Install of XP on PC with 16 Gb ram

[cyber_skater]

I'm discovering that Windows 7 is the holy grail of planned obsolesence. I have a Canon printer and a scanner as well as several software packages that will not run on Win7. I'd rather not buy all new hardware and software for Windows 7.

Will XP install on a PC with more ram than XP can use? Or will it crash and burn during the install?

What I might end up trying is to install XP on this new machine (I have removable trays, so I can swap out the hard drive). My other fall-back is to install XP 64-bit, but in that case I have to find out how much of my hardware and software will run on that.

Thanks for any info you can give me.

 

[hang-the-9]

It should install fine as long as XP has drivers for your computer, I'd stay away from 64 bit XP.

Why not just try it and see, or remove all but 4 gig of RAM?

 

[Hawkeye22]

It should work although it won't recognize more than 4 gb of ram. Going to XP 64 bit will most likely put you in the same situation as win 7 - that is no drivers. You must use 64 bit drivers with a 64 bit OS.

Have you tried your hardware on 32 bit windows 7 or are there no drivers for 32 bit either?

 

[cyber_skater]

Thanks for the replies.

My two photo printers did install via Windows Update.

I do have a copy of Win7 32-bit. I might try installing that and see if the scanner drivers will install. If that doesn't work, I might try seeing if I can install XP to a flash drive. That way I can boot off the flash drive into XP when I want to scan something.

 

[hang-the-9]

Thanks for the replies.

My two photo printers did install via Windows Update.

I do have a copy of Win7 32-bit. I might try installing that and see if the scanner drivers will install. If that doesn't work, I might try seeing if I can install XP to a flash drive. That way I can boot off the flash drive into XP when I want to scan something.

You can't install Windows on a removable media. You can run Linux that way though if you want to try and see if that will work with the scanner.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Remember, if you switch to 32 bit win 7, you will be restricted to 4 gig of ram. You didn't mention your memory specs, so I thought I'd throw that out there.