Windows 7

[carlos-1975]

now i recently sold my mac (big mistake) and reverted back to windows i currently have windows vista and am looking into windows 7 at the moment has anybody upgraded and is it better cos vista is a nighmare keeps stopping and not responding ggggrrrr

[Nutter_John]

100 times better than Vista , I have done all my systems now to 7 and had no issues at all

[ANTHONY]

i have herd that its best to do a full install and not an upgrade from vista

[carlos-1975]

thats what i want to hear if i buy one copy can i use it on 3/4 systems with the same key

[Nutter_John]

no you need one license per PC , I bought a family license that gives you 3 licenses for £129

[carlos-1975]

full install sounds difficult especially as i am an all the gear no idea kinda guy

[elnevio]

Windows 7 is rather nice, I will admit!

IIRC, it has a smaller footprint and takes up less resources than Vista, too.

[Nutter_John]

Windows 7 is rather nice, I will admit!

IIRC, it has a smaller footprint and takes up less resources than Vista, too.

Yeah it sure does , runs faster on the same hardware than Vista

[Rambaud]

Just installed Windows 7 on my macbook - I had been trialing the RC version for a few months.

Seems less resource hungry than Vista.

[Confused]

If you've got Vista, Windows 7 is not a worthwhile upgrade, in my opinion.

Microsoft could have released Me after Vista, and everyone would be lapping it up, due to the percieved "terribleness" of Vista.

The biggest "issue" with Vista is that it took a few months for hardware manufacturers to buck their ideas up and get out working drivers.

For a new build - sure, purchase Windows 7, but I wouldn't bother with the expense for an existing PC.

[CANDEE]

I have Windows 7 on my desktop at home and it work pretty good. :)

My partner had Vista on her notebook, which has been Upgraded to Win7 via the upgrade function, and am not happy with it... Will def be restarting with a fresh install soon. :)

J

[Rambaud]

Yes, I went for a clean install. Not bothered about re-installing my Windows programs, as there are not that many.

Be careful if you don't have Vista or XP on your system, as the install will probably throw up an "Invalid Product Key" warning.

[Nutter_John]

mine were all new installs , it never asked for my old keys even though it was a upgrade family pack

So i get to keep my 3 xp licemses

I would without doubt recommend the upgrade from Vista to Windows 7

as an example my daughters system came with Vista and ran like a bos despite using all the patches from MS , I upgraded it to XP and ran it like that until 7 was released , once it was I then upgraded to Windows 7 and it runs great

[Johnny_Cashed]

I changed from Vista to 7 on my laptop, and it was a lot better but...

It's still tooooo slow, I much prefer XP 64bit which I've got on my desktop

[Rambaud]

mine were all new installs , it never asked for my old keys even though it was a upgrade family pack

So i get to keep my 3 xp licemses

I would without doubt recommend the upgrade from Vista to Windows 7

as an example my daughters system came with Vista and ran like a bos despite using all the patches from MS , I upgraded it to XP and ran it like that until 7 was released , once it was I then upgraded to Windows 7 and it runs great

NJ - was XP or Vista running on your machine(s) at the time of the Win 7 install?

[Nutter_John]

XP was running on all the systems I put 7 on , complete clean install as I never trust MS to do a proper job on upgrades

[ANTHONY]

XP was running on all the systems I put 7 on , complete clean install as I never trust MS to do a proper job on upgradesi always do a clean install..gets rid of all the crap thats built up over the years

[Rambaud]

XP was running on all the systems I put 7 on , complete clean install as I never trust MS to do a proper job on upgrades

I gather a lot of people have had problems if neither Vista nor XP were already installed, as those keys were not requested during Win 7 instalation.

[Nutter_John]

I gather a lot of people have had problems if neither Vista nor XP were already installed, as those keys were not requested during Win 7 instalation.

with the family pack I bought I never got asked for the old keys at all , I assume it checked the disk before it reformated it to confirm that I did infact have an active OS on there .

[Beastlee]

You don't need the old keys, you just need proof of owning a legit OS if it were to be checked. AS most of us get an OS pre-installed the CD-key sticker on it woul dbe proof of the old OS.

Win7 is great, much less resource hungry and smoother IMO. We are even looking to roll it out with Win2K8 to all of the 48 schools we manage. I find it's no slower than XP and the additional usability it provides makes some of my tasks quicker altogether.

[ANTHONY]

i Work for BT and we'r getting new laptops with ............wait for it



VISTA /wall

[Turbo_Steve]

Windows 7 is significantly better than Vista.

However, if you're going to blat the machine, and you have a spare evening and perhaps want to save yourself £150.....

Why not download and try Ubuntu?

If all you're doing is Web, E-mail, Office it's great!!! It's fast! It's free! It doesn't need any AntiVirus software!

I believe there is also a solution to running iTunes (yuk spit) on it.

GOT to be worth a try?

[bradc]

Remember that the actual release number of windows 7 is 6.1. Vista is 6.0 and XP is 5.1, while win2k is 5.0

7 is basically vista with positive press hype before it's launch and a few minor updates and improvements over vista, in much the same way that xp was just the same as win2k, just with a few improvements. Long term everyone dropped win2k and moved to xp fairly quickly, the same thing will happen this time around with 7.

Vista's main problem on release was the sluggy interface, especially considering that manufacturers put the same hardware in their early Vista PC's as the XP PC's they were previously selling with 512mb of 1gb of ram.

Personally I've used Vista since it first came out on a powerful pc with fast hard drives, 4gb ram and a discrete graphics card and it has always been fine. I'm not running 7 at all at home at the moment but my Vista load is a bit unhappy after being moved through 3 different motherboards now, and I will be changing to 7. Not because I see 7 as a large improvement, but mainly because I won't have to reload it for at least 3 years!

[Turbo_Steve]

Brad, 7 is miles faster.


XP is more than a facelifted Win2k.....DEP, DirectX, and support for masses more hardware? Plus stuff like UPnP? Wider memory addressing? Faster Kernel? IPv6 support? It's a HUGE step forward!


Vista is another quantum leap in architecture terms. And it's not just the user interface that's sluggish, it's the memory handling routines, and the background housekeeping: Vista is just slow slow slow, and it's mainly down to UAE.

We've got Vista and Win7 running on some very fast PCs at work, and the difference is MARKED. VERY Marked!
The Vista ones tend to just stop for no reason. They just don't flow.
Win7 is a LOT more responsive.

[Nutter_John]

Brad , any PC is fast if you throw enough hardware at it like you have , the point is that it should be able to run all the current programs on a system that is upto 2 years old not just on the bleeding edge

This could not be done with Vista but with 7 it just does the job full stop

[wintertidenz]

I installed the Beta and RC when they came out, then went to the full version of Win 7. Previously my PC was running Vista, which was preloaded.
I did notice a marked improvement in response, startup times and my games ran slightly faster (about 5-6 fps) with the same programs loaded in the background and hardware.
Also - for those of us in NZ who have TV tuners, Win 7 brought h.264 support with it, so we can now watch and record hi-def TV through the Windows Media Center :D with Vista I could never record TV as it was unsupported, which was beyond useless.

Hardware is a Core 2 Duo E4700, 4GB DDR2 in single channel mode, and an ATI Radeon HD3650 - so not slow hardware in any respect, but Vista definitely ran slower on it.

[wintertidenz]

Also - you will find that most organisations avoided Win Vista like the plague, but they are going to jump straight from XP to 7.

[bradc]

Steve, in much the same way that 7 is a facelift over Vista :)

I agree 7 is faster than Vista but if you are running anything with a single core and less than 2gb of ram, windows xp is still the best option.

[ANTHONY]

Also - you will find that most organisations avoided Win Vista like the plague, but they are going to jump straight from XP to 7.except the company i work for

[Nutter_John]

They have already started to test Windows 7 in the company you work for , there will be a webtop build before long

[Subaru ETA]

vista blue screened on me 4 times yesterday....and crashed once while reading this thread...my new pc will have 7 on it for sure!!!

[KiwiTT]

Windows 7 x64 Pro is currently being rolled out to our designers.

I use Win7 x32 Pro at work and Win7 x64 Ultimate at home.

[bradc]

Dave, that doesn't mean it is windows, it could well be a random hardware or driver problem. Ohh and remember to ask me for advice when the time comes ;)

[psbarham]

i Work for BT and we'r getting new laptops with ............wait for it



VISTA /wall

be thankful, we only got XP last year /pan

And csc still havn't managed to get it to work properly with all our aplications

[CANDEE]

Looks like we will have to wait till november till we get windows 7 releases as a COE for our work machines...

Why cant it be now when I need to replace the hdd... grrr lol

[g8legnum]

Also - you will find that most organisations avoided Win Vista like the plague, but they are going to jump straight from XP to 7. except the company i work for Ah, I see you're not the only one. Like most of the comments above, 7 is miles better than Vista. MS have taken out the bad bits and made whats left heaps better.
Last September at work, we went to a Managed Service company who took out or lovely, robust and problem free XP network and put in Vista. I had tried to persuade them to leave it until summer this year and jump straight to 7, but I was over-ruled. Needless to say, no-one likes it. Programs keep playing up, its slow and full of security holes. Meanwhile my home PC is running like a dream with 7RC and I'm just about to move to the full copy. 7 Rules!!

[Ryan]

I must say I am really impressed by the built in speech recognition which is a super accessibility option for those who may be impaired or prefer speaking rather than typing.

Initially it was a bit weird as I was suspecting that I'd have to repeat everything 1/2 dozen times but after completing the "how to" video I found it quite easy to master.

[Slam Jay]

Its worth upgrading to 7 solely for the drag-a-window-to-the-side-edge-of-the-screen-and-it-maximises-to-half-the-screen function. So useful.

[bradc]

That is indeed a very cool feature. I've wanted it myself since about 1999!

[orionn2o]

now i recently sold my mac (big mistake) and reverted back to windows i currently have windows vista and am looking into windows 7 at the moment has anybody upgraded and is it better cos vista is a nighmare keeps stopping and not responding ggggrrrr

Ahhh I think you're doomed whatever version of windows you go for !

Personally i'd buy yourself another Mac!

[I-S]

My current laptop had Vista Home Premium 64, and came with a "free" win 7 upgrade, which I put on as a clean install.

Can't say I'm hugely fussed over the difference. I dislike the lack of classic start menu in 7. Vista performed about the same.

Like Garry said, I think it came down to vista getting a bad rep when it was first released because drivers weren't there and many vendors were somewhat ambitious about what machines could sensibly run Vista. They seem much of a muchness to me.

[Turbo_Steve]

To be fair, I don't think x64 Vista is all that bad - the i386 version just seems to stop for no reason. We have both at work, and generally the people on the x64 capable machines are relatively happy with it: those on the old boxes (like me) are stuck with x32, which will just sit and do nothing for no apparent reason.

[swinks]

Recently set up Windows 7 on my pc, and... yes it's noticable better than Vista, but nothing new and shocking in comparison to Linux Ubuntu 10 running on my 2nd pc.

[bradc]

Isaac, the lack of the crappy old style start menu in 7 is the best thing about it. People who use the old style start menu deserve to be hung drawn and quartered!

[Ryan]

Can't say I'm hugely fussed over the difference. I dislike the lack of classic start menu in 7.


Can be found by turning off all the "eye candy". I adjusted my display settings for "best performance" and now I have the conventional start button / task bar again.