[FishyFill]

Is there any particular version of Windows which is more sympathetic to CNC software?

[edmunns]

I would use 32 bit windows 7 or older.
And offline. Too many background programs running in newer versions.

[edmunns]

There used to be a version of XP floating around called XP lite, someone stripped it right down, that would be the best. You can probably still download an iso file of that somewhere.

[ger21]

Depends on what software you are referring to. Windows 10 works for me.

[edmunns]

ger21 is right, I am speaking from the probably outdated standpoint of using a parallel port or 2 and mach 3.

[RCaffin]

Win7 Pro 64 bit is fine, WITH an external pulse engine such as ESS.
But NEVER on the internet, and with most other stuff stripped out.

Cheers
Roger

[CL_MotoTech]

I'm on Win7 Pro 64 with ESS. I browse the web, run Fusion 360, play music, edit spreadsheets, all without issue while running Mach3. The only Mach3 crash I've ever had was when I tried to drag the Mach3 pane while it was running. It was a mess. I use on board wifi for the net while the ESS is of course running on the ethernet. They are two separate devices though and occasionally I have to turn off one or both of the devices to get a working IP again. The PC has an i5 processor (somewhat older), 16gb of memory, and an older PowerColor GPU (3gb). So far so good. The only thing I disable is Windows Update.

[Sneaky]

Same as CL_MotoTech

NOTE: We are using ESS.

I've never had a problem, I dare say the aversion to anything newer than Win 7 is probably a throwback to issues with parallel ports??

[handlewanker]

Some people do things in the most complicated way for a simple solution.....they're like those people who drive off cliffs with a quad bike and end up on "What Went Down"......Win XP is all you want for Mach3 and a very small hard drive too.

[RCaffin]

Yes, I entirely agree that WXP is quite sufficient for Mach3. I used it for many years.
The devil is in the details: try BUYING a new machine with WXP. It took me some effort to get W7 recently to replace a dead XP machine.

I don't think the aversion to W8 & W10 has much to do with the PP these days. More that they have intrusive security models which bug the hell of out of many, and W8 keeps nagging you to upgrade. And the UI has degraded too.

Cheers
Roger

[handlewanker]

Hi, too much for the average mind.........when I got my SVM-0 with USB I decided to go for a stand alone bare bones computer with Win 7 32 bit......so onto EBAY and I found an Acer Veriton L670G with Win XP....cost about $100 plus another $40 to re-load Win 7 32 bit..

I already have Win 7 32 bit on a larger desktop but I decided to do a re-buy for a smaller model with Win 7 as it takes up less room next to the mill cabinet..

This is a very small footprint computer that can stand upright or lay flat.....slightly smaller than a piece of A4 copy paper and only 45mm thick.

It only has the opn system, MS office and Mac 3, a small hard drive and about 1 gig ram......no virus software and no internet.

I create the G code programs with Notepad on the mill computer and save them to a flash drive, that way I can create and run the code as I experiment with it.
Ian.

[CL_MotoTech]

Stripped down PC's (in the software sense) are no longer required for Mach 3 unless you are still married to the parallel port based system. Parallel port phase out started in large scale 2002. Get a pulse generator, there are lots of flavors, forget about Windows XP, forget 32 bit systems, and then go to work. Windows 10 enterprise and Windows 7 pro are both fantastic OS's, much more stable than any of the previous systems, XP included. I have a Windows 10 machine with 40 days of uptime and a Windows 7 machine with 35 days of uptime. Definitely not OSX or Linux, but vastly improved.

If you want to be careful up the ram (at least 8gb) and add a standalone GPU ($80) and you'll be able to run some intensive software while Mach 3 cruises in the background. With Mach 3, Fusion 360, music (youtube usually), Excel, all running I rarely see over 60% processing power taken. Want to really boost performance? Throw a $100 solid state drive in there, read/write speeds will be incredible, Mach runs like a dream. You can buy a PC that would meet these standards for around $500-700 USD, if your machine and tooling are worth anything it's wise to invest in a good controller. Try to avoid big box store PC builds, they often have proprietary bits like power sources. If they fail, you are **** out of luck until they mail you one. I like to keep a spare PSU on the shelf just in case.

That said, you can run Windows 2.0 up through Windows 10 if you truly want to. All it takes is a sail on the seven seas.

[handlewanker]

Hi, not being a computer savvy anything I decided to KISS and went for the basic simple layout as I said..........nothing more is needed unless I want to start making parts big time and have customers hammering on the door which will NEVER happen.

If this computer fails it get tossed as it cost too much to even have it analysed to see what the trouble is.....plenty more (at the moment) where it came from.

My ideal system would be just a mother board that runs the opn system with USB connectivity and a power supply along with a SSD and ram......no CD burner crap etc..........possibly all crammed into a matchbox........whatever......I'm thinking of the Rasberry Pi for a size comparison.....(never could understand what that goody was good for)......LOL.
Ian.