windows 7. any1 tryied it???

[PatK]

Download one of the free demo versions and try it yourself. It has most of the annoyances that Vista does, it's just a bit more polished in places. The one thing I have honestly noticed (on newer hardware and software) is that it actually seems to behave a bit more reliably than XP, which sort of suggests that hard/software makers are starting to give Vista/Win7 their priority over XP, and when that happens it's probably a good time to start thinking about switching.

There's a few things I don't like about Windows 7 though - Nvidia's drivers have more functions on XP than they do on Windows 7, I acually switched the new bar behaviour off and put it back to the old quick launch style bar, I prefer the old XP style search even if it's supposed to be better on Win7, it still eats more memory and is slower in places than XP, and UAC is still obnoxious.. But with better support for new hardware I think it's something we'll all be stuck with eventually..

[dangel]

Download one of the free demo versions and try it yourself.

Where from? The RC is no longer available to the public. I suppose this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/e.../cc442495.aspx is the only option now..

There's a few things I don't like about Windows 7 though - Nvidia's drivers have more functions on XP than they do on Windows 7, I acually switched the new bar behaviour off and put it back to the old quick launch style bar, I prefer the old XP style search even if it's supposed to be better on Win7, it still eats more memory and is slower in places than XP, and UAC is still obnoxious.. But with better support for new hardware I think it's something we'll all be stuck with eventually..

People like you hurt my head.

[scaryjim]

I've always found 512MB to be enough for Windows XP (although it depends on what's going on at the timre - when .NET tried to "optimise" itself recently I had time to cook a three course meal while trying to open applications...), but it certainly isn't enough for Vista *or* Windows 7.

I had problems with Vista on 2 laptops, both of which were based on Intel's 965 Express chipset so (having read of other people's good experiences) I'm inclined to think my issues were entirely down to Intel's poor drivers. On the other hand, even when those laptops weren't BSODing they were both kinda slow with 2GB of RAM: 7 on my HTPC (also with 2GB RAM) feels smoother and more responsive. I'd be interested to see how it responds to 1GB RAM - I have an OLD pc at home that I might try it on.

As far as UAC goes it has finer grained control in Windows 7, so you can maintain security but reduce the amount of prompts you receive. I've found it "better" (i.e. less intrusive) in Windows 7.

In this case, however, I'd *definitely* spend the money on a new PC rather than upgrading to Windows 7: new software is *not* going to improve old hardware...

PatK: If you prefer how everything works in Windows XP, why not just keep using Windows XP...

[directhex]

7 is the best windows yet. make of that what you will

it's had a general overhaul of the worst offenders in vista's parade of stupids, such as the better-behaved UAC, and better layout of menu items (e.g. changing the power button's behaviour in the start menu is much better than it used to be).

[mycarsavw]

Dose Win 7 hav a inbilt spell checkor???

[irth1ing]

I wouldn't bother spending money upgrading your OS, I would spend it on upgrading your PC.

lol.. that was my old pc.. and i did spent ££'s on upgrading the pc...

to be fair, that's was a very poor rig to slap vista on but that was what i had at that time, but even now, i still didn't use vista on the very reason that it uses alot of system resource just to run. and i find it extremely annoying because the popup boxes. yes i understand that it is to pevent malicious programs from running, but we have antivirus anti wotnot running in the background for that, i don't need windows to tell me if i'm sure if i wanna take a piss or not!! majority of the viruses runs in the startup. and if windows cannot prevent that, i find it pretty pointless asking me if i want to run a program that i clicked.

if windows 7 is clean, simple and stable and doesn't take 2 gig of ram just to run windows, i might consider it, as i heard tht ms is stopping supports for xp.

[Funkstar]

as i heard tht ms is stopping supports for xp.

And so it should XP is 9 years old!

[irth1ing]

And so it should XP is 9 years old!

true.. but still its a pretty decent os.. no compaints after sp2..

[madman045]

Im using Windows 7 Professional on a day to day basis on my work laptop, certainly more efficient with the memory usage, but then I do have 4GB, also the XP Mode has proved to be very useful and I look forward to it loosing its RC status.

[PatK]

PatK: If you prefer how everything works in Windows XP, why not just keep using Windows XP...

I do.. I dual boot Like I also said.. I've found some of my hardware (I have an i7 system) just seems to behave better under Windows 7 for whatever reason.. less weird glitches. I've been using the Windows 7 beta for about 6 months, so it's something I've concluded over a decent period of time testing it.

Since my hardware is behaving better on Windows 7, and I have some software which can get genuine benefits from 64 bit, I don't mind slowly switching over. Plus, whilst DX9 might not be that bad, games will be forever stuck with it on XP. So, in some ways, it's time to move on.. But there's still some definite advantages XP has, and I can understand people sticking with XP for a long time to come..

[PatK]

Where from? The RC is no longer available to the public. I suppose this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/e.../cc442495.aspx is the only option now..

Yep, that's the one. Enterprise is pretty much identical to Ultimate anyway, and would be enough to allow you to see if it works for you.

[irth1ing]

Where from? The RC is no longer available to the public. I suppose this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/e.../cc442495.aspx is the only option now..

cheers for the link. i definately give it a try. seems alot of you do like windows 7, so i have high hope that it is much better than vista.

by the way, have anyone try gaming on the windows 7??

[PatK]

by the way, have anyone try gaming on the windows 7??

I do all my gaming on Windows 7 64 bit and it works great.. haven't had a single problem here, and it works well with Steam too.

[irth1ing]

I do all my gaming on Windows 7 64 bit and it works great.. haven't had a single problem here, and it works well with Steam too.

cool..
by the way, is it better getting 64 or 32 bit??? before there was'nt many appz that runs specifically for the 64 but now there's plenty.. so is there any advantages over the 32??

[PatK]

cool..
by the way, is it better getting 64 or 32 bit??? before there was'nt many appz that runs specifically for the 64 but now there's plenty.. so is there any advantages over the 32??

Not really. I only run 64 bit because I use some audio applications, and they benefit from having access to more than 3 or 4GB of ram, so that's why I use it. Unless you have some very memory hungry apps there's not much difference from sticking with 32 bit. I've still to run into a 32 bit app that didn't work under Windows 7 64 bit though. Actually, I tell a lie - Netmeeting doesn't work, but I think that's more because Microsoft deliberately removed some components from Windows to kill it off, because they don't want to support it any more. But I can't think of any other apps that haven't just worked without problems, and that's with over 6 months of usage and probably several dozen apps being installed.

The main problem some people seem to have is certain installers will version check the version of Windows before they install, and they might refuse to install if they see a version of Windows they don't recognize. That's one of the reasons Microsoft kept the version as 6.1.7600, instead of changing it to version 7. So you might run into some installers which don't work, even though the applications might run fine if you can get them past the installer

Btw - What amazed me about Windows 7 is the installer recognized pretty much every piece of hardware I have (with the exception of some pro audio related stuff). It's the best experience I've ever had when installing Windows - everything just worked for me

[directhex]

cool..
by the way, is it better getting 64 or 32 bit??? before there was'nt many appz that runs specifically for the 64 but now there's plenty.. so is there any advantages over the 32??

The main advantage is 64-bit Windows can address lots of RAM (32-bit can only address 4 gig, including memory-mapped devices like graphics cards, so typically about 3.3 gig of actual RAM)

32-bit apps can address 2 gig of RAM each, 64-bit apps can address more.