Verdict on Windows 7!

[cyb3rl0rd1867]

A friend was asking me if I thought upgrading to windows 7 was a good idea. Since I don't have windows 7 I told him I would get back to him after I asked around. So, what is your personal opinion of Windows 7? No links to reviews or anything like that, just personal experience. Thanks a lot!

[Doctor Inferno]

It's fast and efficient to me. Definitely worlds apart from Vista.

[caperjack]

Hi, as i was not a user of Vista ,I went from winxp to win7 and love it, as for fast i cant say !I will call it quick for me as I'm running it on a p4 2.8 cpu and 1.5 gig ram so it not going to be as fast as it could be ,for me i suppose ,but its quick and useing it is uneventfull ,error wise ,i say go for it ,if your/there computer can handle it .
run the compatibility test to determing what issues one might have with there computer after the install of win7.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx

[Shade01]

I dual boot with XP and Win 7, but may as well remove XP becuase I am just using Win 7. It is very well supported, driverwise, and has not locked up once. The taskmanager works well, even if a program locks up.

[jbennet]

Yeah, would definately reccomend it over XP if your computer can hande it. 2gb of ram or greater is a good idea.

[cyb3rl0rd1867]

Thanks for the responses! It would also help me out if you gave me a general idea of what you do with your computer.

[Alex_]

I tried Win7, the beta version. I can say that it works pretty good! I Installed some programs, played some games... it all seems to work properly. Though i do know that it has some incompatibility issues with some software/applications. For that they added the XP mode... which is not too good from the security perspective. Win7 has relative good security enhancements(read from a review, didn't really tested) actually! But you will automatically expose your self to some degree of risk when running a program through xp mode. The risk will come from the internet... don't worry, your hard drive wont burn :) (or at least it shouldn't...). But your friend won't be losing anything btw. Win 7 is better than Vista(personal opinion) or xp(web reviews' opinion). Yes it consumes more ram. Mine, the beta 7100 build, takes 400~500 on startup.

But i don't use Win7 too much. I do my main work on linux. Linux surpasses them all! My ubuntu 9.04 works a considerably faster then Win7 and for sure it's more secured! I have a 2.2GHz CPU and 1GB Ram (667Mhz), and i can feel the difference.
PS: ubuntu consumes around 280 MB on startup. :) pretty nice ,eh?

[jbennet]

has some incompatibility issues with some software/applications

90% of software which runs fine on vista will run on windows 7

For that they added the XP mode... which is not too good from the security perspective.

Its all sandboxed and virtualised. Obviously pretty secure because its based on HyperV which server farms use to host virtual servers on.

PS: ubuntu consumes around 280 MB on startup. pretty nice ,eh?

Other distributions (and xp for that matter) can be made to consume only around 40-80mb.

Linux surpasses them all!

Apart from the hardware support, the multimedia support, software compatibility, cost... yeah </sarcasm>

[caperjack]

i just install win7 pro,on my compaq v2000 laptop AMD sempron mobile cpu ,768 meg ram -video ram.
seems to work ok,used it only a bit since install ,

what i use computer for is very little actually ,internet and converting a few avi's to dvd format and burning them ,some minor games

[Alex_]

Obviously pretty secure because its based on HyperV which server farms use to host virtual servers on.

I didn't say the technology is risky. I meant that win xp has "holes"/security-and-intergrity issues , and by running xp you can suffer potential attacks from the web. I read somewhere on the web that on XP mode those two OS's share a specific folder (don't remmember the name).

Apart from the hardware support, the multimedia support, software compatibility, cost... yeah </sarcasm>

Linux has the best hardware support. Runs on most known CPU's ,for example. The only problem is that the vendores doesn't support linux.
But linux get's it support (and applications: multimedia, Office apps, and even runs Win apps but through wine) from a large number of people that agree with it's philosophy.
Bottom line is that it does suffer in some extent, but the open source is a very large place for finding something to get the work done. I wont be talking to much about this because these arguments are a little offtopic.

[jbennet]

I meant that win xp has "holes"/security-and-intergrity issues , and by running xp you can suffer potential attacks from the web. I read somewhere on the web that on XP mode those two OS's share a specific folder (don't remmember the name).

Yeah, its a shared folder (essentially its a network share). All the apps etc... are streamed between using RDP. Its as if the XP environment was another machine down the hall.

[need2know]

I don't see any benefits. I use my computer for personal use. I surf the net for research and post on some forums. It seems my computer works at least as slowly and emptying deleting browsing history is still as slow as it was getting on Vista. Also, I'm very annoyed by the mandatory Auto Arrange feature.

[jbennet]

It seems my computer works at least as slowly and emptying deleting browsing history is still as slow as it was getting on Vista. Also, I'm very annoyed by the mandatory Auto Arrange feature.

You can move them around on the desktop, just not in a folder anymore, but i wasnt aware anyone did that anyway?

[need2know]

You can move them around on the desktop, just not in a folder anymore, but i wasnt aware anyone did that anyway?

I was referring to folders. I do it when I want to set aside a file as one would do with a paper on a desk that isn't ready to be filed away or isn't properly labelled.

[Ancient Dragon]

I have only seen a couple of incompatabilities -- one of my games that played ok on Vista Home will not play on Win7. Also, the other day I bought a blue-ray video that contained a file that I could copy to my pc. Guess what?? It won't recognize Win7.

There are still a few device drivers that are not yet ready for Win7. One of them is for HP printer. The basic driver for my printer works ok, but hp has a much larger program that has not yet been ported.

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi all,
I had a lot of trouble getting my bluetooth from BlueSoleil to work, using the installation disc that came with it was no good in 7 and downloading the 111mb program from Bluesoleil said, I did not have have a serial number on my device although Bluesoleil's checking program said it was OK to to use. Not sure if I have it right yet, bit if not I will get there soon.
I should have said, it worked OK in 7 but it had yellow marks against the thee programs in "Device Manager". So I decided to update.

[caperjack]

There are still a few device drivers that are not yet ready for Win7. One of them is for HP printer. The basic driver for my printer works ok, but hp has a much larger program that has not yet been ported.

I have a HP ,psc 1315 all in one and it works , got drive from HP website ,even adds a gadget on the desktop ,and i can choose a size then just drag and drop the file to print on it and away it goes printing the file .kinda like it actually .

[Ancient Dragon]

I have HP OfficeJet All-In-One 6500. I just went to hp.com to find out if they have an updated program and it says

Installing the Product with the USB Cable and Using the Driver Located in Windows 7 Until the Product Driver is Available for Download

[caperjack]

so it might work for now ,and it might not !

[Crash~Override]

It's really the true successor for windows XP. Windows 7 is fast at boot up, easy on system resources, and compatible with any software that runs fine on vista. It even has windows xp mode (only for ultimate/enterprise users) which is really nice to have if you have softwares made specifically for windows xp.

And it works fine on netbooks, although I recommend ubuntu netbook remix or windows xp at this moment. But the the fact that it runs aero smoothly on a netbook means that it must be pretty easy on the system resources.

Well if you are gonna recommend any windows operating system at this moment, it has to be windows 7.

[Laser]

I like Windows 7 . I would recommend upgrading from XP on a recently purchased system and definitely on a new system. Older systems not so much; I think Microsoft's minimum requirements are a little optimistic (as usual) if you wish to maintain your sanity.

*1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

*1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

*16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

*DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

I've upgraded(clean) my main pc to 7 pro 64bit, built a system for a friend with 7pro 64 bit, and upgraded 2 of my daughters' notebooks from vista home premium to 7 home premium (setup run from vista; one 32bit & one 64bit). All worked fine, no muss, no fuss.

My older system (amd athlon 1.8 ghz) will continue to run xp as long as it 'lives'.

[Oscar77]

Don't do it. Wait for SP1. Many users OK, but we have (Not Responding) problems that no one can fix. Many causes. Local tech supprt doesn't know how to fix these yet.

Windows 7, 64bit, 4G Ram, 1T WD HD, 4.9 performance index, but takes 3 minutes to boot, 5 minutes to shut down, and randomly stops EVERYTHING for 2 to4 minutes and shows (Not Responding). My son's 5 year old Dell XP runs circles around my Win7 speedbox.

[Crash~Override]

Don't do it. Wait for SP1. Many users OK, but we have (Not Responding) problems that no one can fix. Many causes. Local tech supprt doesn't know how to fix these yet.

Windows 7, 64bit, 4G Ram, 1T WD HD, 4.9 performance index, but takes 3 minutes to boot, 5 minutes to shut down, and randomly stops EVERYTHING for 2 to4 minutes and shows (Not Responding). My son's 5 year old Dell XP runs circles around my Win7 speedbox.

lol well all i can say is you are the unlucky one my friend...i feel your pain...maybe you should thoroughly check your computer for viruses. Because i have similar specs to you and my pc boots in 1 min, shuts down in like 30-45 seconds and does NOT randomly stops everything!

[Alex_]

After all the OS' i've tried in my life, Win7 seemed to be the most laggy(but i didn't tried Vista btw). XP is fast and light but less secure now. Linux is fast and secure(but it has it's minuses with third party application support/drivers), Win7 is little slower than my linux distro or xp, less secure, but at the same time it's a good OS for it's contemporaneous competitors.

[Ancient Dragon]

Oscar: your computer might be so slow shutting down because of the windows services that you have installed. Have you actually timed it with a watch to see how much time your computer takes to shut down? Or are you just mearly guessing?

[edit]I just timed my computer -- it took only 10 seconds to shut down, but one full minute for windows to boot (did not include the amount of time the hardware took to start the windows boot loader).

[jbennet]

it took only 10 seconds to shut down, but one full minute for windows to boot

I reackon thats due to superfetch. That tends to at least double boot time, but generally leads to all round better performance once the system is up due to having common applications already cached to memory.

[tinchektinc]

Well, it works for me, I have recently got a high preformance video card (Sapphire 5770) and I must say it handles graphic with an ease, windows 7 are easy to use and easy to get used to. When I installed it it was a bit of a shock, because I was used to Windows XP layout and things like that, but it still impressed me. Before I even installed it, I have looked at some of the preformance tests. Windows XP are better at preformance (less graphic) but Windows 7 aren't really that behind, personally I didn't get Windows Vista, but from the look of that charts and others peoples opinions it was worlds apart. Compatibility is not an issue, I have a 64x edition and it includes so called compatibility packs, where if one program can't start due to the compatibility issues and you know that the program worked in Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can select it to run like it would in Windows XP Service Pack 2, I have also had that sort of issue and I must say, these packs (btw they go to Windows 95) were really helpfull. So it really depends on the final user, Windows 7 support DirectX 11 (Gaming use), but unfortinately Windows XP don't, so on the end Windows 7 is my choice.

[jbennet]

I have a 64x edition and it includes so called compatibility packs, where if one program can't start due to the compatibility issues and you know that the program worked in Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can select it to run like it would in Windows XP Service Pack 2, I have also had that sort of issue and I must say, these packs (btw they go to Windows 95) were really helpfull

Compatibility mode has existed since windows XP came out, its not a new feature.

[Ancient Dragon]

Compatibility mode has existed since windows XP came out, its not a new feature.

Are you sure about that? I never heard of it until Windows 7. And its not available on the Home edition. I've also read that xp compatibility mode is a lot of crap -- very very slow.

[jbennet]

XP mode (Virtualisation) on windows 7 and Compatibilty mode (which simply makes the system act as if its 95,98,NT,2000 or XP instead of actually running the older system in its entirity) are two completely different things. The latter has existed since XP (and win2000 sp4) and was hailed at the time because it let old DOS apps run on XP (remember, at that time very little games etc.. .ran on NT based systems at all)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292533