 years - if it ain't broke...
But I am finding quite a few new features that will over time (ten years?) make the investment of money and time worth it. Our new computers are slick - custom built to include parallel ports and serial ports (for some of our legacy equipment and printer), a solid state boot drive (very quick boot times), lots of RAM and lots of memory on our back up high speed mechanical drives. Images in CAD and SID viewer pan effortlessly with no skips or jumps as they slide across the screen. And the new flat screens are so much better than my 10 year old CRT. We're now able to create and read CAD files produced in this decade!
Now if we could just keep the printer settings on one of the network machines from getting lost every morning, we would just about be in business. sigh. Working through one setting after another becomes Ahabian. I just can't seem to find a stopping point. I start working on a seemingly small issue and I look up and two hours have passed. What's it been like outside lately?
I hate to predict a foreboding future, but from my experience you will eventually either replace your printers and plotters...or hire a firm to manage your network.
Both cost more money and never give you real satisfaction. I hope I'm wrong. Good luck.
I really liked my XP and my HP450C. I have neither nowadays.
I smell what your stepping in!
I have Windows Vista and a old HP deskjet 9650. I'm constantly having to reinstall the driver. PITA.
Also! My old Ranger will only download on com ports one or two......but survey link constantly switches to com port 3!!!! I cant understand why this happens.......
OLD is good if your Hugh Heffner...
look on the bright side....solid state hard drives are sweet!!!!!!
> I really liked my XP and my HP450C. I have neither nowadays.
I wrestled with this one, too, when I upgraded to Win7. The trick for me was buying a used HP 170X print server ($25 delivered on eBay). For reasons I still don't understand, driving the 450C directly with Win7 doesn't allow color plots (B&W only), but running it through the print server makes it work just like it did with XP.
> convincing Win7 that it's okay for me to see hidden files and manipulate other files
Win7's UAC is relentless. Even after a year, there are still some files and folders it won't let me mess with, even from an admin account. I basically admitted defeat and developed workarounds that only slightly impede my workflow.
One of Win7's pecadillos pertains to the root folder of the boot drive. It won't allow any of my AutoLISP applications to write to C:, so I had to alter a bunch (20? 30?) of custom applications so that they store files elsewhere. Annoying, but manageable.
You're a better man than I am Shawn. After rasslin with our newest computer for a mere three days, I took it the shop to have the operating system wiped clean and loaded Win XP on it.
Bruce
We upgraded three computers at once when one died. It was a network thing and worth doing only once.
I had one computer up and running within a few hours as a standalone. The rest and all the printer settings, network, sharing, etc., took me the rest of the week.
Then I upgraded to Carlson Survey 2012, and I miss my 2008 but it has some features I had to have for one client (who fired me subsequently).
Good luck! I feel your pain.
