8 Replies Latest reply: Mar 30, 2011 5:18 PM by wizard155 RSS

    Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer

    grandpahenry Community Member

      I am in the process of acquiring an improved computer to replace my 2003 vintage XP Pro system for extended memory and speed.  I plan to use Windows 7 64 Bit but am hedging my bets by including the XP environment as some of my other apps may not run well in 64 bit.  

       

      I am hearing that there are some issues with version 3.3.  Can anyone advise me on this. 

       

      Also, I have one sets of raw photos that have been partially processed. Assuming that I move the raw files to an offline disk is there a way I can bring them back into LR with the allready made corrections intact.

       

      I am also having trouble finding the 64 bit version of 3.3 to download.  

        • 1. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
          ssprengel Community Member

          Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of LR are on the DVD and in the downloads, setup32.exe and setup64.exe I think, so you don't have to find a separate version. 

           

          Issues with programs on 64-bit are typically driver-related because the drivers are less mature or don't exist since 64-bit is relatively new.  If you are getting a pre-built computer from a major manufacturer, then things should all work, although if it is very cheap or on sale, sometimes the computer may have some glitches which is the reason it is being sold so cheaply.  LR does push the video system pretty hard, so it's issues are usually video-related so it just depends on the video card and how up-to-date the drivers are.  If you are building the computer yourself, then sometimes there are glitches due to incompatibility between hardware but you can probably work through those by swapping out video cards or memory or whatever else might not quite playing nice. 

           

          I have a slow, old 32-bit computer and a new, fast 64-bit computer, and have all my photos and LR catalog on a USB drive and since I make the drive-letter the same on both computers, I can open up the catalog on either computer and it works ok.  If you're going to be using only one computer, then don't put the photos on an external drive permanently, just copy them across and reconnect them if the drive-letter or path to the photos is different.

          • 2. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
            grandpahenry Community Member

            Thanks for your reply.  The system being built for me is using the ATI Firepro 3G V5800 with 1GB memory.  It is the Photoshop recommended list.  I only have one computer to worry about.  I will be using an SSD as the location of my catalog and library transferring the files to an offline USB drive when I have finished processing. 

             

            Right now I have this partially completed set of photos (600) that I took at my granddaughter's Nutcracker performance.  I have tweaked some of them and set the right white point on all of them.  If I move these to an offline USB drive, just by copying the files directly, how can I get them back onto the new system with the 64 bit version installed?   Can you give me a bit of insight on this?

            • 3. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
              Jasonized Community Member

              Moving your entire LR catalog to a new machine is fairly easy and straight forward.

               

              First you have to realize there are three parts to LR... The previews, the catalog, and the images.

               

              When you bring up LR, go into Catalog Settings, and you will see both the path to the catalog file, and the name of it (ending in .lrcat).

               

              You want to copy the one ending in .lrcat to your usb drive.

               

              Then copy your entire set of images (drag and drop the top level folder) to keep the folder structure.

               

              When you move these back onto the new computer, put your catalog file on your SSD, and put your images onto your other internal drives.


              Now, there is one possible gotcha when you start LR.  To start LR, double click the catalog file you just copied into place.  If your images are located in a different place than they were on your last computer, you will have to "find" the images.  All of your image folders willh ave a '?' on them.  Right click on the top-most folder, and browse to find it.  Once that's done, all the ones below it will automatically reconnect.

               

              Remake previews, and you're done!

               

              Cheers!

              • 4. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
                wizard155 Community Member

                64-bit drivers are very mature now. It's just deprecated hardware which is not supported. Companies have to draw a line the sand when it comes to what is and what is not supported. It regularly happens as each new version of OS comes out. Typically Scanners and Printers are the devices which are often left behind more than anything else.

                 

                A fresh install of Windows 7 64-bit and LR3.3 64-bit works fab and I personally haven't had any problems. I do highly recommend upgrading to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 immediately on first time boot of the machine as it will reduce the disk usage down by 3Gb and speed up Windows 7 (Yes you heard right, Microsoft actually making a service pack which does not bloat!).

                 

                Most issues which people encounter is due to the excessive use of "extra" software on their computer. Avoid Registry cleaners and whatnot. They are a waste of time and its best to leave that stuff well alone. I do recommend ccleaner as a neat program to clean up all your temporary files etc and that's it. Windows 7 does all its own Defragging for you.

                 

                As I am also a SSD fan I can highly recommend not filing your SSD with crap. Keep it tight and do not have stuff floating all over the joint. I recommend relocating your Windows 7 libraries to another drive than your SSD to keep disk usage down. Also, there can be firmware updates for your SSD hard drive which will improve performance etc. Highly recommend updating when you can and do a full backup prior to updating to be cautious.

                 

                In the way of off-computer storage, I highly recommend moving to a redundant NAS and use those external USB HDD as a backup of the NAS. Seen way too many people lose their data due to a faulty or dropped USB External HDD. There are plenty of different companies offering NAS solutions and I personally use Netgear but you can look at QNAP or any other company which takes your fancy. Disk prices are so ridiculously cheap these days.

                 

                If you have Java installed on the computer then make sure its regularly up to date as this is the easiest way to get a virus to find its way onto your computer at the moment. Having Adobe PDF and Flash up to date is also a great way to close any security holes.

                 

                Here's a quick tip for anyone reading this. If you do get a virus on your computer. Do these steps.

                 

                1. Don't panic.

                2. Shut everything down

                3. Reboot the computer and enter Safe mode with Networking

                4. Run System Restore and restore back to at least day prior to the infection.

                5. Run ccleaner and clean up all temporary files including Sun Java Application files under the application tab.

                6. Run a full scan on your computer if you have anti-virus (which I don't use as I find them useless and lag my computer. So far, never had a virus)

                 

                I found this to be the most effective and fastest way to neutralising the infection and all your files will be preserved! Not to mention you don't need to get an IT person (like me) involved and it become a costly affair.

                 

                Last thing... when transferring from the old computer to the new computer. Make sure you retrieve all your filters etc from your profile so you can migrate it over.

                 

                My specs of the hardware which I use is

                 

                MSI X58 Pro-2 Motherboard

                Intel Core i7 3.06Ghz CPU

                24Gb DDR3 Ram

                Nvidia GTX470 1.28Gb Video Card

                Intel 80Gb X-25M SSD HDD

                Pioneer DVD Writer

                Soundblaster X-Fi Soundcard

                Intel Gigabit Network card

                3Ware 9650SE-2LP 2 Port Raid Card

                Mirrored Seagate 1Tb HDDs (On-computer storage)

                Dual 22" Wide LCD Monitors

                Logitech G19 and G5 Keyboard and Mouse

                Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

                Coolermaster Case

                Datacolor Spyder 3 Elite for calibration

                Sandisk Firewire CF Card reader

                 

                Off-computer storage - Netgear ReadyNAS 2100 w/ 4Tb of disk space. With it remotely backing up data from my computer each night and storing it on the NAS.

                 

                My system rates, according to Microsoft, 7.5 out of 7.9 where my processor is the slowest part of the computer.

                 

                So far I haven't got my computer to use over 5Gb of ram usage with LR open, Winamp and many other apps.

                • 5. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
                  grandpahenry Community Member

                  Greetings Wizard, thank you for your reply.

                   

                  My new system is being custom built as we speak and will consist of:

                   

                  1. Supermicro Super Workstation 5036TB with X8SAX motherboard and very quiet power supply

                  2. Intel I7 990 Extreme Processor 6 cores 3.46/3.76 turbo

                  3. 12 GB DDR3 1333 Memory

                  4. 2 DVD/CD 24X Reader/Writer

                  5. Windows 7 64 bit, SP1, XP Mode Preinstalled

                  6. 2 OCZ Sata 2 SSD Drives, 120GB for System Drive, 240GB for working drive for working on photo, video, and audio restoration projects

                  7. ATI Firepro 3D v5800 1GB Memory, 2 Display Port and 1 DVD supporting up to 2600 X 1600 resolution

                  8. M Audio Delta 66 Professional Sound Card 24 Bit, 96HZ

                  9. 2 22" Viewsonic Widescreen LCD Calibrated Monitors, Moving to NEC 27" or Dell Ultra Sharp Wide Gamut Later

                  10. 2 USB Seagate 1.5TB offline Storage Devices

                   

                  What do you think?

                  Henry

                   

                   

                   

                  I should have it next week

                  • 6. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
                    wizard155 Community Member

                    Nice setup!

                     

                    I heavily use Supermicro motherboards in servers which I get custom built so I can highly recommend them for being rock solid and won't fail you. I believe the big companies like HP and Dell etc are now looking at using Supermicro in their servers and other high end gear.

                     

                    The processor is unreal, very fast and expensive

                     

                    12Gb is a fairly decent amount of ram and I don't think you'll exceed its size anytime soon. Personally I'm looking into splitting my 24gb down the middle and using half of it as a ramdisk for high speed operations. Look into ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver - http://www.ltr-data.se

                     

                    I've currently got the device driver installed and have tinkered with it a little but not enough to full utilise it just yet.

                     

                    Don't know why you would need 2 DVD drives as I rarely see much use of them these days except for ripping CDs or burning the occasional disc.

                     

                    Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate is the way. I found that Ultimate is overkill unless you use multiple languages and wish to switch between flawlessly.

                     

                    I don't think you'll get much use out of XP once you have fully transitioned into Windows 7. Expect about a week or so of just tweaking the crap out of Windows until you get it just how you want it. Going from XP to 7 can be a large leap but its worth it. Familiarise yourself with how the libraries work (just a better version of My Documents etc) and how you can move them to different disks etc. Gadgets are handy to use for temperature and disk monitoring etc. I highly recommend Dumeter for network monitoring/internet usage via your computer. Avoid the use of any desktop search engines as they are inherently bad for performance and I've heard nasty stories about your information being searchable for the rest of the world. Want an example if you think thats a load of crap? Look at http://it.slashdot.org/story/06/09/21/1819242/Googling-for-ATM-Master-Passwords

                     

                    I personally like my information to be exactly where I know where it is and if you have a good filing system (and memory) you should be able to know where everything is. If you don't, get your **** in order!

                     

                    OCZ make some fantastic SSD drives are considered some of the fastest drives currently on the market. Very interested in the new Intel drives which are due out soonish. Up and over 600Gb for SSD apparently!

                     

                    ATI Firepro is a serious bit of kit and I'm quite envious of the DisplayPorts! DP is the way forward for both Audio and Video. I've always considered HDMI a poor mans hack and DP is certainly the much bigger mature brother to HDMI. I can only hope that Home Theatre kicks HDMI to curb and picks up DP as the standard considering that DP has much bigger bandwidth, faster and royalty free.

                     

                    Is this machine doing Video and Stills because thats a nice soundcard you get there and will be quite impressive to hear if rigged up to a decent set of Amps and speakers.

                     

                    Highly recommend going for NECs over Dell. From memory Eizo uses NEC panels to produce their monitors and it would advantageous to go the same direction. If I ever won lotto I would seriously want a Dolby PRM-4200 Professional Reference Monitor or two but at their current pricing, it's way out of reach!

                     

                    Seagate is an excellent brand for USB storage. I've found from experience that Seagate out shines the traditional brands; Maxtor, Western Digital etc.

                     

                    Overall this is one kickarse computer setup and anyone would be privileged to own such a machine. A big thumbs up and I can certainly say that it'll well outperform my beast setup.

                     

                    Judging by its configuration this machine is geared up for not just LR but probably Photoshop and Premiere or other such programs and if thats the case, then you'll find it an absolute pleasure to use and will wonder why you didn't upgrade sooner

                     

                    Whilst you are at it, I highly recommend getting yourself a APC Backup UPS to protect your asset.

                    Have a look at - https://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=BR1200GI

                     

                    This little UPS will do 1200VA or 720W and will filter your power before it gets to your new PC and monitors. Not to mention that APC backs up their products with some serious dollars if something should happen to your hardware due to a power fault. Have a look at the product overview and how much this unit does.

                     

                    I use a heavy duty power board and this UPS to heavily defend against any power failure, spikes, lightning strikes etc. Not to mention that clean power to the computer will also extend the life of your hardware and will alleviate any other potential problems which may be caused by odd random events which can't be accounted for.

                     

                    Anyone reading this should take heed to using some decent UPSes if they are serious about their computers/photography etc. Power can be a factor which is never thought of because you always assume that the power being delivered to your PC or Mac is clean. Power fluctuations can do the most random things and can never tracked down until you filter the power correctly and eliminate that as a cause. There is an awesome article how some computer scientists screwed with the power of a computer to be able to hack a supposed unhackable SSL encryption key. Really fascinating stuff.

                    Curious? Have a look at - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/04/severe_openssl_vulnerability/

                     

                    When selecting a UPS I suggest you have an idea how much power you will require. You will see UPSes which will state a VA rating and that's all nice and well but it doesn't give you an effective real world value. You want to be working in Watts and you need to know how much your PC or Mac pulls and your other devices like monitors etc. Most decent UPS companies will state VA and Watt ratings for each model. Having an overloaded UPS is just as bad as having no UPS. For anyone on this forum I highly recommend a 1000VA or higher UPS as anything below that just won't cut the mustard.

                    I come to this conclusion by several factors.

                     

                    1. Most photography computer setups have some serious power draw

                    2. You have 2 monitors or more typically

                    3. You want some decent battery time if the power does fail so you can shut everything down.

                    4. More is better when it comes to UPSes

                    5. Bigger UPSes usually have more features and more power filtering involved and that's better for you.

                     

                    When selecting a UPS make sure you use a reputable brand. APC and Liebert are excellent brands for example.

                     

                    Don't believe most IT stores. They have no clue about UPSes and will push a cheap and nasty brand rather than assessing your needs. Work out a rough estimate of how much Wattage you are pulling. Read up on UPS brands and each model you are interested in. Make a informed choice prior to picking up that phone. Once you have made your choice, ring around and see if someone can get what you want or can it be ordered in. Then go into the store, pick it up and head home. Job done.

                     

                    Most UPS companies have excellent information on how to determine which UPS is best for you.

                     

                    Last thing. For the love of everything you hold dear, please don't plug a kettle or vacuum cleaner into it. Best way to nuke it and yes, I've personally seen it done before.

                    • 7. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
                      grandpahenry Community Member

                      Wizard,

                       

                      Thanks for the comments,

                       

                      I don't think I will need a ramdisk, as I will be using SSDs for my work areas.  Correct me If I am wrong on this.

                       

                      In terms of DVD drives, I am part of an old time radio research group and we often distribute disks full of shows on CD/DVD so I need to be able to copy.  Beside, I live having a backup.

                       

                      In terms of files I am used to managing my own file structures and don't see the need for this indexing system since it does not support my most prevalent files, MP3, at least according to the book Windows 7 Inside Out.

                       

                      I am going to try and see just how much like XP I can make my human interface with the system.

                       

                      I do video capture and rendering, photo processing using LR and CS5, and audio restoration that often involves complex waveform analysis, hence the need for power.

                       

                      I am definitely going to wide gamut in the fall but the NECs seem very expensive, although the Ezios are even more.  I will just hope for some moderation in prices by the fall.

                       

                      ON ANOTHER TOPIC, I will need a replacement for my calibration since the software it uses is not compatible with Windows 7 64 bit.  I have heard that spectrophotometers are better for wide gamut but I need something that will support my current mid priced LCD monitors as well as wide gamut monitors.  Do you have any recommendations?  

                       

                      I would welcome anyone reading this to chime in,

                       

                      Henry

                      • 8. Re: Moving Lightroom 3.3 To Windows 7 64 Bit New Computer
                        wizard155 Community Member

                        Hello again!

                         

                        More than happy to help

                         

                        The ramdisk is just another performance thing more than anything else. For you line of work you would be better off having the ram available but in my case I'm barely using mine so I was looking at other avenues to push the envelope.

                         

                        If you are doing straight disc to disc copy then dual dvd drives are handy but if you doing multiple copies at a time, you are better off imaging the disc to the computer and then using both drives to burn simultaneously so you output twice as fast. So instead of N disks being produced with a straight copy to copy you will end up with 2N - 1 discs in the same time.

                         

                        What you can do to get that little bit more performance out of your computer.You can do these simple tweaks which I've done for mine and many other systems.

                        - Click on Start -> Computer -> Right click on Local Disk (C) -> Properties. Untick the box next to "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties". Press apply and if any prompts come up, choose ignore all and let it run. You can perform this on every single local disk.

                        - Never use Disk Cleanup. Evil program when it comes to compressing old files. If Microsoft needs to access that file, it needs to decompress it prior to accessing it and that slows things down and badly.

                         

                        I'm not familar with changing the look and feel of Windows but I think there is a classic mode you can change the desktop into to make it look more like Windows XP. I highly recommend embracing Windows 7 as its a far better interface than XP. Just remember in the address bar you can click in it, when navigating for files, and it'll show you the disk path like in XP.

                         

                        Yes, NECs are expensive but are certainly worth it but a well calibrated monitor can sometimes suffice. I personally use Samsung monitors at the moment and I find them excellent but I'm not completely OCD about having dead perfect colour etc. Look into Samsung B2240W 22" Wide LCD Monitors and see whether they'll tie you over until you can some NECs instead.

                         

                        I use the Datacolor Spyder 3 Elite unit with the Spyder Elite v4 software which works great in 64-bit. Just be aware that any 32-bit software will work in 64-bit provided that it doesn't use any 16-bit drivers or libraries. As soon as 16-bit is in play, it's a deal breaker.

                         

                        I've heard that a lot of photographers love the X-Rite Eye-one device and I believe they are spectrophotometers.