Windows 7, would you switch?

[Ending]

You can turn off UAC in Vista if you want.

Then what's the problem? The mere existence of UAC?

[Zetsubo]

There is a quote that I learnt many years ago in school.

Those who do not understand UNIX are doomed to reinvent it poorly.

Slowy but surely, Microsoft Windows is becomming more *NIX like in every respect.

If people have used UNIX, Linux or MAC OSX they will notice that even the file structure of Vista upwards is becomming more structured as it would be on a *NIX system.

This UNIXIFICATION OF WINDOWS.... this trend will serve to improve protection for the users and their overall experience will become better.

However MS still implements some UNIX features poorly and that is where the reinventing it poorly aspect comes into play... but I digress.

Given the poor descisions MS made in the past especially about executable permissions and such... to fill that gap...

UAC is a blessing.

People ... get use to it.

[GHDpro]

As has been said before... UAC in Windows 7 isn't quite as annoying as in Vista. I had UAC turned of in Vista because I couldn't get cron jobs in cygwin to work otherwise(talk about unixfication! my Vista command line on that machine is "bash" ). On Windows 7 I pretty much only get it when I install something - which after initial OS installation doesn't occur very often.

I've been running Windows 7 (final) on my netbook (Medion Akoya; similar to MSI Wind) for a few days now and I had no major issues except two - first, while the box says you can run with 1 GB it runs a lot smoother with 2 GB. With just 1 GB RAM it's doable, but it'll tax the HDD more which isn't a good thing with an already slow notebook drive. For 64-bit you probably have to double that amount (4 GB; again double as on the box) for smooth operation. Fortunately I had already upgraded my desktop to 4 GB a few months ago.

Second, I've had huge issues trying to connect using WLAN. It took me dozens of tries before I could connect. At one point I even had it "half connected" - the icon and status in the connection list was "bad" (red cross) but internet was working (?!?). Anyway, I just installed the WLAN drivers from the Medion website which hopefully work better than the Microsoft supplied ones (date on MS drivers is Feb 2009, Medion drivers are from Aug 2009).

[bhl88]

http://www.japanator.com/windows-7-s...me-11877.phtml (Made me want to switch to Windows 7 immediately XD: though I believe this old news already [someone may have slipped in here])

Though I also had to research the features of Windows 7: touch screen, cut down loading times, etc. (so I wanted to switch to this [well I got this news first before that Japanese-moe style release])

[Lonestar9]

I upgraded to Windows 7 last weekend. Yes, upgraded, didn't feel like re-installing all my software. So far, so good, it installed with no problems, and has run really good. Some things are a bit quicker than Vista. The UAC is not as bad, I've got it turned off as it gets on my nerves, but I tinker a lot with the OS, it's a good idea to leave it on to some degree. I mentioned elsewhere that I can now play .MKV videos thru the XBox 360, and it plays them natively via Windows media player(with subtitles!). Overall I'm pleased so far, it's a shame this didn't come out instead of Vista, would have been better.

[sa547]

Previously I'd like to try out Vista SP1 but it's so much of a resource glutton -- and too many security roadblocks -- that it prevented me from installing it.

Now that there are a lot of good commentaries about Win7, and the fact that it can load nProtect Gameguard-wrapped Korean MMOGs with a little fix to those games, I'm considering Win7 Ultimate for my next purchase.

[chikorita157]

Have been using Windows 7 for almost a week now and the games are a bit more stable than in Vista Service Pack 2. The only compatibility problem is Macdrive 7, which does not work with Windows 7 and I ended up upgrading it to Macdrive 8 so I can read/write my HFS+ Partitions and drives.

I have also tried Windows 7 in VMWare Fusion 3, which VMWare released this week and Aero and everything runs fine and runs faster than XP, mainly because XP over time decay in performance for some odd reason... maybe because it was running in Administrator mode as default... but what I did notice is besides from the boot times, Windows 7 takes longer to log me in opposed to Vista or even Mac OS X... It might be because of the in place upgrade... but who knows. The week I have been using it, it only froze once... while playing a game, haven't experienced any BSODs yet...

The WEI index on the computer is 5.5, no change from Vista since it had the same score.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by chikorita157

I have also tried Windows 7 in VMWare Fusion 3, which VMWare released this week and Aero and everything runs fine and runs faster than XP, mainly because XP over time decay in performance for some odd reason...

How much RAM are you giving to the VM? For Windows XP I gave it 768 MB and it ran nicely; for 7 I increased it to 1024 MB, but it's sluggish at times. It probably doesn't help that my hard drive is the stock 5400 RPM one.

I have 4 GB here; I was waiting for 8 GB RAM kit prices to drop further before putting the VM to 2 GB, but I can probably do that and not have huge issues... any thoughts?

[chikorita157]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

How much RAM are you giving to the VM? For Windows XP I gave it 768 MB and it ran nicely; for 7 I increased it to 1024 MB, but it's sluggish at times. It probably doesn't help that my hard drive is the stock 5400 RPM one.

I have 4 GB here; I was waiting for 8 GB RAM kit prices to drop further before putting the VM to 2 GB, but I can probably do that and not have huge issues... any thoughts?

I gave it 1 GB of RAM and this is on my Late 2006 model Macbook Pro that have 3 GB of RAM. I set the processor to use two cores so it would run faster, although Aero have some glitches, because of the crappy ATi drivers that is used for my Radeon Moblity X1600.

Maybe it's faster since I have a 320 GB Hitachi 7200 RPM HD installed.

[Ledgem]

The HD probably makes a huge difference. Snow Leopard seems more willing to page out than Leopard was, so I'm taking a speed hit on account of my hard drive there, for sure.

I tried the VM with 2 GB today, and it nearly choked my system. Not sure why, given that I wasn't doing massive multitasking. Maybe Snow Leopard needs some work; maybe VMware Fusion still has some polishing to go through. Setting the VM to 1.5 GB resulted in better system-wide performance, although I'm not sure that the virtual machine fared any better than it did when I just gave it 1 GB.

[chikorita157]

You have to be aware that VMWare Fusion have other processes that adds up... Also, vmware-vmx, the program that is virtualizing the virtual machine actually uses a little more than the memory allocated in the RAM. I looked in the activity monitor and it was using 230 MB more in the vmware-vmx process and currently, it's designed like that so it can't really be reduced unless you adjust your memory allocation.

Spoiler for activity monitor:

[lubczyk]

For those with Windows 7, would you recommend an XP user like myself to upgrade? I've used Vista before and I hated it. I downgraded to XP and have never looked back. My PC is a couple years old now and is super responsive under XP.

[Renegade334]

Hmmm...toughie.

W7 is advertised to be as lightweight as XP but it actually is hungrier than it was originally touted to be. You'd need minimum 1Gb worth of RAM to have it run smoothly and a greater amount of memory (2-4 if you're riding x86) ensures greater performance. W7 is nevertheless superior to Vista in terms of responsiveness thanks to its lower and smarter memory consumption. In other words, W7 is somewhere between XP and Vista, but user experience should be much higher than the latter's since MS simplified a lot of things to make its newest Windows iteration a slicker OS. If your PC could run Vista without too many problems (I'm not talking about user experience that is influenced by misunderstood and overblown things such as UAC distaste), W7 should've even less problems settling in.


If you expect your computer to last two more years or so, then I guess you can keep the XP until you get to buy a new machine. However, if its remaining lifespan is, by your estimations, superior (hypothetical hardware upgrades accounted for) to that, you might want to consider W7 so as to get an OS that is in tune with the latest technology, including drivers, security, architecture etc. Overall, we'd advise you to keep XP until you buy a new, higher-spec machine...where it'd be a good idea to pick W7. However, if it can keep rolling for a bit more, why not try W7 already?

If you wish to save some money, go for the Home Premium but if you want more, such as the XP mode (an XP virtual machine that requires a valid license before install), you'd have to root for the Professional edition and up. If you have lots of bucks, you can even go all the way up to Ultimate.

If you have a buddy who's willing to let you borrow his W7 CD, you could try installing it on your machine (don't insert the serial, you'll then get the standard 30-day trial countdown)...though I seriously suggest you back up the System partition using Norton Ghost, Acronis, etc, in case you wish to go back to XP and don't want to go through the hassle of reinstalling the entire software landscape.

[chikorita157]

There is a few differences from Vista and 7, but although Windows XP is more lightweight (a full installation takes only 1.5 GB of space), you are left out in the dust for DirectX 10+ since it only works on Vista or higher since it requires the new display driver model which isn't available on XP. Another thing is that XP doesn't have is better multicore support. With Windows Vista and 7, they will have better support for multicore support, although there isn't much difference...

Note that Windows XP is only supported up until 2014, so you may be out of luck once that time comes. Another thing is that XP Mode does not support 3D games since it's based on Virtual PC, which never had any support for 3D graphics, unlike VMWare and Parallels.

[Kurz]

Honestly I find myself Loving Windows 7 more everyday.
The only issue I find is finding the functions I want in the GUI.
Which is just a lack of Familiarity with it.

What I find with Windows 7 is the greater Multitasking ability.
IE I can do several things at once without major slow down.
Though you should have a Dual core before even considering Windows 7.

Codecs with CCCP work like a carm (Before the CCCP update there were Issues, but it was fixed).

Only thing really is Starcraft hates Win 7.
You have to close the Explorer Process for it not to give weird colors.
Though I heard Blizzard needs to give an update for Win 7.

PLUS OMG I Can see all my ANIME WALLS!
The OS goes through all the Pictures in a folder you Designate, Tada every 10 mins (You can change this) new wallpaper.

[Miyuki-ism]

Originally Posted by chikorita157

Note that Windows XP is only supported up until 2014, so you may be out of luck once that time comes. Another thing is that XP Mode does not support 3D games since it's based on Virtual PC, which never had any support for 3D graphics, unlike VMWare and Parallels.

So I can keep XP until the time of MGS4? Cool. XD

[Rokujou]

Windows 7 is more versatile than Vista. Ubuntu is not bad as well.
I guess in the end it all depends on personal preference and budget.

Currently I am using Windows 7 and Ubuntu at the same time.

[SaintessHeart]

What Win7 actually needs is another Nanami Madobe pack, a version 2. We can also introduce an imouto for her called Nanako in an exclusive "Okaeri!" (home) edition which has build in default drivers to run your cooking or make an ofuro for you.

Microsoft needs to capitalise on future technology before it can make more people buy Windows 7.

[AnimeFan188]

If Windows 7 Installation Instructions Were Honest

See:

http://www.cracked.com/funny-2098-windows-7/

[chikorita157]

I have installed Windows 7 on the Dell Inspiron 6000 and it is a bit slower than Windows XP when I try to boot, but once it was up, it ran fine. The only problem is that it took 50% of the disk space compared to XP since it was a bigger OS.. and Aero worked as well and it got a WEI rating of 2.0, sadly because of the Radeon Mobility X300SE graphics (which also takes 32MB of RAM).