Windows 7

[Lashes]

My pc is hardly a model-T, Lol. I've just heard waaay too many horror stories about ppl switching to Vista, and having sooo many problems, they'd be posting questions on the net, asking for help trying to switch it back, so I'm just gonna lay back for awhile, once it's been out for awhile, we'll see what reviews and users say.

I enjoy my pc, and I'm just leary of anything that hasn't been out long enough to prove itself.

Oh I would totally agree with you on this except for in this case. I'm and independent developer so my livelihood lives and dies with my PC so I dont normally screw around with untested things on my work computer. However after running the beta. THE BETA. for several months with a BETTER experience that I was getting from my XP machine, I decided to go with seven on my work laptop when I was doing my move to the RC.

And I'm one of those 'resisted vista tooth and nail' people just because of how poor the performance was.

Win7 is STABLE - Much more stable than vista was upon its release and much more stable than XP is right now. Period. Actually you might think of Win7 as Vista SP 4 (or whatever the next vista SP would be) - Its basically vistaImproved. So its not like its a "fresh" starting point like vista was.

It's kernel is the newer version like the introduced with windows server 2003 - programs can crash all they want and it wont effect the system. Hanging programs are isolated and terminated independently. This feature is not available on xp (maybe xp64 i'm not sure about that one).

Also one thing that vista and seven have over XP is this its ability to make use of your graphics card. The environment, thanks to the 'aero shell' is so much more rich and visually pleasing its not even funny. XP looks gross to me now!

Anyway, the reports say that 7 is a full 20% performance increase over vista. Which means Windows 7 will run a full 20% faster than vista on the same machine.

I'm not even going to get into the nitty gritty of the little features that make seven, seven so you'll just have to find out. But the explorer shell enhancements make managing your files and media amazing.

My girlfriend is a photographer. She insisted that macs were better for photography, until I showed her win7's shell and its ability to manage her pictures on the fly, seeing ALL of the meta data of each picture on the fly, sorting abilities, thumbnail abilities etc.

Its *IS* the superior OS we've been waiting for. There is no reason to wait. If your hardware is at least "vista" compatible then GO FOR IT! I Endorse win7 fully!

 

[suhrim21]

As someone who was part of the beta test program for windows 7 and as a computer repair tech. I can tell you 7 is soo much better than vista. A clean install of vista will use 1.83 gigs of ram. A clean install of 7 will use less than half of that. It runs smoother and there will be a bigger support for drivers in 7. Now with that being said. Microsoft is already working on a new operating system. They havent released when they expect it to be in beta but they have released saying they are working on a new OS.

 

[MickiO]

Oh I would totally agree with you on this except for in this case. I'm and independent developer so my livelihood lives and dies with my PC so I dont normally screw around with untested things on my work computer. However after running the beta. THE BETA. for several months with a BETTER experience that I was getting from my XP machine, I decided to go with seven on my work laptop when I was doing my move to the RC.

And I'm one of those 'resisted vista tooth and nail' people just because of how poor the performance was.

Win7 is STABLE - Much more stable than vista was upon its release and much more stable than XP is right now. Period. Actually you might think of Win7 as Vista SP 4 (or whatever the next vista SP would be) - Its basically vistaImproved. So its not like its a "fresh" starting point like vista was.

It's kernel is the newer version like the introduced with windows server 2003 - programs can crash all they want and it wont effect the system. Hanging programs are isolated and terminated independently. This feature is not available on xp (maybe xp64 i'm not sure about that one).

Also one thing that vista and seven have over XP is this its ability to make use of your graphics card. The environment, thanks to the 'aero shell' is so much more rich and visually pleasing its not even funny. XP looks gross to me now!

Anyway, the reports say that 7 is a full 20% performance increase over vista. Which means Windows 7 will run a full 20% faster than vista on the same machine.

I'm not even going to get into the nitty gritty of the little features that make seven, seven so you'll just have to find out. But the explorer shell enhancements make managing your files and media amazing.

My girlfriend is a photographer. She insisted that macs were better for photography, until I showed her win7's shell and its ability to manage her pictures on the fly, seeing ALL of the meta data of each picture on the fly, sorting abilities, thumbnail abilities etc.

Its *IS* the superior OS we've been waiting for. There is no reason to wait. If your hardware is at least "vista" compatible then GO FOR IT! I Endorse win7 fully!

WOW! Sounds impressive! I especially like the sound of this part QUOTE:"programs can crash all they want and it wont effect the system. Hanging programs are isolated and terminated independently. This feature is not available on xp" However, my pc, as much as I love it, is NOT Vista compatible, I would have to replace too much hardware, so that I might as well buy a new pc. that's why for me for now, it's not broken, and does everything I need it to do.

I am considering buying a game pc one day though, and holding onto to this one for internet stuff, my current graphics card barely runs the new Sims 3 game, infact, according to their websites system check, my pc's graphics card, should not be running the game at all, but it works fine, good enough to play it. Oh I'm sure graphics could be improved with upgrade, but it'd be cheaper and easier just to buy another pc and use it for games. Maybe I just might consider Win7 with a game pc, after talking to you, you may have just pursuaded me to try it some day.

Sure makes it sound promising, and maybe it will be by the time we can afford a game machine, which could be anywhere from this Christmas, to my birthday next July. Lol. My husband is an independent contractor in construction work and it depends on work situation this winter,

Maybe by then, Win7 will have proven to outshine WinXP in my eyes, as for now, I'm just thankful I have a computer with several nice programs on it in case one day, for whatever reason, we have to cut back and not able to afford internet services. So, I'm just thankful for what I have, that it has no problems and always runs smoothly.

 

[smc]

In fact I still miss 3.x

I know XP distributed the 3.1x Program Manager. If I recall correctly it was in the Sytem32 directory. progman.exe or something like it. Being the ... that I was from time to time, I wrote a script which would set this as the default manager rather then explorer. Some friends were quite .......

 

[jedrojam]

Here's my take....

Windows 3.x worked. It opened up the PC to the everyday user.
Windows 95 was touted as the awesomest OS ever. Crashed ALOT.
Windows 98 was a great OS.
Windows ME came out with lots of hype, but no hardware/driver support.
Windows XP to the rescue. A stable workhorse of an OS.
Windows Vista came out with lots of hype, but no hardware/driver support. Rename to Windows ME2 ?
Windows 7.... looking at the pattern above, I've got high hopes.

Seems MS has always had a "flop" OS between its great performers. I've tinkered with Windows 7 and the preliminary results look promising.

My personal preference would be for MS to change the name from 7 to Orange. That way the TV commercials could compare Apples and Oranges, and maybe I wouldn't have to see the ***** "I'm a Mac" commercials anymore. Although I do like the spoofs on YouTube. Especially the ones that have the Linux guy in them.

 

[Slighter]

Running 7 RC1 on a dual boot on 2 hdds with XP. Feels like a smaller footprint. Runs approx 5 dergrees cooler than XP (coretemp). Just seems faster, smoother. 1 problem, Creative X-FI, even with Alchemy my card is not recognized. Other than that I'l buy it when work opens up.

 

[tribalmasters]

No Windows 7 yet but the 3 user licence looks tempting! I am just hoping that my ham radio software I will be needing will work with it! The PC is running Windows XP but its starting to feel dated, Vista always loses its CD drives and USB ports much more than XP and seems to want to burn out the HDD light on every computer I have seen with it on! Vista also needs 2 GB or RAM or it won't work properly and thats before you shove Flight sim or other app into memory!!!! That all seems to mean that I need to get Windows 7!!

 

[Snarkyone]

I have been using Windows 7 for months now. I installed the RTM version a while back and love it.

 

[ApOsTle51]

installed windows 7 yesterday . Tried to just upgrade from vista 64 but it didn't like it . PS3 couldnt find my PC , file sharing was playing up lots og glitchy things going on So reinstalled with a clean install and so far all seems fine.

 

[frogbmth]

I've been running the release candidate for a few months, not got round to installing the retail version yet but it is just awesome. Running on 4ghz quad core with a solid state hard drive and my 3D monitor it chews through everything I throw at it like lightning. 3D gaming, HD video editing and bluray authoring, everything I do is far superior on Windows 7 than any other windows release. Big thumbs up from me.

 

[tribalmasters]

Me too Frog although I keep ending up in the RC and not XP because I didn't bother to change the start up menu hehehe! I like it!! I don't like that the soundblaster doesn't work tho but I am sure that got fixed by now

 

[Duckies]

Lashes,

I am running a 32bit P4. I have heard that Windows 7 really bogs down on the Pentium and you really need a dual core to run it effectively.

Do you have an opinion on that from your testing? My laptop is running Vista and I hate it. Crashes all the time - BSoD. Should I upgrade or wipe it and use XP until I can upgrade the hardware?

Thanks for any input.

 

[jj2]

XP: Built to last? Maybe... on your current, out-dated hardware

Hate to differ but I don't think so. There's two computer in this house and one runs on XP and the other has Vista. Yes, Vista has it's pluses but I'll take XP anytime. In fact the computer XP is on was put on a built from scratch to my spefications about a year ago and it blows the one with Vista away.
In this case, it is the cadallac.

 

[tony206]

To be honest I am not at all impressed with 7. Its trying to be like a mac but doesn't quite get there. The apple OS is so intuitive and that is what MS products really lack IMO.

Tony.

 

[SlimXero]

Looking forward to trying Win7, but I agree with Thor that Vista was not nearly as bad as people made it out to be.

Cracked me up today, passed the dept. manager's workstation at work today (Wal-Mart) and saw they upgraded to Windows Server Enterprise 2008. Using 2003 before if i'm not mistaken.

 

[Snarkyone]

There are plenty of places out there to get it at ummmm let's say drastically reduced prices, kind of like the 'it fell off a truck' deal if you know what I mean...

 

[LoBo]

I have been running win 7 since may i think...great os, I can beat the crap out of it (downloading, uploading pics, playing music, and three or four tabs in chrome open)and it keeps running and running very stable, and this is just the RC. this is what vista should have been. not once have I seen the blue screen of death.

vista on the other hand was B.S. the final straw with vista was when it no longer detected that it had a headphone jack and yes I keep all of my drivers up to date

 

[Doubledot]

Windows 7 will runon a PIII 600 machine. More than whatI can say for Vista.

My take with this OS is:

Win 98 wa a good OS.
Win Me was a bridge/patch for looks before XP
Win XP was the new standard for Plug and Play with stability.
Vista another bridge/patch for looks before Win 7
Win 7 sets a new standard to the old OS. Faster and STABLE.

Had problems with Vista on my Brand New then Dell XPS M1330. Many have reported "Blue Screens of Death" with this unit. Of course, I found out after I have made my purchase. Crashed so many times and finally run Win 7 since initial beta release. No complaints from here. Runs faster than Vista. IE8 sucks!!! but better security.

P.S.

Just as I hit the enter button for this post, I had to refresh the page and log on again!!! GRRRR... Happened so many times... Having to re-type again.

 

[tribalmasters]

My noisy little cube computer would die under the strain of Vista but Windows 7 runs real smooth or at least the RC does but I can only use it for a few minutes now since its the oooold RC which has a time limit!

I built the computer out of a dual core 2.5GHz and nice cheap Geforce 8600 but only 2GB of RAM, all the wires are straight wire carefully cable tied so they only bend 90 degrees for neatness! Its the perfect candidate to receive a fresh copy of Windows 7(and a quieter powesupply when I get round to it hehe) ! Windows 7 RC even worked well on an old IBM Thinkpad Pentium 3!!!!!!

We should all be able to enjoy our computers again even without buying a new one or a Mac!

 

[Lashes]

Lashes,

I am running a 32bit P4. I have heard that Windows 7 really bogs down on the Pentium and you really need a dual core to run it effectively.

Do you have an opinion on that from your testing? My laptop is running Vista and I hate it. Crashes all the time - BSoD. Should I upgrade or wipe it and use XP until I can upgrade the hardware?

Thanks for any input.

I guess it really comes down to how much ram you have and what video card you have. My buddy has a nvidea GeForce 6 series (nothing special but win7 capable), with 2 gb ram on a P4 machine and windows 7 is running pretty good for him. I'll have to ask him what experience score windows is giving him, but yeah if you have at least 2gb of ram and a decent video card win7 should run fine.

My work lapop has a 1ghz amd mobile sempron chip (single core) and 2gb of ram with an ATI xpress 200 mobile video chipset (which isnt that good) I have a 3.0 only on my rating but it still runs great. I'm not complaining at all. Honestly, I feel it runs win7 better at 2gb ram than it ran xp with 1gb. (I upgraded the ram when I installed 7)