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Windows 8…. yay?

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  • May 2, 2013 at 4:56 am #39853
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    If the laptop is used solely for DJ-ing, then dual boot might be overdoing it. In that case I’d drop 8 and get my hands on a copy of 7. If you use the laptop for other things (like school … pffff) too, dual boot – in my opinion – is the only serious way to go. I’d make my DJ setup Windows 7 based.

    Come june Microsoft is launching 8.1 (if it is really gonna be called that and not Service Pack 1). The main difference being you get a choice to NOT use the stupid Metro GUI !!!!! Can you just imagine the number of people complaining and the load of flack they must have gotten for them to acknowledge the fact and let go of the bit they thought was gonna change the world of Windows forever?

    If you can make Windows 8 look/act like Windows 7 and they ironed out the wrinkles AND our friends at Traktor, VDJ and Serato had time to wrinkle out their quirks with Win8 AND all hardware supplier have worked out their driver issues, then I believe you can safely use Win8 for DJ-ing. If anybody is running Windows 7 at this time, I really see no reason to rush to 8 though.

    Good luck and nice laptop!

    Greetinx,
    C.

    May 2, 2013 at 4:00 pm #39873
    Ryan Gordon
    Participant

    Ya school is overrated… just a tad! Lol and we actually got my mom the same computer but with an i5 and she had a panic attack from win8 and the Metro, quite funny actually… Coming from XP and hating any sort of change. Thanks for the help!

    May 3, 2013 at 12:24 am #39883
    Ryan Gordon
    Participant

    oh and how much RAM and hard drive should I give to the dual boot, if its just going to be traktor, maybe ableton, drivers and such, and I can just put music on an external hard drive

    May 3, 2013 at 6:11 am #39890
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    Hi, all the RAM. Dual boot doesn’t mean you can run both at the same time and hot-switch between them. You make the choice for either environment at boot (hence the term) time and the chosen environment will then use all the RAM. So, no worries there.

    As far as HD space goes, it depends on the total amount of disk space you have (in a modern laptop I am guessing anywhere between 500GB and 1TB, unless you are on a SSD in which case 128-256GB usually). This is how I usually set up my HD’s in single boot (normal) configuration, based on a 500GB HD :

    Partition 1 (C:) – SYSTEM – 100 to 150GB. This is were the operating system will sit, all applications and drivers.
    Partition 2 (D:) – DATA – The remaining space (approx 350 to 400 GB). This is where I transfer my entire “My Documents” folder and keep all other data, like my music. It was called my documents in XP, in Win7 and Win8 it is called “UserName”.
    The reason for this is that if something goes wrong, it usually goes wrong with the Operating System. Setup like this you can just go ahead and reinstall the OS and not worry about your data. Once installed and setup again, just point to the DATA drive again and you are good to go.

    If I make the same laptop dual boot and name the environment SCHOOL and DJ for example, then I change things like this:

    Assuming your username in the SCHOOL environment is “RYAN” and in your DJ Evironment it is “DJ X”. Obviously change names as appropriate.

    By hiding the System partitions of the other environment you can’t accidentally mess up the operatings system there. And by sharing the data partition it is easy to transfer data and such from SCHOOL to DJ. You want to keep your DJ environment disconnect from internet as much as possible, preferably without virusscanners and such. So you download while you are in SCHOOL environment, run your virusscanner there, then place the downloaded files in (for example) a folder on D: called “TRANSFER”. Then reboot, go to DJ environment and just move the files from “TRANSFER” to wherever you want them (or run them if they are installers).

    Hope that clarifies it some.

    Greetinx,
    C.

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