American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

If you operate a computer with a Microsoft operating system, which sytem is it?

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

I work at Geek Squad and I am very happy nobody here is still using anything before XP!

To the people still using XP I have bad news for you.... Microsoft is walking away from it on April 8, 2014.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/end-support-help

In other words.... time for a new computer

Windows 8 is awesome but a huge leap for XP users. Avoid tablet versions of the operating system as they will not be very friendly with our games. I use a Surface Pro 2 and it's super light, portable, and cool... but it is awful for games like this. I basically have to hook it up to an external monitor, Bluetooth to a mouse and keyboard, and then link up an external CD-ROM to load the games (for the first download only though). Still it is a hassle. I'd stick to a desktop for our gaming purposes, or, even better, a All-in-One with a Touchscreen! Those bad boys have fantastic resolution and are optimized for Windows 8 users that don't care to carry their CPU with them all over the place. And of course there are the laptops still

WooHoo! Im still on that Vista train! Nobody on it but me...aint no problems like Vista problems.

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Lt. Col Joe R. Matthews
6th Brigade/3/III
Army of Northern VA

So far there have been 29 responses to this poll with the following results:

Windows XP - 10
Windows Vista - 2
Windows 7 - 12
Windows 8 - 5

If you are an XP user like myself, don't be stampeded to run out and get a new computer. It's true that Microsoft intends to cut its on-going technical support for XP on April 8th, but that doesn't mean that your computer is going to blow apart on April 9th from hackers! If you have taken the precautions of fortifying your system with a good, 3rd party security suite or a battery of such programs, there's no reason why you cannot continue happily along for as long as your hard drive will operate! You may even continue after that, if you know how to safely transfer into a newer, better hard drive.

Also, there seems to be some hesitation within Microsoft about completely walking away from XP support, as Windows 8 sales seem to be flattening out. Our own little survey here seems to roughly reflect the percentages of OS users out there on the Internet. XP usage, contrary to projections, has not continued its decline, but has instead leveled off at about 35% of the current users.

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

I voted Windows 7, but I actually have all three on the same PC, 7 & 8 with XP in a virtual machine which is where I play the occasional BG game. Win 7 is still my OS of choice and I only occasionally boot the Win 8 drive.

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Gen. Dirk Gross
2/XVII
Army of the Tennessee

I operate with Vista for HPS & John Tiler and XP for Battleground (the Bg PC is a separate one that still works - non internet).

My PC is slowly dying (actually the downhill run is on); being in the same room as a pottery kiln does tend to incentivise "rust", as the "managers" say. So eventually I cna se me operating with Windows 8.? and picking up the matrix version of BG.

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General Mark Oakford
Commander,
II Corps,
Army of the Potomac.
http://campcromwell.blogspot.com/

A pottery kiln you say?!!!

What on earth are you doing in there, Mark? Are you somehow connected with the new Union Army contract I've issued for a more robust beer containers?

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

SWMBO always seems to be able to sell her produce, so I've never used one as a beer container. I have retained a teapot for tea, but that isn't the same thing!

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General Mark Oakford
Commander,
II Corps,
Army of the Potomac.
http://campcromwell.blogspot.com/

I have 7 on my desktop and 8 on my laptop both run the games but I do not like windows 8 I was forced to get it you can not easily buy a laptop with 7. If you can avoid it don't go to 8!

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Lieutenant General Ernie Fantini

Ernie,

Install the 8.1 update if you haven't already. It makes it more of a desktop OS than the original tablet OS. I was using the free start button replacement Classic Shell with 8.0, but it's almost optional with 8.1. The next major update sounds like it will go even more towards the desktop interface. Eventually, I might even pull the trigger myself and make 8 my primary OS instead of the secondary one.

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Gen. Dirk Gross
2/XVII
Army of the Tennessee