Which Win OS should I choose for my new PC

[Rotech]

Guys

A friend of mine is building a small foot print PC for me and it that time to deside what OS am I going to use. My old pc uses Win2003. Would like to know what is your experience with your operating system and how was it working with your HS3 setup.

Option given to me are: Win7,win8.1 or win10.

What do you think?

[rmasonjr]

I'm running Linux now, but Win7 works fine. Not sure about 8.1 or 10.

[randy]

Guys

A friend of mine is building a small foot print PC for me and it that time to deside what OS am I going to use. My old pc uses Win2003. Would like to know what is your experience with your operating system and how was it working with your HS3 setup.

Option given to me are: Win7,win8.1 or win10.

What do you think?

Honestly, I would go with Windows 7. 7 is very stable and mature. I have my HomeSeer running on a Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9926 VM and it is just fine, but I would probably recommend waiting for the RTM version. Like Windows 8, Windows 10 is faster booting than Windows 7, unlike Windows 8, Windows 10 behaves more like Windows 7. If you go with Windows 7 now, the upgrade to 10, reported to be available mid-summer, will be free. Windows 10 seems like it is going to be a winner, but until it is an "official" release, I would stick with 7.

[happnatious1]

isn't the upgrade only free for 1 year though? And after that it might be some kind of subscription model?

I'm a Microsoft guy but they are starting to loose me on all this cloud stuff.

I own a security company and from what I see the cloud is raining data. (I'm sure the NSA would agree because they are singing in the rain...just singing in the rain...what a glorious feeling...)

[Rotech]

I forgot to mention, I use VR a lot in my setup. I have open air mic installed in my F. Room, works great. Any mention about issues with VR in any of the OS ver.?

[randy]

isn't the upgrade only free for 1 year though? And after that it might be some kind of subscription model?

I'm a Microsoft guy but they are starting to loose me on all this cloud stuff.

I own a security company and from what I see the cloud is raining data. (I'm sure the NSA would agree because they are singing in the rain...just singing in the rain...what a glorious feeling...)

Microsoft said at the event last month "Great news! We will offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for qualified new or existing Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year!* And even better: once a qualified Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it up to date for the supported lifetime of the device" No subscription model, though they are possibly going to move Office 365 to strictly a subscription model and discontinue the Office applications on disc.The upgrade will not be free for Enterprise users, but will be for Home and Professional users. Thee is no word yet on WMC support.

As far as the cloud, even with Windows 10 you are still allowed to create a login without a Microsoft ID, though even with using a Microsoft ID, you do not need to enable cloud features.

[randy]

I forgot to mention, I use VR a lot in my setup. I have open air mic installed in my F. Room, works great. Any mention about issues with VR in any of the OS ver.?

I don't imagine there would be problems if you have it working on Server 2003. I do not use the feature, so I cannot confirm for certain.

[Pete]

Here testing Windows 7 64 bit, Text to Speech and Voice Recognition.

I am having issues in that Homeseer Speaker dot exe is using the Microsoft 32 bit SAPI on the OS. I initially put a copy of the link for the 32bit Speech applet on the desktop.

The Homeseer speaker dot exe is using said specific 32bit Speech control applet.

It works fine with Neospeech 32 bit voices (well those offered by Homeseer a few years ago).

This issue that has cropped up is that I get Microsoft errors when enabling voice recognition in the 32 bit SAPI speech control applet. This error is apparent when enabling the Homeseer 3 speaker dot exe voice recognition functions.

I saw similiar when modding Windows 2011 WHS to utilize speech as SAPI is not included in the Windows 2011 OS.

Noticed that the Windows 7 64 bit license is the same as the Windows 7 32 bit license. Purchase allows use of one or the other.

Options here are then to utilize Homeseer 3 as installed on the Windows 7 64 bit build and

1 - use a satellite computer to run speaker dot exe 32 bit mode for TTS and VR or
2 - change over to using Windows 7 32 bit build for optimal use of both TTS and VR.

Testing Windows 7 32 build / Homeseer 3 Pro build and TTS / VR in the next few days.

Concurrently here also built an Ubuntu 14.04 64bit build for running Homeseer 3 pro in Linux. Here initially added Linux Wine 32/64 bit, Wine SAPI and Neospeech TTS voices. It is a kludge and I threw the kitchen sink to get it to run. Another piece is that you have to tell Wine / Windows application manually to run in 32 bit or 64 bit mode.

Instead now currently running Homeseer 3 SAPI / Speaker dot exe on a tabletop touchscreen running embedded Windows next to audio zoned (Russound) distribution amps and it works fine.

[Rotech]

VR win7 64 hit

Anyone using VR in win7 64 bit?

[UltimateInternet]

I use vr in 8.1 x64 with no issues. TTS is also on about 6 devices in my network, 1 being the new build 100xx of windows 10, others on 8.1 x64.

I recommend going with 8.1 x64 and then jumping to 10 as the 8.1 features and performance gains will way better prepare you for the free win10 upgrade in the future.

get a dummy box up with 8.1 x64 and give it a whirl, I bet you will be impressed. and if you just want to "test" it out for a while, use a KMS key (google KMS key) -- it will let you install 8.1 but then lightly nag you for a real key. (enterprise won't nag, pro will )

just 2cents

[Pete]

Having written the above; can I dual boot Windows 7 32bit and to test Windows 8.1 64 bit.

Here I have not had issues running any Homeseer TTS/VR stuff with Windows 7 32bit or Windows 8.1 32 bit (on my Jogglers with an Intel Atom PC / 512Mb of RAM).

Currently purchased a Windows 7 license which works in either 32/64 bit just fine.

I would prefer to purchase a Windows 8.1 license which also works in either 32/64 bit.

Can I today purchase the Windows 8.1 "lite" running on the Baytrail quad core Atom CPU running on the Pipo X7?

[langenet]

Yeah so I'm running Win2k3 as my server and it works fine. I need a server since I also run DNS to support my domain. I've played with 2008 server some but am wondering which is the next best OS for me which supports DNS and isn't overly heavy weighted.

Do you have any suggestions?

Rob

[Pete]

Well Microsoft a la carted Windows Server 2008.

The cheap $50 2008 64 bit server version was so featureless (stock mode) that it wasn't worth looking at to utilize with Homeseer 3 (using TTS/VR which isn't really that much more stuff). Notice too that it flopped even giving it away.

2008 server standard would be nice if you could purchase it for $100; but you cannot. You can tweak down Windows 8-10 to make it more server than desktop if you want but its a PITA.

Windows server 2012 standard is nicer. I saw it this morning for $161.99 with a 5CAL license. (windows server 2012 R2 standard googing also show stock price of $699)

Windows server 2012 R2 Essentials is also very nice but priced at $373.99.

Well geez also see Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials "Open Charity" priced at $139.99.

What the heck is Open Charity pricing?

Did also just find an article from "we got served" relating to turning a Windows 8.1 box into a server here. It is referencing a book.

Note that here looking at removing the "technet" pricing as most average users of Homeseer are not subscribers to Tech Net.

On another note; both Windows 8.1/10 and Ubuntu 14.10 are sort of cloud connected OS's.

This is one reason I am looking at Ubuntu 14.10 differently than just using Ubuntu 14.04. That is me and my personal opinion.

[Pete]

Just a note relating to my personal issues of the use of Windows 7 64 bit installation for the use of Homeseer 3 on an Intel Haswell iSeries 3 with 8 Gb of memory. These were the issues and solutions:

1 - USB 3.0 - appears that the MS drivers for USB 3.0 also have something to do with the USB 2.0 drivers. Updating the primary build "disconnected" the USB 2.0 ports. When I updated the drivers for the USB 3.0 ports the USB 2.0 ports came back to life. (mostly just googled the issues as they are very prevalent with Windows 64 bit)

2 - Intially installation of Homeseer 3 was in the root directory of the box. Everything (Homeseer 3 wise) worked fine except for VR.

3 - Installation of Homeseer 3 in the C:\Program Files (X86)\Homeseer 3 directory solved that issue of Homeseer 3 speaker dot exe VR.

Personally my opinion relates to what the user is most familiar with. I still do think that Homeseer 3 runs faster in Ubuntu 64 bit than Windows 64 bit. That said also playing with a lite Windows 8.1 computer running 32 bit Windows 8.1 and another one running embedded Windows 7 (4Gb) on an older Atom based N270 PC. Both work well. I utilize a Leviton HAI OmniPro II. Today I have a micro router inside of the OPII panel doing all sorts of stuff. I can fit a mini PC running on a Baytrail quad core inside of the panel with the Microrouter today (it will be a tight fit though).

[Rotech]

Ok, so I got my new PC up and running, the size is perfect. And energy efficient.
But I stumbled on a issue. I installed new fresh copy HS3 to the box and renamed it HS3old. Then I copied from my old PC the HS3 folder (which is the one that is controlling my home)and installed it to my new PC.

Powered up and started HS, all looked fine like in my previous PC, I can see all my plugins except the zwave plug in. I tried downloading it from updater but still does not show. Any advice? I am running Win7