Q's for the Gurus about mixing office pc replacements

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:47 am

After many years of $0.00 funding for equipment, we finally have a little bit of money to replace some of the pc's in the office.

The current units are a mishmash of HP and Dell dating from 1993 to 2008 - most are single core - all are running XP sp3 -. I have been patching and repairing these for years but many are really on their last legs.....

Our current state minimum requirements are dual cpu, Win7 pro, Office 2007 or better (an unfunded mandate, of course)

I have been looking at basic Dell/Optiplex/core2 duo units - obviously they come with win 7. we do not run any legacy apps that require xp. we skipped vista b/c we didn't have any money anyway

-

My boss asked to to figure out the pros and cons of 64 bit on the new machines - we do share common files on a server (word processing, scannining in .pdf, videos)- so that seems problematic, so I thought I'd toss it out to you all....I'm really not sure.

TIA

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 12:30 pm

64-bit isn't necessary in any way and will not improve performance noticeably, but if it's available with no cost difference, it won't hurt anything & will help future proof the system. It's biggest advantage IMO is the ability to use over 3.5gb of RAM. However, its unlikely that you'd need more than that in the first place. Be aware though that older printers (I'd say over 5 years) and such don't always have 64-bit drivers made for them, so make sure you can find support for any external peripherals first. The networking should work just fine either way.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 1:20 pm

at my company (~1000 users...~2000 workstations), we use x86 for 99% of end-users. several of us in IT use x64, but that is only because we need the benefit of more RAM. even if you DO go x64, you will still want to run the x86 version of Office (we're mainly 2007, but some 2010 here). Office is riddled with compatibility issues, primarily the plug-ins, if you go with x64.

.02

Pugsley · Post by **Pugsley** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 2:07 pm

Why would you go from x86 to x64... isn't that backwards

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 2:23 pm

People keep getting the terminology mixed up. x86 is the instruction set used for 32 bit programming. It's actually 32 bit to 64 bit.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:51 pm

I would not recommend 64bit in a business environment at this time. Most of your turnkey apps are not 64bit compatible.

64bit compatibility isn't too bad in a home environment, but offices tend to run either old software or custom written (turnkey) software specific for their business, and most of that gets broken by 64bit.

Eventually we'll all go 64bit, but we're not there yet. So get 32bit for the office to play safe. Also 99% of all Win7 32bit compatibility issues with older apps can be solves by disabling UAC. Leave it on if you can, but if you have to disable it.

All versions of Office back to 2000 work in Win7 (EXCEPT Outlook 2000).

Do get 4Gb. Ram is cheap. Also keep in mind that if you order it with Win7 Pro you are legally entitled to install any previous version of Windows (including XP Pro) and if you don't have a Dell OEM XP Pro installer CD LMK or you can find it on torrents.

I would highly recommend Optiplex PCs since they come without bloatware, and they tend to be a good deal with the included 3 year on site warranty. Vostro is okay but I prefer Optiplex for business clients. Order them without any AV software and just install Microsoft Security Essentials.

Check this site for weekly specials in the Dell Business section: http://www.gotapex.com/

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 7:38 pm

I was of course basing my recommendations on the mention of the fact that your apps supposedly are fully Win7 compliant.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 9:35 pm

thanks everybody. we have had good luck in the past with the optiplex units. the real money we have to spend is on a new scanner - we have an older canon unit that so far has scanned about 8 gig worth of docs

- we've gotten incredible use from it but its days are numbered.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 9:25 am

I assume high speed high volume scanner? Several of my clients are using Fujitsu scanners. Hands down the best bulk double sided high speed scanners.

They're $600+ though. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... su+scanner

The 6130 is the best one there, and the one most of my clients are using now. High sticker price but it includes the full version of Adobe Acrobat.

OH and another thing to consider, do you have a networkable photocopier? Most of the leased photocopiers nowadays are networkable scanners. Even if the unit doesn't have a NIC on it, there may be an add-on card for it. Check with your copier tech. Some of these copiers work very well as scanners. Feed the documents, select scan instead of copy, push the copy button and instead of printing copies it sends it to a shared folder on a PC as a PDF.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:00 am

I will take a look at the fujitsu, thx FP, will have to check the duty cycle on that

we have a networkable copier which we have though about using but

we scan large docs , first to a local computer, then rename, copy to a file server, like police reports, and then enter detailed information on the doc as it's came, i.e. State v. Ziggy, 2011-F-123, Police Report, BCSD, 3/21/11.

The input devices on the scanner just don't make this easy .... also we have one persons who works about 20 hrs a week scanning docs - we scan everything, mail, etc. - and she will tie up the machine for long periods of time - just not practical with 20 others using the machine - we have one older copier which is our backup, but it's a pain and no longer sorts, etc. as usual, it's all about money or lack thereof.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:37 am

we have a dozen or more Savin and Ricoh networked copiers...super handy for scanning as well. they all have auto-feeders and they are easy to integrate into active directory to pull email address out of, etc. if you can swing the cost, it's something a busy office can't do without...

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:42 pm

FYI: That Fujitsu scanner is WICKED fast BUT your actual scan speeds will be dependent on the PC it's connected to. My clients always want to hook up some spare old slow box that's lying around, and I tell them it's a waste of time and money. Makes no sense buying a $800 high speed scanner and crippling it with a slow PC.

This is especially noticeable if you have to save as text-searchable PDF files because the OCR process is particularly CPU intensive.

Stick it on one of the new PCs.