jbm007 wrote:

 

They are not dropping support for win XP. Its called LR 3.6

 

People have options. Now if Adobe dropped support for LR 3.6 I would be screaming with you.

 

At some point people will be faced with moving there system OS to newer versions.

 

How do you think the people that used DOS feel right now?

 

Its not in the cards. Adobe is not going to re-write  a years worth of code to allow LR 4 to run on XP.

 

If you want the features offered in LR 4 you and others will have to move to Vista (God help us!! )  Win 7, or Win 8

If Adobe would continue to support new cameras on version 3.6, I would agree with you. However, in the past, that has not been the case. If you buy a new camera that is not supported by an older version of Lightroom, you are forced to upgrade. My original 5D is getting a little long in the tooth and I was hoping to upgrade this year (assuming Canon releases something I want to buy). Depending on the timing, Lightroom 3.6 may not support the new camera.

Regardless, this is a business decision on Adobe's part and, as Victoria said, "There comes a point where the cost of supporting an OS outweighs the cost of loss of sales." I'm sure Adobe has factored all of this in and have decided that it's cheaper to lose customers who refuse to "move on", rather than supporting an older operating system.  Yes, it sucks for those of us still on XP, but time will tell whether or not Adobe made the right decision...

Jao

You beat me to that response by 2 minutes.

I just hope we don't re open the whold dng. conversion processs debate again.

jeantraver wrote:

 

Not square peg, round hole, Jao!  And it is not a refusal to move on. I have a three-year old laptop with XP because I did not want to put Vista on it.  Vista is an useless operating system. And Lightroom 3.6 is NOT what some of us want, nfreelan. We want to move on, but replacing the OS on our computers is a risky venture, as well as costly, since it is not a straight upgrade.  Glad to do it, if it's a straight shot.  Careful about posting comments that categorize XP users as unenlightened souls who refuse to move on, nfreelan.

Vista was NOT a useless OS; I used it on laptops and desktops from when it came out until Win7 arrived, without any problems. Much better than XP IMO. So who is 'unenlightened'?

IN any case, Adobe are not taking LR 3.6 away from you. It presumably works fine for you, so you can go on using it until you eventually change your computer. It'll be Windows 8 in another 6 months.

BobFrost

mogud wrote:

 

We XP users are certainly not backward, unenlightened Luddites.  I also read a response here categorizing us XP'ers as using P3's with 40 gb HDD's and 512 kbs of memory.  Furthest from the truth.  While my machine is not an i7 3.4 ghz screamer, its PDQ.  Mine is a P4 Northwood 2.8 ghz, 2 gb memory and 300 gb of HDD. 

 

It will be a lot of work upgrading, but LR 4's Adjustment Brush enhancements will push me to pull the trigger.  I won't go through everything until Win 8 is released and reasonably stable.  Guess I'll be using LR 3.6 for at least a year and I might as well wait for LR 5.

Not just the Adjustment Brush stuff, but all the Develop 2012 system gives much better results. I don't need the books, maps, or video enhancements, but LR4 will be worth it just for the improved raw rendering. I'm already redoing some old images in develop 2012 and they are tons better. In your position, I'd borrow a copy of Win7, set it up as dual boot with XP, and then play with it for a month. Win 8 is a big unknown at present, while Win7 is good for years to come.

Bob Frost

Bob, is the upgrade to Windows 7 from XP a manageable endeavor? LR4 is the only reason I would upgrade the OS on my computer.  Not sure that is a significant reason to do so.

At the moment I really wouldn't spend any time upgrading your OS if it is

just for Lightroom. The beta is a little unstable (crashes fairly often),

quite slow even on modern hardware and a danger to rely on for production

work as Adobe indeed warns against. It is interesting to play with to see

where Adobe is going, but if upgrading your OS would be a waste of time,

then this definitely would be one much worse. The quality of the

conversions is indeed somewhat better, the books feature is nifty and the

soft proofing is really great, but in the state that LR 4 beta is not worth

the aggravation of all the crashes in my opinion. If you are not running a

reasonably modern OS, I would wait for the next beta or the release and

reevaluate.

Jean,

I upgraded from XP to Win 7 on a new machine in late December. I used Windows Easy Transfer (WET) to transfer all my libraries. Had to re-install a bunch of executables, of course. It helps to do an inventory before you start and plan out what needs to be done.

It took a couple of days of work to get 90% of my apps up and running, and by the end of a week, there was just about nothing left to do. No real mysteries. It's at least as stable as XP, and running on an i7-2600 at 3.4 GHz, it's very smooth. Lightroom is definitely snappy. I got it with 8 GB of RAM, and that seems plenty. I've never seen usage go over 4.

Hal

jeantraver wrote:

 

Not square peg, round hole, Jao!  And it is not a refusal to move on. I have a three-year old laptop with XP because I did not want to put Vista on it.  Vista is an useless operating system. And Lightroom 3.6 is NOT what some of us want, nfreelan. We want to move on, but replacing the OS on our computers is a risky venture, as well as costly, since it is not a straight upgrade.  Glad to do it, if it's a straight shot.  Careful about posting comments that categorize XP users as unenlightened souls who refuse to move on, nfreelan.

Sorry, I was not categorizing XP users as unenlightened (I'm an XP user, after all), I was only quoting someone else from an earlier post who said, "That's life...move on." Actually, I agree with you 100%. I don't want to be shut out of upgrading to Lightroom 4 either, but clearly Adobe has decided that us XP users aren't a big enough market share to matter.

I'll stick with LR3 for the following reasons -

• LR3 is stable and works well, LR4 appears to offer some nice-to-haves but nothing that would trigger upgrading from XP to Win7
• Like many XP users, I'm reluctant to part with a flexible, very stable version of windows that meets all my current needs well.  Windows 7 gives me a rash, it's very intrusive to use and maintain.  Those family members who have insisted on buying Win7 machines or upgrading to 7 have been told to maintain them themselves.  Which of course, they can't do.
• LR4 isn't sufficient to trigger the expense of upgrading to Win7 and new versions of some of my most useful software.

XP is one of the classic versions of Windows - a significant proportion of its user base are very reluctant to part with it, especially given Win7's lack of appeal.

Nothing more will be accomplished here in this thread.

Its time to move on.

It is what it is, and its not going to change.

Nothing to see here .....................

Like it or not these OS transitions are unavoidable, and yes there's always the unexpected. Last summer I put together a new desktop PC i7 3.4GHZ, 24GB RAM with the express purpose of speeding my Lightroom performance. The new machine is running 64-bit Win7, my previous machine ran 64-bit Vista. Lightroom runs much faster on the new platform but I was dismayed when several apps in my CS4 Master Collection would not run properly on the new OS. They installed from the original media but the Adobe updater could not patch them to the final CS4 dot releases from within the apps (or without). Like I said, there's always the unexpected.

After a complete build and all the install overhead, you really do find yourself in a no-win situation. Ultimately I had to bite the bullet and upgrade to PS 5.5 or spend the rest of my life on hold to Adobe support. The pc running Vista couldn't be completely decommissioned, so I can still run the misbehaving CS4 apps.

I can appreciate the desire to squeeze every last drop out of a system that's stable and productive. I don't believe anyone who's weighed in on this very-long thread believes otherwise. It's doubly frustrating to HAVE TO upgrade for reasons that make little sense (and sometimes are not even understood by Adobe). But that's where we are today.

You've done better than most keeping XP going this long. Feel good about that and decide whether LR4 is worth the OS upgrade.

You can't run LR4 on XP?  I understand that you will be very dispappointed.

However, while it will run with my (Mac OS - Lion) operating system, I cannot expect to run it on my 32 bit MacPro computer, though my experience of the LR4 public beta to date is that it does run on my computer without any compromises I can detect.  Whether this will be the case in the final release may be quite another matter, of course.

This has started me thinking about Aperture, which is where I started (v1.5) before the advent of LR1.  Through my time with LR1, LR2 and LR3, I have kept updated nmy licenced copy of Aperture through A2 to A3 to enable an ongoing watch over comparable LR vs. Aperture features and performance, and to 'keep my hand in' in case I ever needed to revert.  Latterly A3 has been very useful to enable me to use the Apple photo book product, and all the early signs are that I will be continuing to use this over the LR book product for the foreseeable future.

Depending on Apple's response to LR4 features and performance in an upcoming A4, including possible ongoing support for my 32 bit processor, I could be very tempted to make the switch back to Aperture for all my photo file management and manipulation, as this will avoid/defer the need to invest in a new computer,  Apart from the cloud over LR4 compatibility, my MacPro is otherwise very satisfactory, and includes a high performance video card as would be necessary for Aperture.

I fully respect Adobe's right to cease 32 bit processor support.  But as I continue to follow the evolution of LR4 through the public beta to the final release, I will also be waiting and watching for A4 and I won't be commiting to LR4 until I can make an informed judgement of which product is best for me.

jeantraver wrote:

 

Bob, is the upgrade to Windows 7 from XP a manageable endeavor? LR4 is the only reason I would upgrade the OS on my computer.  Not sure that is a significant reason to do so.

It is manageable, and here is the MS tutorial on how to do it - http://http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/upgrading-from -windows-xp-to-windows-7

Note that you can download the Win7 upgrade adviser and run it on your computer to see what problems you might have with programs and hardware. To get the most from Win7 you ought to install the x64bit version, but this has more problems if you are moving up from old hardware, as it requires x64bit drivers which computer manufacturers and those making printers and scanners are often loath to update. So sticking to x32 version may be better from that point of view, especially if you don't have more than 4GB ram (the max that 32bit can handle).

If you are using a desktop, setting up a dualboot system (simply installing Win 7 on top of your existing winxp) allows you to choose which OS to use, each time your reboot). That means you can go on using XP, while in your spare time you collect and install the programs, drivers, etc you need for Win7. And of course, you can test LR4beta.

On a laptop with just one small drive, that is more of a challenge, but it can be done. I've got Win7x64 running on an old Samsung laptop. The Samsung cd didn't have any x64 drivers, but by going to Samsung's website I found a similar laptop that did have x64 drivers and used those. They work fine!

Bob Frost

Takitimu wrote:

 

I'll stick with LR3 for the following reasons -

 

• LR3 is stable and works well, LR4 appears to offer some nice-to-haves but nothing that would trigger upgrading from XP to Win7
• Like many XP users, I'm reluctant to part with a flexible, very stable version of windows that meets all my current needs well.  Windows 7 gives me a rash, it's very intrusive to use and maintain.  Those family members who have insisted on buying Win7 machines or upgrading to 7 have been told to maintain them themselves.  Which of course, they can't do.
• LR4 isn't sufficient to trigger the expense of upgrading to Win7 and new versions of some of my most useful software.

 

XP is one of the classic versions of Windows - a significant proportion of its user base are very reluctant to part with it, especially given Win7's lack of appeal.

Win7 is even more stable than XP. Not sure why you think Win7 is very intrusive to use and maintain. I suppose you might be meaning the User Account Control dialogs, that keep asking you for permission to change things. Well, you can disable this very easily - Control Panel/User Accounts/User Account Control and move the slider to the bottom. You will lose some of the extra security that Win7 provides, but no more than XP. And if you use MS Security Essentials as your malware checker, you get good protection with very little, if any, noticeable effect on normal use. I run with User Account Control disabled all the time.

What needs maintaining that your family are having problems with?

Bob Frost

As is stated up-thread a bit (post 33 and following), less than 10% of LR users are on XP. I suspect that Adobe know what they're doing.

Hal

Bob, this is marvelous information. Thank you for posting it. I have a laptop (32-bit), so as you mentioned, it will be more of a challenge to upgrade. Your information is most helpful.

Keith, please understand that we XP users "get it." It is not a reluctance to move on, but a matter of practicality.  It is a reluctance to ditch a perfectly sound 3-year-old laptop for one program. And weighing the pros and cons of upgrading on a 32-bit laptop, I am decidedly against it.  Too many potential conflicts.  We got caught in Adobe's crossfire.  We understand why they are doing what they are doing, but we do not have to like it.  I suspect Adobe's loss of money from those who will not buy LR4 will not be huge. But we have a right to express our opinions about their decision.

Somehow Julie the fact that you would have to test on 8 different windows platforms doesn't make me feel any better.  I understand everyone is trying to cut down cost, but that includes me and several other XP users that can't afford to upgrade in my case 2 computers plus the cost of the lightroom 4 upgrade on top of that.  $400 or $500 may not seem like much to Adobe, but it's the difference between me being able to have the lastest and greatest software or not having it.  

Folks,

Talk all you want...it's a free forum (and Adobe doesn't censor anything but profanity) but it's a done deal. No XP, no Tiger (10.5.8) on Mac. The code has been written to require Vista or better APIs on Win and 10.6.6 API's on Mac. This won't change regardless of the feedback. It's a line in the sand and Adobe has at least given you a heads up regarding future support when LR 4 actually ships. Yu'll have time to consider whether or not you want to update your OS to be able to use LR4. Adobe didn't do this to be mean...they did it for technical reasons.

You guys are beating a dead weasel.  You can make your feelings known, but it won't change anything as the decision has been made.  As a longtime user of Win XP who finally moved to Win 7/64 (replacing a 7-8 year old P4) I am glad they are looking to the future.