Which computer is best for Imatch

[VJBasil]

Hello to all,

I am using this fantastic program now for a couple of years.

At this moment managing approx. 80k+ photo's.
Since 2 years I do this on an ASUS dual screen zenbook with 32 gigs Ram i9 processor etc and 2 screens.

This should be a terrific computer, for the price and the specs, but it gives lots of trouble and Imatch crashes lots of times.

I asked Mario about this and after some research he concluded that the problem lies in the laptop.

Because this photo management with Imatch is important to me, I am considering of buying a new laptop just for this purpose.
I am thinking of a dell xps 17 of 15 with thunderbolt ( I keep everything on external ssd's..) 

Anyone any experience with this?

[Mario]

Since 2 years I do this on an ASUS dual screen zenbook with 32 gigs Ram i9 processor etc and 2 screens.

This sounds like a fairly decently configured computer. IMatch should run just fine on that, with a database having only 80K files. That's on the smaller database side.

I have no memory of our conversation, sorry. I read and answer to maybe 30 to 50 emails every day...

What type of problems are you experiencing? If IMatch crashes lots of times, does it produce a Debug Dump File?

If not, the problem is something external, probably a WIC codec, the graphic card driver or, quite often, the installed virus checker.

Or, an instability under prolonged load, issue. When the crashes happen reproducible while you add new files to your database, this could indicate a stress issue. To rule that out, open Edit menu > Preferences > Application. Go down to Process Control  and set the thread count for "file import", "metadata import" and "face recognition" to 2.
See Process Control (Advanced Setting) for more info.
If this solves the crashes, the problem is indeed a stress issue.

[Tveloso]

I moved from an Asus laptop (with an i7) to a Dell xps 17 (with an i9) relatively recently.

IMatch ran quite well on the Asus, and I moved to a new machine, primarily because of its age, and some issues I was having with other applications (mostly VPN Clients), which research suggested would require a Windows "reset" to cure.  Since I had to go through the pain of essentially a fresh Windows install, I decided to do a hardware upgrade as well.

About a year ago or so, I did also experience some crashes in IMatch (in the Viewer) on the Asus, but it turned out to be due to the Video Driver, and once that issue was solved, IMatch ran well on this old machine.

I'm quite happy with the new Dell, and (although I haven't been able to work with IMatch as frequently since having moved to the Dell), IMatch runs even better there.

I'm using the same external monitor with the new Dell, as I did with the Asus...

[VJBasil]

I did send the reports to Mario when last year these problems appeared.

He found some things directing towards something in the direction of the computer.

I can imagine this because this dual screen laptop from Asus appears to have some strange ways of handling those screens.

I do not feel like trying to solve it with the Asus, thats why I wanted to know about another laptop brand.

I also have a microsoft Surface 4 pro, but that is to slow for Imatch certainly in combination with external SSD's.

This I pity, because off all the windows laptops I have owned ( Acer, Medion, Asus 2x, Toshiba, HP, Gateway, Dell 2x, Lenovo to name a few ) the Microsoft Surface is the only one that is 99,9999% stable, hardly ever crashed and stays fast.

What I read is that Dell is stable. I will never again buy : Asus, Acer, HP...

[Mario]

Tip: If you experience problems while working with external disks, from applications hanging or crashing to Windows becoming unstable, maybe the external drives, cables or the USB connectors are "shady".
I have solved many obscure problems related to external disks by replacing the cable or using as different USB socket.

[VJBasil]

Yes I understand, but these sudden crashes allready appeared before I used external disks, and then: only on the ASUS laptop.

I definitively  suspect ASUS in this regard and I aim for a new laptop that I mainly will use for Imatch work.

Some other problems with this Asus: a program suddenly dissapears while working in it ( happened on several occasions with various programs )

[VJBasil]

Yesterday I bought a refurbished thinkpad p50 with 6th gen i7, 16 gigs of Ram, 256 G ssd, 1x thunderbolt 3

It was equiped from the dealer with windows 11 pro

I installed imatch on it, seemed to work fine so I connected  my ssd with imatch database on it.
It opened correctly, but some things, like locations were missing. I found out how to fix this, but postponed the action.

I started to do some simple editing in the keywords etcetera. Later I connected my ssd back to my Asus but got alarming messages that the database was corrupted beyond repair. It took me some time to fix this, luckily I had a recent backup only 2 days old.

I do not exactly know what would be the correct way to use a imatch database on 2 different systems, maybe I should'nt...

Anyway: this was also the first time I tried windows 11.

I found it instantly a misser: messed up the whole user interface that I am now used to. I have maybe 9 windows 10 systems in my possesion and not the intention to change al those to win 11.

I seemed that win 11 is rather fast, and maybe they improved things under the hood, but within an hour I decided to get rid of it and I installed good old windows 10 pro on this thinkpad.

I just downloaded and installed Imatch on it.

I will keep you informed.

[Mario]

I use Windows 11 on 2 PCs and a tablet. I develop IMatch on Windows 11.

but some things, like locations were missing

IMatch maintains settings on a per-database, per-user and per-computer (per-machine) base.
Things like window sizes, panel positions or other screen resolution dependent settings are stored on a per-machine base.

User-specific settings like locations etc. are linked to the user name. If you switch to another computer, machine-specific settings will not apply.

If you switch to another user name, user-specific settings will not apply. This is how it should be. "Tom" is not the same user as "Mary".
IMatch has you covered in this case, though. Just setup a User Name Alias

I do not exactly know what would be the correct way to use a imatch database on 2 different systems

Very easy. I do that all the time. Just copy your database to the other computer. I do that between 3 computers and about 7 Windows / IMatch test installations in virtual machines.

I started to do some simple editing in the keywords etcetera. Later I connected my ssd back to my Asus but got alarming messages that the database was corrupted beyond repair. 

Hardware problem. Damaging IMatch databases is really, really hard. The database system used by IMatch is also used by companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple and Boing. Because it is so robust.
Databases can get corrupted, but that requires a hard power failure in the wrong moment, the pulling a cable while Windows is still writing data and similar disasters.

Windows 10 is already on the "shut down support list" for Microsoft. I think Windows 11 usage is now world-wide at 35% or so, rising. Microsoft will drop support for Windows 10 in a few years, max.
I don't use Windows 10 anymore in my lab or on any of my computers. I will keep support up for Windows 10 in IMatch as long as it is feasible and cost effective.

But already many of the cool Windows functionalities I would like to use in IMatch are off limits because they don't exist in Windows 10. Keeping up support for Windows 10 will become more and more of a burden, and at some time I will have to give up support for it.

I've spent a lot of time (aka money) on keeping up support for Windows 7, back in the day. I won't hold up support for the old Windows 10 for so long. It's just a waste of time. About 95% of all computers which can run Windows 10 can run Windows 11 - that's just the way it is.

[VJBasil]

Thanks for your reply.

About 95% of all computers which can run Windows 10 can run Windows 11 - that's just the way it is.

It is not that win 11 will not run on these computers; They are both perfect for this and more than powerfull enough.

It is just that I do not like the changes they made to the interface. In fact the Lenovo came with win 11 installed on it and I must say it worked very well where speed is concerned. But as said: the changes to the whole user interface made me decide within 1 hour to de-install it and install win 10 on it.

I guess that I will be forced one day to surrender to win 11, but I will postpone that as long as possible.

When I did an "upgrade" some years ago from win 8 to win 10 on  2 of my  laptops, these laptops became rather useless: Very slow, startup did cost 20 minutes or so. The only solution turned out to be to do a complete fresh install of win 10.
Reinstalling all of my software took me next to a month at the time.

Thanks to the "ingenious" registry system Microsoft uses, it is not a straight forward task to just copy your software on a disk and then run it on whatever windows computer you have ( a concept like "Portable software" tries to make this possible to some extent, but it is never as easy as in the old days of Atari and the early Macintoshes where the software and the OS where in a way independent of the hardware: just stick in a floppy and of you went!)

I dislike the nearly daily messages from Microsoft about updates etc.( same goes for my android devices an my macs....)

When I have a product that works good, I do not want it to be changed. "Never change a winning horse" so to speak.
One of my work PC's is now 12 years old and it still runs ( win10 on SSD ) fantastic for the tasks I use it for ( mostly graphic design with Adobe CS 9 the last versions without subscribtion)

I would be completely freaking out when something like this would be implied to my car: Next day suddenly the brake pedal is in another place and to start the car I first have to do some new and strange combinations and the windows open with other knobs than the day before. ( this is btw among others the reason I do not want an electric car...)

Anyway thanks for your great software and your prompt replies always.

[Damit]

Thanks Mario, for going into the reasons to move to Windows 11.  Like VJBasil, I am dreading it, but it is usually not as bad as it seems, especially when you get used to the changes, and, maybe, start appreciating them.

[Mario]

I don't care much (aka give a sh*t) for Windows details or more or less subtle changes in how it behaves.
I care for the applications I use. I don't spend much time fighting Windows or arguing about it's pro's or con's.

For me, Windows it is pretty much an application launcher.

I have work to do and no time to waste to think about how menus look in Windows or which colors themes are available this month. I've started with Windows 3.x and survived Window 95, NT, 2000, XP, 8, 10 and I'm now using Windows 11. All pretty much the same to me. I work on Linux too and the command line when needed.

[Jingo]

I too don't care what the OS looks like or does... if I don't like how something changed in the OS, I simply find a program that modifies the behavior back to something I do like.... 

I've been using XYPlorer for over a decade as a windows file manager replacement - file manager hardly ever gets launched on my system so if it changes from win 10 to win 11 - doesn't matter to me.  Same with the start menu... 

I've been using Startisback since Windows 10 was installed on my system.... start menu now looks like win 7 again for me.

I've been using FastStone Image Viewer for all quick image viewing as well.. so if the default photo viewer changed, I wouldn't even know!

Bottom line: find some software (freeware/shareware or Paidware) that works for you and your OS changes should just be relegated to the background. 

[Damit]

Yeah, I have done some of the same, but mostly I just try to roll with the changes. 

File explorer is horrible.  I have been using the 64bit version of Free commander but it is lacking.  I think I tried XYPlorer, maybe I should give it another try.

I do wonder, at times, if my tweaking of Windows 10 has caused more problems than they have solvee.

[Jingo]

I think I tried XYPlorer, maybe I should give it another try.

XYPlorer is one of those programs that I just cannot do without... in the past, I also used Directory Opus which is feature rich as well.. but I like supporting single developer products and it has TONS of customization options.  Highly recommended.  Good luck!