I Purchased an iMac!

And I'm very happy with it. I don't know why I took this long, well, the price. I wanted the 27 inch one. The drawback is most of the games I want are on Windows.

So I have this 5 year old XP sitting here. Should I wipe it and put Windows 7 on? Also, I don't have the faintest idea on how to back it up externally. I have some cooking software I want to keep, and my old Quicken files, but have transferred other stuff I want to the Mac. From what i've read you have to wipe the drive before installing Windows 7.

I have two drives on it, C and E. E has a lot of old stuff on it that I've been lugging around for years. Packrat at home and packrat on the computer, lol. Can I get by with just wiping C or do I have to do E also?

I did the Windows advisor thingee and it said I have to do a custom install. Sigh.

Can you tell us more about this old XP? Like a brand and model number? Windows 7 needs a certain amount of good hardware to run well. Plus, if this computer is that old, it might not have hardware drivers compatible with Windows 7.

Even if it will run Windows 7, you will have to do a custom install and your cooking software will be wiped out. You can save your Quicken files, but Quicken itself will also get wiped out. If you have the disks or downloads or a purchase key, you may be able to reinstall them.

EDIT: Oh, and congrats on the iMac! They are beautiful machines.

Conrats on the iMac JeanK. I also purchased one as an early Christmas present. I love it. It's so easy to use. I'm keeping my old computers for my Windows games just the way they are! Good Luck

You don't have to wipe the E drive, but any programs you may have installed to E: probably won't work after formatting C:. Most Windows programs use the registry, and the registry is part of the XP operating system on C:.


That's because you have XP and not Vista.

I'd recommend keeping XP though. Unless you have a LOT of memory, XP will run faster. You're also familiar with it, and you can keep your currently installed cooking software.

You can play some PC games on the iMac using DOSBox or VMware. And some games have Mac versions, though you need to check whether the Mac version is compatible with your iMac's version of OS X.

Thanks, all, for your replies. Maybe I will just keep the XP as is and clean it up. I just won't be able to go online with it. Or, if I do just do a quick download of a game. I'd hate to lose my cooking software.

I had it built for me and the system info says

AMD Anthlon Dual Core
Processor 5050e
2.60 GHz, 3.00 GM Ram
Acer monitor
Nvidia GE Force 9600 GT

Is there a really reasonably priced computer out there to just play adventure games? The Mac will play World of Warcraft and Diablo, and I don't play much faster stuff than that anymore. It's getting too hard to compete with the kiddies online, lol.

I don't want to put a ton of money into another computer since i paid so much for this, but I do want to do some adventure games. More and more casual games are being imported to the Mac so there isn't a problem with those.

How are the laptops?

If it was me, I would keep that computer just as it is, XP and everything! Some pretty decent specs and a good one just for an adventure gamer and the occasional download. Since you had this built for you, you could probably upgrade the video card when you start running into new adventure games that it can't handle. Depending on what was put in it, you might have to upgrade the power supply. But right now, I'll bet it can run pretty much anything out there.

For now anyway, I think you have a great setup - a gorgeous 27" iMac and this darned good XP machine! Clean it up and it should be good to go for a long time.

That's actually still a good video card for adventure games.


You can get one for less than $1000 from eCollege or CyberpowerPC.

Your current XP computer should be OK for playing adventure games, though games like the upcoming Sherlock Holmes will probably work better (or at least look better) with a newer more powerful computer.

In ***this thread***, Draclvr recently configured this computer at eCollege as an example



They can't be upgraded. One estimate I heard was to expect to pay about $1000 more for a gaming laptop than for a desktop with similar specs. You pay for the miniaturization, but gaming laptops tend to be big fat laptops because they need extra cooling. Unless you want to move it around the house, I'd recommend a desktop.

Thanks Jenny and Drac. I guess hang onto the XP it is. Any advice on how to safely download games on it once Microsoft stops supporting XP? Do you think it will be ok if the only time I go online with it is to download a game from a reputable company?

I had to replace the power supply last year and had to get a second hand one -- no money at the time. So when I get the new video card should I get a new power supply? What's a decent step up from the one I have in it?

I've been uninstalling and cleaning it up but still there must be a ton of junk on it. Maybe I'll get rid of the pictures since they're on my new computer. It's amazing how much junk is on there.

You may not have to get a new power supply - it depends how many watts it is. When you run into a game that won't work, then you can regroup.

If all you're doing is downloading some games, I wouldn't be too concerned. Nothing is going to blow up after April, but I definitely wouldn't use it as a main computer for the internet. It's already not a very secure OS, but as long as you're not using it for anything sensitive you should be OK. One thing to be sure of is to remove anything that uses passwords you consider sensitive. Don't forget Disk Cleanup and Disk Defrag.

Just a curious question from a Non Mac person, would it not be possible to download a game on your new iMac machine and then transfer the game to a Flash drive and then transfer it to your XP and then install it from there?

You can download Windows games on a Mac as long as the company you buy from doesn't require the game to be installed through a game client. For example you can download DRM-Free PC games from GOG/DotEMU/ShinyLoot on the Mac, transfer them via the USB drive and install them on the Windows computer without the Windows computer ever being connected to the Internet. However you can't do this with games from Steam or Big Fish because they download and install through a client. Steam and Big Fish may support Mac games and have a game client for Mac, but it won't handle the PC versions of games on a Mac.

Games that use online activation will require the PC to be connected to the Internet while they activate. But downloading can take hours while activating a game should only take a few seconds.

Thanks for your quick reply Jenny100,

That answers my question as to whether Macs had a special download method that would not be recognized on a Windows machine, now I know and I can pass on this knowledge to some of my Mac friends who were wondering the same thing.

Take care

I've never had a problem downloading PC games on my approximately-5-year-old iMac from GOG, DotEMU, Adventure Shop, ShinyLoot, or any other shop where you can download the files needed to install a game without automatically starting the installation process. Downloading is downloading, whether in Windows, Mac, or Linux.