How good is windows 7 please?

All you need bna220148 is a card reader and there will be no problem. This avoids having to load the camewra software at all. I have very rarely loaded any camera software.

Your computer is most likely to recognise your camera simply as a "MASS STORAGE DEVICE", and I shouldn't think you will have any issues with uploading your photos from the camera to your pc. If you do encounter any problems, then running that particular MSD in compatability mode (set to be compatible with XP) should overcome that.

As John said, a card reader will get you out of any bother the camera-to-pc may throw at you.

I use the USB lead provided with my K5 in Windows 8 and simply drag the folder to my PC. I find this easier than messing with the card. You can set it so the folder opens up as soon as you turn your connected camera on.

Many thanks for the assurance I will still be able to download my pictures from my istD if - if I move to Win 8

Hi guys sorry to be a pain in the !"£$% asking all these stupid questions.

I have 1.93 of ram with two memory slots. Am intending to get a photo suit like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom next year. Will 8Gb ave to be added, or is the ram I have at the moment OK?

About the 32 bit, will I get more out of 64 bit?

Never heard of ReadyBoost

windows 7 release date was October 22, 2009, so info is availble on web for the last 3+ years.
ReadyBoost Below;
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ff356869.aspx

OH DEAR, what can I say without alienating a few posters here!

OTOH, I hope these people are not still taking photos with Kodak Box Brownies and trying to get their films developed at the local chemist - because the film has become unavailable (a LONG time ago) and local chemists just don't do that any more (not so long ago, but it happened!).

The world, and especially ITE and photographic equipment, moves on continuously, and you can left behind for so long - and then it hits you: the things that "ain't broke" are not much use any more

BTW: anyone remember DOS 3.0 and Windows 2.0? I do because they were on my very first PC, and I had to learn how to drive that thing the VERY hard way (pretty much all self-taught from total scratch, with books and simple training programmes on 5.25" floppies, and that's how I learned to upgrade PCs and s/w as well)! DOS 3.0 was OK for its time but Windows 2.0 was ABSOLUTELY useless for ANYTHING at all, so aren't you glad that things do change, and generally for the better?

Moral (?): You don't need to be one of the first to adopt something new, but don't get left behind so far that the learning curve to the "next thing" is so steep that you want to give up completely!

Yes, I remember them well. I would not say that Windows 2.0 was useless; it's just that most of the later versions were better and did more. As for MS-DOS, I used it up to ver 5.0 and it was FAST for what it did. I still have to use a database called PC File, that only runs in DOS. I run it, clumsily, in XP's pseudo-DOS C: window. I do so because for my special needs there just isn't a Windows database that will do what PC File can do. Horses for Courses. I just hope that the latest versions of Windows will still let one run a C: prompt window

Martin

Don't think of yourself as a pain - it takes time to get to the bottom of questions like these, and we all have start somewhere!

Anyway, now I think we know roughly where you are on the hardware scale.

You have a mixture of memory modules but only 2 slots for it - so the maximum amount you can fit will (as I said earlier) depend on what the motherboard can handle, and that will be stated in the motherboard manual (or you should be able to find out by typing the motherboard type number into Google, etc). However, I suspect that it might not be more than 8GB, and it could be very expensive to do that because DDR2 (which it may well be) is now scarcer and more expensive than DDR3.

Also, as was said earlier, W7 32bit can only handle 4GB (or actually just a little less, but you still need 4GB of modules to allow it to do that). However, installing this version allows to keep you to keep all the critical info on the C: partition of the disk, IF the installation is done correctly via the CUSTOM mode.

Installing the 64 bit version allows you to use much more memory, but whether your motherboard and processor combination can really handle the 64bit version very well might be another thing.

As for the installation of the full version Photoshop and Lightroom are concerned, I am not the person to answer those questions because I have only Elements 6, and later versions of Elements would probably be OK - but the full versions are both pretty heavy applications and so you might well find that they run very slowly, regardless of how much memory you have.

OTOH, if you do want to run "heavy" s/w then this might be the time to consider an overall upgrade to a much newer PC with more "grunt" in the processor and much more memory, which the 64 bit version will make the most of - but you can still make the choice of whether you want W7 or W8 if you choose a good company to provide the machine. Also, in the process you can get a MUCH bigger hard disk (1-2TB disks are pretty cheap at the moment), or disks, fitted, and as modern disks work much faster than older ones, then there will be a signicant boost from this direction as well

And I ran all the versions up to DOS 5, and still have the manual in the cupboard for when I do need to run from the Command prompt, as well as DR-DOS 6 (ah, the memory!) before I jumped to WIN95. The Command prompt is still available by typing "command.com" from the dialogue box that appears when you click on the WINDOWS icon at the bottom left of the screen.

HOWEVER, you need the PRO versions of W7 or W8 and run in Compatibility mode before many of the old programmes will run under W7 or W8 (or VISTA) - and then it does not always work if you are running the 64 bit version (that's why I keep the old laptop on the 32 bit version as there is a game from the early 90's that will not run on the new one under the 64 bit version). And before anyone mentions the DOSBOX utility, I tried that but it did not work either, or else I need to tweak the settings

Why wait? try the free old CS2 now, get the hang of it.

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/free-cs2-38953

Runs fine on my laptop 2GB ram, 100GB disk, CPU core2duo T5500 1.66Ghz, and XP.

Plenty of cheap/free books available too.

(p.s. if you do decide to update your PC, please please back up your photos/data before you start, and make sure the backup works too)

(p.p.s. the proper way to choose software is to select the software first, look at the system requirements, THEN buy the hardware that will run the software)

(p.p.p.s. Lightroom 3 will probably work for 30 days in trial mode on your PC http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=113&platform=Windows )

(p.p.p.p.s before spending any money imagine putting it towards a laptop like this at £250 which you could hook up to your existing screen and have extended desktop for editing your photos. http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/HP_650_1274466.html )

£200 for windows 7 unit,
http://www.tier1online.com/bundle-hp-8000-elite