Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dennis J. Jarrard, PLA on December 11, 2011 at 6:54am

Hey Henry, I am a loyal Mac user (home / personal office) and I have partitioned Windows XP onto my computer.  If you have a copy of XP that you can install that is what I recommend.  Our office is in the process of upgrading from XP to Window 7 and all I hear are complaints.  Fortunately my workstation at work hasn't been upgraded yet and I think I am thankful.  I have used Briscad and LandFX on my home computer without a problem.  I am a bit nervous of migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 so on my home desk top computer I am going to stick with XP as long as possible.  If you must go to Windows 7 it would appear Windows 7 Professional might be the direction to go since you can operate in "XP Mode" for products that work best with XP, which might be Autocad and LandFX.  

Not sure that was a simple answer or not.  Good luck to you.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by henry cohen on December 11, 2011 at 11:04am

Crystal clear, thanks Dennis.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Robert Anderson on December 11, 2011 at 11:31am

Henry,

Let me ask a question. Are you using Autoslag because that's what your office is using or are you an independent business owner and are considering changing CAD programs also. The reason I ask is because I have my own practice and have switched entirely to Mac and I'm using Vectorworks Landmark and have been very pleased with the change.

If you are not then you can disregard this and unfortunately I can not give you any support on the Windows stuff.

Best of Luck and Happy Holidays.

Robert

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by beijingreenspace on December 19, 2011 at 11:34pm

I used to use Vectorworks Landmark and loved it as a standalone entity.  Doesn't always play well with others who are PC/AutoCAD standards based though.

Sadly I have drifted away now since they Created AutoCAD for Mac

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jennifer mann on January 7, 2012 at 2:13pm

really?  autoCAD for mac?  is there a scaled down version for landscape design or do you have to buy the whole enchilada?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by henry cohen on January 7, 2012 at 3:13pm

Jennifer, there is a Mac version, but it is the equivalent to Autocad Light. I bought the enchilada but at a greatly reduced priced. it is now running on my Mac with the help of Parallels.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jennifer mann on January 7, 2012 at 3:48pm

yes, that's my next step...continue with autosketch with the use of parallels on my mac and learn sketchup OR learn vectorworks landmark and toss my PC out the window.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chris Whitted on December 11, 2011 at 1:01pm

Home Premium will meet the majority of people's needs.  If you don't need to connect to a Windows Domain or want to encrypt your entire hard drive natively in the OS, this option will save you $80-100.

 

If you are in an office setting and need to connect to a Windows Domain network, you will need Professional.  This also gets you the XP Mode (actually what it gets you is virtualization, which is an OS within an OS, it just happens to have this preconfigured environment all set up for XP SP3 - it can run others).  Note that Home Premium can run programs meant for XP using compatibility settings - the XP mode is just more 'foolproof' since it is an actual copy of XP.  But if you're upgrading your CAD versions anyway, you wouldn't really need XP mode since they will support Win7.

 

Going to Ultimate gets you Bitlocker, which is hard drive encryption built into the OS and is only $20-$30 more than Professional.

 

The Wikipedia article goes into greater depth on the differences and has links to other articles describing the features if you want more info.  It also has a handy comparision chart.  From personal experience I can tell you that going from XP to Win7 takes some getting used to, as some things are MUCH different.  Learning what Libraries are and how they work is the first and most important thing to do in my opinion so you can figure out that no there aren't four copies of that file on your hard drive, just one with three pointers/shortcuts to it. :)  There were some quirks and annoyances the first week or two, but once I got the fundamental changes down I find I like most things better.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by henry cohen on December 11, 2011 at 2:46pm

Cris and Robert,

I just got a bit more info which makes things pretty clear. Being that I have to upgrade to 8 gigs of Ram, I'm going to have to Professional since it is 64 bit and I need that for cad 2012.

Thanks again for the input.

Robert, I'm an independent.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chris Whitted on December 12, 2011 at 1:11pm

You may have misread some information then.  Home Premium has both 32 and 64 bit versions, as do all Win7 editions except Starter.  It also supports up to 16GB of RAM in the 64-bit version.  It's only the 32-bit version than can only go to 4GB, and that's essentially true of any 32-bit operating system.

But then, if you're shelling out for a new CAD license, what's an extra $100 for the OS too. :)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by henry cohen on December 12, 2011 at 7:12pm

Thanks for the clarification Cris. I learned another thing to day.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by henry cohen on December 14, 2011 at 3:37pm

Cris--- FYI, I found a used copy of 2011 guaranteed to be in perfect working order, full commercial version, 32 and 64 bit for $875.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Folio