Windows 7 are you moving?

[tebore]

I already have Windows 7 Professional on all my machines except for my Thinkpad which is my primary workhorse. The only reason why it's not on yet is because Lenovo won't release a compatible CSS client which I need.

I had 7 on on my netbook for about a month now and it's great and snappy. Sure start up is a bit slower than XP because of a slow harddrive. 7 Knows how to use RAM I have 2 Gigs and 7 knows how to use every ounce of it to make the machine feel snappy despite not having the latest dual core CPU and fast harddrive.

I was really unimpressed with Vista. Despite all the in your face security it was still a really vulnerable OS. I'm not saying 7 is tremendously better but they tweaked the approach to security and how users interact with the OS. Overall more snappy, productive, and less intrusive. It's a very polished OS.

Server 2008 is also a great OS, I have just deployed it for a client and boy it is much much faster to deploy than 03. Out of the box setup is much easier and faster too.

It's good to be an MS partner.

 

[Cahl]

I have been running W7 since beta and I must say I am impressed. No problems what so ever. First windows to use LESS memory than the previous version, this has never happened before

 

[jzmtl]

Nope, if it ain't broken don't fix it.

Actually I'm just too lazy to figure out where all the controls are again. I have customized XP to the way I like it but it took me several years to do that.

 

[Patriot]

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.

.....and you're buying knives instead....lol. Just giving you a hard time since you're a bit overdue. The computer I'm on now used to be my gaming PC and iirc I've got and old AGP X800XT card in this machine. Works fine for internet and multimedia but couldn't keep up with games even 3 years ago without turning down the graphic details to unacceptable levels. It was a full ground up build with everything purchased from Newegg. This computer has been flawless for going on 5 years.

 

[flatline]

Nope. Now Windows 7 here.

I haven't run Windows since 1996 or so when I switched my personal machine to Linux. My wife had a window's machine until she finished med school (required to run windows-only software as part of her course work), but she switched to Mac a little over 4 years ago.

At work, the developers mostly run Linux and the business types mostly run Macs. Very little windows left anywhere in the department. The reason for this is that if you want to connect a windows machine to the network, you have to meet all sorts of security requirements (antivirus, firewall, remote monitoring software) that makes a modern machine slower than a 6 year old budget machine. Oddly enough, no network security policy exists for Mac or Linux...

--flatline

 

[AnAppleSnail]

I use Ubuntu on my laptop, which is my main machine. I suspect that many people are starting to be in the same boat as me for computer use: Heavy usage of web apps, no dependence on Windows-only programs, and realization of options that don't require spending money. Even at student prices, it's an awful lot to pay when I would keep doing the same things nearly the same way. Note that student price is Free, I just don't have the time to get it from MSDNAA.

But of course, Windows 7 is pretty good. I will learn to use it because I function in a world where it's still dominant (engineering). If I used my computer for things that were too great a pain to do, I would probably get Windows 7. I understand that the IT Department at my university will move to Windows 7 in a year or two, so we'll see how that transition runs. And you haven't heard "In my day" complaints until you are convincing tenured professors to change!

 

[Alaric Darconville]

Definitely moving from XP (x64) to Windows 7 (x64).

Vista is the Windows ME of the NT world.

I will miss the "at" command, however. (I haven't tried copying it from an XP machine to a Windows 7 machine to test if that will work.)

 

[greenLED]

I'm prefectly fine with all my PC's running XP SP3, thankyouverymuch.

That said, new machines will likely come with Win7.

 

[donn_]

Fascinating and funny thread. Since I off-loaded the last of my MS stock (IPO shares) a few years ago, I haven't been keeping up.

This old Dell, and my older Dell laptop, do just fine on Vista and XP. I learned a long time ago, how to tweak Windows to my taste, and haven't suffered from any OS changes since. I still have a few clients running their businesses on DOS systems I set up for them, and they have no plans to upgrade.

I'm much more interested in browsers than in the OS. It's far more up-front in my PC use than the OS.

 

[BentHeadTX]

I am sorta moving, in a way
Running XP SP3 on my dual-core Atom net top box with 2GB of DDR and it will stay that way. This winter I'll try "Hackintosh" by running Snow Leopard on another hard drive. Yes, the fun of getting two OS on the same computer but...
My wife has a decent HP laptop with 2.2GHz dualie with 3GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive and she is going to college. She gets a student rate on Win7 of $29. It is worth it to me to get Vista off her laptop so Win7 goes on that one.
My brother does computer graphics servers for a gig and runs Mac, Win7, XP and various other things so I'm waiting for his advice on the downsides of Win7. I've been running XP since beta back in 2001... who would of thought I would still be using it 8.5 years later?
Goodbye Vista, it was a great operating system for Apple...they will cry the most that it is gone.

 

[LuxLuthor]

.....and you're buying knives instead....lol. Just giving you a hard time since you're a bit overdue. The computer I'm on now used to be my gaming PC and iirc I've got and old AGP X800XT card in this machine. Works fine for internet and multimedia but couldn't keep up with games even 3 years ago without turning down the graphic details to unacceptable levels. It was a full ground up build with everything purchased from Newegg. This computer has been flawless for going on 5 years.

Yeah, I'm being diverted by knives, and amazingly this dinosaur rig seems to be working just fine at exploring that new area. Same here on building from scratch from NewEgg. I was sooo proud of my X800 XT-PE and how ATI finally spanked the nVidia fanboys with their mighty 6800 Ultra. Those were the grand old days of real video card wars.

 

[Cahl]

Nope, if it ain't broken don't fix it.

Actually I'm just too lazy to figure out where all the controls are again. I have customized XP to the way I like it but it took me several years to do that.

Ditto:

But yeah, I agree. The first month after moving it's all "wtf, where is everything".
However, when you get used to it, you will be glad that you moved, cause it is really good ^^

 

[Tony Hanna]

I am sorta moving, in a way
Running XP SP3 on my dual-core Atom net top box with 2GB of DDR and it will stay that way. This winter I'll try "Hackintosh" by running Snow Leopard on another hard drive. Yes, the fun of getting two OS on the same computer but...

I predict that you'll enjoy it. Leopard running on similar hardware (MSI nettop 100) is pretty snappy and with speed optimizations reported to be in Snow, I expect it'll be even better.

Anyhow, I tried one of the pre-release Windows 7 downloads and it seemed to be a step in the right direction from Vista. I have a Toshiba laptop that came with Vista that may see a Windows 7 upgrade eventually.

 

[DimmerD]

I don't really understand what windows 7 really offers. The biggest flaw with Microsoft's operating systems is the registry, which inevitably gets corrupt and makes all windows computers slow. There is NO REASON why a 4 or 5 year old PC should not be able to do basic tasks like web browsing and be just as responsive as a much newer, more powerful computer. Because of the registry, computers slow down over time, which is one of the main reasons that people buy computers when they don't need them. Most people only use their computers for email, web browsing, and creating documents, so they do not need to buy a new computer every few years. If they just reinstalled the operating system, their computer would be sufficiently responsive to do these tasks.
Most of what everyone is raving about about windows 7 is related to the GUI, not the actual operating system itself. Saying that it is "stable" is like saying that the wheels don't fall of your car; they are supposed to stay on. Vista was basically a yugo in this regard. I don't see why microsoft is releasing yet another broken operating system. If they REALLY wanted to make a good operating system, they would get rid of the decades old registry and come up with something else that doesn't result in computers slowing down significantly in half a year. However, most people haven't been exposed to the idea that computers aren't supposed to slow down like this, so Microsoft doesn't really have any incentive to make an operating system that can remain stable for long periods of time. Because of this fatal flaw, I have to restore my computer back to an earlier image right after the OS was installed every few months, when it starts getting less responsive. I SHOULD NOT have to do this with a well designed operating system.

However, Windows 7 does offer DirectX 11, so I would have to upgrade in order to use that (although most game developers still don't even use DX10). I will probably at least dual boot Windows 7 with Vista, since I would rather not have to reinstall all of my programs again.

I have been running Vista X64 Ultimate for over a year now, no slow downs here. I am an above average user and have tons of stuff installed including games and haven't noticed any slowdowns. As a matter of fact according to Windows my current speed rating actually went up from 4.9 to 5.9 over this year just by updating drivers. My guess is you are a bit shy on RAM. 2 Gigs should be the bare minimum for Vista, it will use all of it too.

Oh yeah I going to 7 X64 too, just need to pop in a fresh hard drive to install it on!

 

[gsxrac]

Well ive been running it for a few weeks now and so far it is 10X better than Vista ever was. The only problems I have is that Firefox wont remember my passwords even though I have the settings set right (might be a Firefox problem) And my bottom bar randomly disappears but this seems to have been resolved by some recent updates.

 

[donn_]

..it is 10X better than Vista ever was.

That's quite an improvement! Can you be more specific? What parts of its performance are 10x better?

 

[gsxrac]

That's quite an improvement! Can you be more specific? What parts of its performance are 10x better?

Well the obvious ones that I first noticed. The search function is better and more organised, the bottom toolbar is MUCH cleaner and when your working on multiple windows it doesnt clutter the hell out the bottom of your bottom toolbar. On top of that the subfolders seem to come way more organized too. If you use a secondary screen for any reason it is much more simple with 7. None of the crap where youve gotta go and mess with the sound settings then pick how you want everything to work. You plug in the HDMI, it works, the end. Theres a few other points I have missed or that I just plain dont use (or not very often at least)

 

[Mjolnir]

I have been running Vista X64 Ultimate for over a year now, no slow downs here. I am an above average user and have tons of stuff installed including games and haven't noticed any slowdowns. As a matter of fact according to Windows my current speed rating actually went up from 4.9 to 5.9 over this year just by updating drivers. My guess is you are a bit shy on RAM. 2 Gigs should be the bare minimum for Vista, it will use all of it too.

Oh yeah I going to 7 X64 too, just need to pop in a fresh hard drive to install it on!

No, I have 4 GB of RAM and a 3Ghz quad core CPU. My Hardware is not my problem. The windows "experience index" is by no means a performance benchmark; I doubt it does anything more than look up your components and compare them to a list of components that have been categorized based on performance.

How long does your computer take to start up and log on? Did it always take that long? It HAS slowed down. I have had a number of windows PCs, and they all slow down eventually. I am not talking about performance; my computer still plays games as smoothly as it did when windows was freshly installed. I am talking about stability, startup time, and responsiveness, which registry issues will make worse.

 

[DimmerD]

It takes right at 60 seconds to boot up. And no cheating here. lets be fair. When you turn on your computer is when the timer starts, not once the bios has posted and it starts the boot process. Powering your computer on is part of the start up so it needs to be timed too. When I first installed Vista my boot times were 60 seconds as they still are. (not including when updates are applied, this is definitely slow on Vista)

 

[Drywolf]

Well 60 seconds is your time and should not be compared with other systems. My computer has two raid arrays and both of them take time to initialize, recognize thier resources and come ready. One embedded SCSI/SATA controller (RAID0) is rather slow booting and the second is a raid 6 SATA controller (PCIeX4) which is a little faster. My system will boot much faster with just one disk attached in native mode, but it boots slower and runs way faster with the 12 disks I usually have configured in RAID configurations. Anyway I think Vista ran much slower when first released and now it runs okay when all the updates are in place. I still run XP 32/64 pro, but I hope Seven will prove to be better and faster. Fingers crossed.
Frank