Windows 7

[August1991]

I just upgraded on my personal laptop to Windows 7 Professional.

What do others think of it? What about the upgrade process?

PS. I'm posting this under Windows 7 so I managed to maintain my Internet connection. (I lost Office 2007 because it rejects the Product Key. Yes, I bought a legitimate version.)

Edited December 31, 2009 by August1991

[bill_barilko]

I find it's something of an improvement although the first thing I did was Google 'Make Win7 look more like XP'.

Don't like how the Documents area is organised that'll be next to restructure.

[eyeball]

I just upgraded on my personal laptop to Windows 7 Professional.

What do others think of it? What about the upgrade process?

PS. I'm posting this under Windows 7 so I managed to maintain my Internet connection. (I lost Office 2007 because it rejects the Product Key. Yes, I bought a legitimate version.)

I've already sworn to myself that my next computer will run on Linux.

[bush_cheney2004]

I just upgraded on my personal laptop to Windows 7 Professional.

What do others think of it? What about the upgrade process?

The only surprise for me is that XP mode requires another Gig of RAM for virtualization and is only available for upgraded tiers of the Win7 distribution. I bought a few Dell laptops for gifts this month and the users don't have any problems, but these are "clean" installs. The kernel process profile resembles Vista, so probably just a facelift in this version.

Hard core gamers are leery of this distro, and are still snapping up copies of XP for performance and legacy compatability.

[M.Dancer]

We might be buying a new laptop today. The compaq I am on now is getting long in the tooth...the pentium 4 chugs along and the 32 meg ram is never enough...

You know, back when 386 with math co-processors were hot, I could look at the specs of any box and know if it was over priced or a deal..today not so much...

So anyway, off to decide whether it's a Gateway or another brand name...either way, I won't pay more that $500 for the bundle...

Oh..and they are all Windows 7

[xul]

I upgraded my dell755 desktop computer a few weeks ago. Exactly it is not an upgrade. I still kept the old Windows XP in the disk while installed Windows 7 professional 64bit in another partition forming a duel-booted system. According to my experience of using Microsoft Windows for over 20 years, it is the only way to upgrade to a new system without throwing out some hardwares which are not compatible.

The first hardware having problem with Windows 7 is a Taiwan made USB blue tooth adapter, which once worked perfectly with my dell 8135 blue teeth keyboard under Windows XP and Vista, and thanks heaven I still have the old usb keyboard in a closet so I can click something into the computer. I have orderd a new Dell brand adapter instead hoping that a pure-blood system might exceed multiculturalism.

The second hardware failed under Windows 7 is my Pinnacle USB-700 MPEG video encoder. This time Microsoft kindly prompted me that the hardware is not compatible with Windows 7 and gave me a link to find the solution. I clicked the link and found it was Pinnacle website which told me I should spend hundreds dollars to buy a new encoder...

The third hardware is my old Canon BP810 printer. When I first went into Canon's website and found a patch for Windows 7, for a time I though at least I had fixed one old hardware. But when I installed the patch, it didn't work. I searched in Internet and finally found out the patch only supported 32bit Windows 7...Microsoft offered users to choise the 32bit or 64bit system, but once the system is actived, it is unchangable.Unfortunately I activated the system before found this problem. And thanks the CEO/CFO/UFO... of HP, their HP1600 printer fully supports Windows 7, so what I need to do is to exchange the printers between the computer and another computer which uses Vista with HP1600.

The fourth hardware is a USB secure key issued by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which is a security divice the Bank used to identify the true account owner. I searched the internet without finding any solution, and the state-runned business giant showed no intention to offer a solution. Ironically, some posts said the device working perfectly under the pirated Windows 7---it seems like that the Microsoft China Illegal Software Factory has improved the compatibility of Windows 7

I think Microsoft has done a great job on economy which politicians and economists want to do but mostly have failed to do---pulling up GDP and prompting productivity. Just imagine, if every computer owner around the world has to spend hundreds dollars to buy new hardwares and softwares to fit the new system, the effectiveness of the total consumption must exceed any stimulus planned by any government and any economist.

Edited December 31, 2009 by xul

[GostHacked]

As long as they avoid the Vista mistake. Vista is actually a pretty good OS. The fail for them was 3rd party driver support was not the best. I played with 7 a bit, and want to get into it myself. The one thing I have heard about most is that when installed on an older system, it will actually perform better. I have a 2 year old system, core2duo, and running XP 32bit. If I go to 7 with the 64 bit, I should see a noticeable improvement overall. I'll be doing a wipe down and fresh install. I am amazed I have been running on the same install of XP for almost 2 years now.

BC

The only surprise for me is that XP mode requires another Gig of RAM for virtualization and is only available for upgraded tiers of the Win7 distribution. I bought a few Dell laptops for gifts this month and the users don't have any problems, but these are "clean" installs. The kernel process profile resembles Vista, so probably just a facelift in this version.

The kernel seems quite revamped. I think they learned their mistakes with Vista and changed that within 7. At least it won't be another M.E. That was the epiphany of crapiness. I agree on the RAM hog. Every system I see now comes with at least 4 GB of ram. and 6 is quite common now.

Hard core gamers are leery of this distro, and are still snapping up copies of XP for performance and legacy compatability.

This is a good point. Part of the reason I was hesitant to get into Vista. XP simply had better gaming performance. But I will say that is mostly due to crappy driver support for video cards. I have seen TimeShift run flawlessly on ultra settings on a 50" hd lcd. It was just gorgeous. It was a true thing of beauty.

I have not done the research on my audio gear to see how compatible it is with 7. I think that will be the clincher for me.

[Wilber]

I'm using 64 bit Vista Home Premium. Is there much to be gained by switching to 7?. I'm not into gaming. I'm a little leery of changing to a new OS because I had to buy a new scanner because it wouldn't support Vista.

Edited January 2, 2010 by Wilber

[capricorn]

I have the same system Wilber. I have no problems with my desktop Vista OS although I had to replace my all-in-one printer/fax/scanner due to the compatability problem you mention. I have windows xp on my laptop with wireless configuration and everything works fine. I can't see any pressing advantage to switching to windows 7 but I'm sure Microsoft will see to it that I won't have any choice.

[Moonlight Graham]

Bought a new laptop and they all come with Windows 7 now of course.

The new Taskbar is GARBAGE. It's horrific. The quick-launch doesn't work at all like Vista or XP or previous versions of Windows. If you launch a program from quick-launch on the Taskbar, it will only work once. Ie: if you want to open Windows Explorer from the Quicklaunch bar, and then try to open a 2nd Explorer window it won't work. You have to go to your desktop or hit the Start button and manually open Explorer again.

So the quick-launch function is basically useless now, however i found a way to make it work like Vista/XP etc., though its really annoying!!

[Tawasakm]

We might be buying a new laptop today. The compaq I am on now is getting long in the tooth...the pentium 4 chugs along and the 32 meg ram is never enough...

You know, back when 386 with math co-processors were hot, I could look at the specs of any box and know if it was over priced or a deal..today not so much...

So anyway, off to decide whether it's a Gateway or another brand name...either way, I won't pay more that $500 for the bundle...

Oh..and they are all Windows 7

Gateway = Acer = Look for something else~

[bill_barilko]

...If you launch a program from quick-launch on the Taskbar, it will only work once. Ie: if you want to open Windows Explorer from the Quicklaunch bar, and then try to open a 2nd Explorer window it won't work. You have to go to your desktop or hit the Start button and manually open Explorer again.

So the quick-launch function is basically useless now, however i found a way to make it work like Vista/XP etc., though its really annoying!!

So who uses IE anyway?

[Tawasakm]

So who uses IE anyway?

On top of which why wouldn't you be using multiple tabs instead of multiple windows?

[Topaz]

Well, I've had from day one and I like it, had Vista before that and XP before that. Any problems I've had with the computer, which is 2 years old, is short in the keyboard, which is made in China, of course all these tech gadgets are made in China now. One thing I do constantly, is keep the security up to date and computing is a breeze and I have no complains so far about Explorer7.

[Michael Hardner]

I've already sworn to myself that my next computer will run on Linux.

Beware. If you're going to run Linux, make sure you are technically proficient as it's not easy to load and get running.

If this scares you then don't run Linux.

[bush_cheney2004]

Beware. If you're going to run Linux, make sure you are technically proficient as it's not easy to load and get running.

If this scares you then don't run Linux.

Not necessarily...Linux distributions have become very user friendly, even running from storage media without direct installation. This has been very important to the developing world without access to enough potable water, let alone Gigs of RAM or "technical support".

My 8 year old niece easily works with Umbuntu (Debian derived Linux) on a netbook.

[Moonlight Graham]

On top of which why wouldn't you be using multiple tabs instead of multiple windows?

I don't like tabs.

Also, many programs like Microsoft Word, Powerpoint etc. (at least in my version of Office) don't use tabs. So if you want to open multiple windows of the same program its more of a hassle now IMO.