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Windows 7

BillieTheBotBillieTheBot Posts: 8,721 Bot
Anyone else taken the plunge? I got it the other day and have to say I'm impressed. It's a lot faster than vista and doesn't take up half as much space on the HDD.

If you're a student, it'll cost you £30 as well....
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Vista and Winodws 7 will increase in size over time due to some stupid directory that ensures backwards compatibility.

    I run Windows 7 and think it's ok. It's not as much a leap forward as people say it is, it is much more like a service pack for vista with a GUI change.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i've tried it, that thing with the windows of the same program stacking up and presenting a preview of each on mouse over a bit cumbersome.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The main thing from Win 7 that interests me is the iconised taskbar. How are people finding that?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    How is the driver compatibility? How about software - is it supposed to be backward compatible with Vista versions?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    Anyone else taken the plunge? I got it the other day and have to say I'm impressed. It's a lot faster than vista and doesn't take up half as much space on the HDD.

    If you're a student, it'll cost you £30 as well....

    10euro if you study in vienna :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    StrubbleS wrote: »
    10euro if you study in vienna :D
    Upgrade?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A friend just got a new laptop with it and says it's quite slow at starting up. Anyony else think it's slow?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Nope, it'll be all the bloat that the manufacturer installs...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A friend just got a new laptop with it and says it's quite slow at starting up. Anyony else think it's slow?

    Little bit. Although so was Vista. Everyone says it's quicker, but I don't notice much difference tbh. It's certainly not slower overall though.

    I upgraded, because I was having problems with Vista. In particular, it stopped me from backing up the computer. But also little things like I was getting an error message when I opened a file that contained AVI files, and that's stopped now (an error message per AVI file too :mad:). And things I didn't even realise were an issue, like how my screen used to go black a few times after logging on, and it no longer does that. The only thing I'm still left to check is that I had a couple of games that would crash all the time on Vista.

    All in all it seems like a good piece of software, but unless you're having issues with Vista, I wouldn't bother upgrading. I also think that Vista had so many issues, that this should've been free for anyone who had it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    How is the driver compatibility? How about software - is it supposed to be backward compatible with Vista versions?

    I upgraded from Vista, the only thing it didn't like was Itunes, so i uninstalled it.
    But, when I reinstalled it under windows 7 it found all my music, all my album artwork, all my settings.

    Everything else seems to be working well, all my user settings transferred across, everything is the same.
    However now everything does seem to be a bit faster. PC boots up in no time at all, programs load quicker, less space taken up (30Gb less) on my HD.

    The iconised taskbar, specifically being able to hover over a quick launch icon and see all your minimised windows/tabs and what is in each is a nice touch as well.

    I have to say, I'm a fan. It's the first piece of Windows software I've had since Win95 that has worked without causing any problems.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    shyboy wrote:
    Vista and Winodws 7 will increase in size over time due to some stupid directory that ensures backwards compatibility.

    I run Windows 7 and think it's ok. It's not as much a leap forward as people say it is, it is much more like a service pack for vista with a GUI change.

    Windows 7 isn't just a upgrade from Vista, SO MUCH of it has been rewritten completely from scratch. Features that made Vista laggy for less-powerful computers have been removed. 7 is basically a new OS. It just has the idea of Vista GUI/Feature wise, but with other things from XP and previous versions.

    About the backwards compatability, every version of Windows has had that. There's nothing stupid about it. Millions will need it, specially businesses.

    Driver wise/software, pretty much everything that worked with Vista will work with 7. The only issue I had with 7 was Steam. But that's still a fireball of shit anyway, it's not 7's fault. I only upgraded to test drive the release, I already used the beta and already made up my mind, it was solid. Microsoft did the right thing this time... though I still think the GUI is disgusting. I can't do work as fast as I would in XP compared to Vista/7, XP is simplistic (not too much), nice, functional, I still love XP. But the taskbar (on default) is the most stupidest idea ever.

    Only other reason I upgraded was to get decent support for DirectX 10. But it's cool, decided to just go back to XP and install DX10 on it anyway. Works like it normally would.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i've installed it on a current-in-2005 computer, which has an amd64 3000+ processor and 1gb of ram as well as an nvidia geforce 7300 (upgraded from oem state) and it is a bit slow and has bsod'd a few times as well :s
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i've installed it on a current-in-2005 computer, which has an amd64 3000+ processor and 1gb of ram as well as an nvidia geforce 7300 (upgraded from oem state) and it is a bit slow and has bsod'd a few times as well :s

    you could probably do with an extra gig of ram. I think the recommendation for older computers as well was to do a "clean" install with 7 instead of just an upgrade. That way you get rid of all the crap your current pc has accumulated in the 4 years since you got it.

    My PC is a 2.5ghz quad core and I just upgraded to 4gb of ram. Vista was quite slow at some tasks, and still took a while to boot up despite the system i've got. It feels like 7 is using all the available resources, a lot more efficient and streamlined imo.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Can anyone find a link to buy the student upgrade, professional version, on the MS website? I can get the home premium and it says I can also get pro, but there is no link to buy it...

    edit, found it
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think im going to go and take the plunge.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I must say i'm quite liking windows 7. I didn't think i would use the iconised toolbar and the little boxes that come up to see what pages you have open, but you have no choice so thats that solved! :p

    one annoying thing is if you move a window you have open and you hit the top screen it goes bigger when you don't want it too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A friend just got a new laptop with it and says it's quite slow at starting up. Anyony else think it's slow?

    Mine takes forver to start up - it's soooo slow to get from powering on into windows ... Once you're actually in windows then it's OK

    I'm running mine on a Mac with Bootcamp - a 2GHz core2Duo with 2GB of RAM
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    DG wrote: »
    Mine takes forver to start up - it's soooo slow to get from powering on into windows ... Once you're actually in windows then it's OK

    I'm running mine on a Mac with Bootcamp - a 2GHz core2Duo with 2GB of RAM

    I just timed mine and it takes about 53 seconds and thats me typed in my password aswell. And its about another minute until everything is loaded and i can open things easily.

    Mine is on a HP with 2.1GHz processor with 3GB of RAM.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Mine takes longer to start up than Vista now. It does use less RAM though - down to about 30-40% at idle from 40-50% on Vista (with 2 GB RAM).

    I had no end of problems with uTorrent on Windows 7. Also had to try several installs, as they'd get to the end and then decide some random driver was incompatible (which didn't come up in the commpatibility test).

    So far I'm just pissed off with the useful things they got rid of! Like pinning shortcuts to the start menu.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru

    So far I'm just pissed off with the useful things they got rid of! Like pinning shortcuts to the start menu.

    I can pin shortcuts to my start menu......

    The only thing they've got rid of that I can see is Windows moviemaker.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    The only thing they've got rid of that I can see is Windows moviemaker.

    No great loss there, as I was using Serif Movieplus.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Same here, never needed it. However this weekend I've discovered I need to make a slideshow to music....any ideas for any free programs?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere - just a guess from me, but if Openoffice.org has presentation software (on the same lines of MS Powerpoint), then that should do it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Whowhere wrote: »
    I can pin shortcuts to my start menu......

    The only thing they've got rid of that I can see is Windows moviemaker.
    So you can... cheers. I'm still getting used to the way things pin and move etc.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I got confused with mine cos i bought a laptop with windows 7 and it has Microsoft word 7 and all that jazz but i need a product key code, i take it they want me to pay for it? :impissed: lol
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Notanotherusername - yeah it's common for branded machines to ship with a 2-month trial of MS Office. It has full functionality for 60 days then it'll ask for ££'s for the code. If you don't get a code, then you can still view documents, just not able to edit them.

    But bollocks to all of that. After your 60 days, just get Openoffice.org which is free and is just as good. Plus it's "portable" which means that you can install it onto a memory stick and you can run it on any machine that has a USB port :-)
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