Windows 7 are you moving?

[Patriot]

What's that?

Sorry carrot, am I missing something obvious? PhotonBoy said that MS ought to allow more time between OS system updates. You said

8 years between releases is pretty long though.... XP came out in 2001 and 7 is coming out officially in two days, 2009.

I asked of you were forgetting about Win Vista which was released widely in Jan 2007.

Your response was, "what's that?" Surely you know what Vista is.....


:thinking:

 

[SneakyCyber]

I have been running Windows 7 Since the first beta and I already have my licenses ordered (I still have to wait to get them). I never owned a vista machine but I have had to work on Several of them :sick2:. Windows 7 is the XP that Vista should have been. I have had a computer since 1986 with my IBM PCjr and computers are finally starting to get back to as responsive as they were with Dos and Direct Access. Windows has an upgrade adviser that can be found here. Although if you are upgrading from XP to Windows 7 you will have to do a full wipe of your old OS (start backing up now). Most Vendors have Windows 7 drivers already and others will release them once Windows 7 goes live.

 

[Mjolnir]

Sorry carrot, am I missing something obvious? PhotonBoy said that MS ought to allow more time between OS system updates. You said I asked of you were forgetting about Win Vista which was released widely in Jan 2007.

Your response was, "what's that?" Surely you know what Vista is.....


:thinking:

I believe that his comment was sarcastic. I wish we could all forget Vista ever happened...

 

[Crenshaw]

I believe that his comment was sarcastic. I wish we could all forget Vista ever happened...

that would be it....
:shakehead

Crenshaw

 

[Eugene]

A big no way for me. Started with DOS5, went all the way up to windows 2000, then around 2002 I bought myself a new laptop with XP. I fought the hang upon resume, USB storage issues, spyware infections (adaware and the like weren't available then and netscape had been AOL'ed so the only browser was IE). I rebuilt it twice in a year. My previous w2k box I rebooted less, everything worked fine. My office laptop they took around 2003 and replaced w2k with XP and again more issues. I made the switch to open source after that. I still kept up with technet and ran all the newest MS stuff, have Windows 7 running under virtualbox and am less than impressed, I see no real improvement, too little, too late. At this point anyway after being burned by apps such as MS Money, Visio, Access, Works, I would be running open source on top of windows 7 anyway.

 

[carrot]

Sorry carrot, am I missing something obvious? PhotonBoy said that MS ought to allow more time between OS system updates. You said I asked of you were forgetting about Win Vista which was released widely in Jan 2007.

Your response was, "what's that?" Surely you know what Vista is.....


:thinking:

First, I was referring to the fact that if Microsoft did indeed wait the extra almost 3 years instead of releasing Vista it would have been a very, very long time for many consumers. Consider that Apple releases a new version of their OSX about every 18 months and Ubuntu maybe every 6 months. That's snail's pace in the computer world, and XP, while it works great, is pretty dated, and was about 5.5 years old when Vista came out.

For those who keep track of Apple, XP and the very first OSX came out at the same time. This was when Pentium 4's were the new king, before 64-bit consumer machines, and when the G4 Titanium Powerbook was new.

So Microsoft was due to release some OS, even if most of us felt it was half-baked, rushed and did not contain most of the much vaunted features (WinFS, anyone?)

As for the "What's that?" comment, I was making a sarcastic acknowledgement that many in IT and enterprise largely ignored Vista. And many computer power users who are often ready to live the bleeding edge also seemed to feel the same way. Sorry that you didn't interpret it the way I meant.

 

[Mech3]

The biggest problem I saw with vista. was it took right at 20 gigs of hard drive space, for programs that most people will never use, and there was no option to remove these programs, like you could on previous versions of windows. Which is using unnecessary drive and memory space, for something that is not being used, and can't be removed. I have a 2 gig thumb drive with a bootable version of XP with network and internet capability's plus disk burning program, that can't be done with vista. Some of the reviews I have seen, Windows 7 is just as bloated, if not worse than Vista. That, is what slows your machine down. searching through memory and drive of useless programs, to get to the ones that you want to use. I prefer to customize my system with only the programs I need and use. Then they run faster and more effeciant, with less resources.

 

[Mjolnir]

The biggest problem I saw with vista. was it took right at 20 gigs of hard drive space, for programs that most people will never use, and there was no option to remove these programs, like you could on previous versions of windows. Which is using unnecessary drive and memory space, for something that is not being used, and can't be removed. I have a 2 gig thumb drive with a bootable version of XP with network and internet capability's plus disk burning program, that can't be done with vista. Some of the reviews I have seen, Windows 7 is just as bloated, if not worse than Vista. That, is what slows your machine down. searching through memory and drive of useless programs, to get to the ones that you want to use. I prefer to customize my system with only the programs I need and use. Then they run faster and more effeciant, with less resources.

Part of the reason that more programs slows down your computer is because the registry is a sequential text file that the computer has to read through to get to a program. Installing and uninstalling programs leaves crap in the registry, making it fragmented and slowing the computer down. There is no reason that having a large number of programs would slow a decent computer down, provided you have the hard drive space to run them. Hard drives now are dirt cheap; you can get 1TB for under $100. RAM Is also VERY cheap.
If microsoft could design an OS properly, having more programs would not slow anything down; however, when you "install" a program it scatters data and files into all different places, which makes it take more time to start the programs.
Another issue is a large number of programs starting up with windows, which can hog system resources, especially if you don't have a very powerful computer. You can always disable startup programs. Programs that are just sitting on a hard drive don't really slow your computer down at all; it is the clutter from installing and uninstalling these programs that can slow it down.

 

[Mech3]

At the time I tried Vista I was running a 5000+ athlon 64x2 dual core 2 gigs DDR2 dual channeled memory, 500 GB SATA II drive with a Asus M2A-VM HDMI board and that was three years ago, I think that was a decent computer at that time. I also have file and regestry cleaners and regestry defrag progams that didn't help. I went back to a dual boot system with XP and an open source OS untill I learned my way around the open source OS and it will out run vista any day and I can accomplish just as much, faster. and only requires around 5 gigs of drive space for OS and the programs that I need to accomplish the many tasks that I use my PC for.

 

[Beamhead]

Just in case anyone is thinking of the XP to 7 upgrade route, do your homework it won't be pretty.

You can download an advisor app to check your current PC's compatibility, and there is an Easy Transfer utility for going from XP 32 bit to 7.

From what I have seen the XP to 7 route will at a minimum wipe your data and applications, the easy transfer may export and import email settings/messages via external storage.

 

[Drywolf]

I also have file and regrstry cleaners and regestry defrag progams that didn't help.

So you are saying that there is no way to clean up a registry short of an OS re-install to fix performance issues? Which is something I do about every six months (microsoft added value). I have supported UNIX and worked/repaired the hardware and OS, but I find Windows easier and more convienent.
Frank

 

[Mjolnir]

At the time I tried Vista I was running a 5000+ athlon 64x2 dual core 2 gigs DDR2 dual channeled memory, 500 GB SATA II drive with a Asus M2A-VM HDMI board and that was three years ago, I think that was a decent computer at that time. I also have file and regestry cleaners and regestry defrag progams that didn't help. I went back to a dual boot system with XP and an open source OS untill I learned my way around the open source OS and it will out run vista any day and I can accomplish just as much, faster. and only requires around 5 gigs of drive space for OS and the programs that I need to accomplish the many tasks that I use my PC for.

Registry cleaners and defraggers don't often help much, at least in my experience. The only thing that I can do to "freshen up" my computer is to restore the OS to an earlier image.
A lot of other OS's, such as Linux, don't have registries, which is why they run better than windows. The amount of space that windows takes up is a distinct issue from performance.

 

[Mech3]

What I am saying even with a fresh install vista is a resource hog and will slow down any PC compared to XP, no matter how much tweaking you do to vista, and alot of the reviews I have read 7 is better than vista, but still not as good as XP was far as speed. Far as easier try Ubuntu or even easier PC Linux Os 2009.

 

[Patriot]

First, I was referring to the fact that if Microsoft did indeed wait the extra almost 3 years instead of releasing Vista....

carrot
8 years between releases is pretty long though.... XP came out in 2001 and 7 is coming out officially in two days, 2009.

.....well, ok....it wasn't 8 years between new MS OS's. The gap was about 5 years to Vista and 3 years to 7. Since you wern't acknowledging Vista I understand now.

As for the "What's that?" comment, I was making a sarcastic acknowledgement that many in IT and enterprise largely ignored Vista. And many computer power users who are often ready to live the bleeding edge also seemed to feel the same way. Sorry that you didn't interpret it the way I meant.

lol, again...now I understand that you were being sarcastic by ignoring Vista, which is probably good protocol. I hate Vista personally. When I'm being sarcastic on line I always use this little guy..... haha


Anyhow, thanks for getting my up to speed.

 

[PhotonBoy]

Going from Windows XP to Windows 7 entails a complete reformat/reconfiguration of a PC, if in fact, the PC has the hardware qualifications required.

I knew a guy who worked for Ungermann-Bass (which is now defunct) who referred to this type of installation as a "forklift upgrade". :laughing:

 

[LuxLuthor]

Are you forgetting about Vista?

I think that has been the general consensus. The sooner everyone forgets about Vista, the faster MS will recover their reputation....even though their SP fixes made a huge improvement.

I need to build a new PC....just so I can play latest games. I'm still working off an Athlon 64 3500, IDE 7200 RPM Hard Drives, & ATI AGP X800 video card, and an NEC CRT that now takes almost 3 minutes to start displaying.

Win 7 will be a certainty.

 

[Coaster]

I've been running 7 since the RC was available. I'm running the release version of 7 Enterprise on a few of my machines now. I hated Vista, I used it for a couple months then gave up. 7 is much less annoying so far.

I would have been happy sticking with XP except for one problem, no x64 support. XP 64 never cut it because finding drivers was impossible. We'll also be approaching the point where no security patches are released for XP eventually, you gotta upgrade sometime.

Ubuntu is a great choice if you're not a gamer, although Linux gaming support is getting better. It just takes a little bit to get used to the different application names.

 

[baterija]

Ubuntu is a great choice if you're not a gamer, although Linux gaming support is getting better. It just takes a little bit to get used to the different application names.

Like Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP, VLC Media Player...oh wait that's a list of application names on my Windows XP system. :naughty:

 

[Coaster]

Like Firefox, OpenOffice, GIMP, VLC Media Player...oh wait that's a list of application names on my Windows XP system. :naughty:

Same here but some of the things are less well known in the Windows world.

Once you know what you want to do, you need to know the name of the application that does that. It's not always immediately clear.

If you didn't already know what GIMP was would you have a clue? But Photoshop makes a little sense(and costs a ton of $$$). Its the same way switching to a mac really.

 

[mightysparrow]

I have held off buying a new computer (home) for over a year, waiting for Windows 7 to become available. I've been using my home laptop now for over 6.5 years. I am going to get a desktop- it's going to be a huge improvement- can't wait. I'll place my order in the next few weeks, I think. I'm happy to see that 7 is worth waiting for.