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Windows 7 - worth waiting for?

scottishmark

scottishmark

Turbo Monkey
May 20, 2002
2,121
22
Somewhere dark, cold & wet....
First things first - I am not about to buy a Mac!

Moving on..... this laptop's slowly heading towards the grave so it's time for a replacement. Does anyone know if it's going to be worth waiting for Windows 7 to come around? Or should I just plump for Vista?

Cheers,

Mark
 
jonKranked

jonKranked

Detective Dookie
Nov 10, 2005
88,750
26,975
media blackout
Wait for win7. By all accounts, Win7 is what they wanted vista to be.

Also, I'm pretty sure that if you buy a Windows computer now, you'll get a voucher for a free Win7 upgrade. Besides, win7 is out next week (10/22).


Just out of curiosity, why do you not want a mac?
 
W

WhoRyder

Turbo Monkey
Nov 28, 2007
1,834
0
NYC
i've been running windows 7 since it's beta version and have to admit, even the Beta version was 80X better than vista, although i never had any issues with Vista Ultimate....

Get a new computer and get Vista Ultimate, then do a clean install....
 
B

blue

boob hater
Jan 24, 2004
10,160
2
california
I'm running W7 RC 7100 and it's been pretty solid. A few niggles expected from a RC, but nothing major...iTunes doesn't like it much.

Vast improvement over Vista.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
I never had many issues with Vista, but W7 is like a very polished version of Vista, and is much faster. My computer is pretty speedy, so it ran Vista just fine, but W7 screams on it.

But yeah, you get a voucher for a free W7 upgrade if you buy now. Might as well get it pre installed if you can hold off a week, though.
 
sanjuro

sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
17,373
0
SF
I ordered 4gb of ram with my new desktop, so I need Win7 to utilize my memory (at least it will be easier to acquire than 64bit Vista).
 
johnbryanpeters

johnbryanpeters

Hero
Sep 27, 2001
36,800
18,346
Making moss sad in New Haven, Vermont
Not exactly early adoption, but a new Dell Optiplex mini-tower with Windows 7 Professional, 4G, 32-bit arrived last week. So far the only PITA was getting a wireless adapter that had drivers for Windows 7 - finally wound up with a Netgear Wireless-G USB adapter - had to use their support site to find the new drivers.

The O/S boots fast and I'm the interface changes from XP are not too confusing. I did get confused by the drivers - you now don't have to put them anyplace in particular or run an installer, the O/S searches them out. Pretty nice.

The price that I paid for the whole mess with a 24" monitor was about a third of what I paid for a similar computer the last time around with no monitor.
 
dante

dante

Unabomber
Feb 13, 2004
8,807
9
looking for classic NE singletrack
Have had a new W7 laptop for the past couple weeks, and have to say I've had zero problems with it. Searched for drivers for an older printer of mine completely on its own (and found and installed them), and has been 100% stable the whole time. Can't say anything with regards to the speed vs XP or Vista, since it's a brand new system (P8700, 4gb ram, GT240 video card) and it completely blows my old XP computer out of the water. Startup (especially from "sleep mode") seems a bit slow, but that might just be unidentified bloatware that I haven't removed yet.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
W7 owns Vista and all versions of OSX tracked (10.4-10.6 combined) already:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/21/windows-7-way-hotter-than-vista-off-the-line-now-more-popular-t/

We learned back in November that Windows 7 was having a much (much!) better first few days in retail than Vista did when it launched, but now that the system has had a full quarter and change to make an impression, it looks as if that growth isn't slowing down. According to new figures from Net Application, Win7 is achieving a higher level of market penetration in a faster amount of time than Vista did; after a month, Vista was stuck at 0.93 percent, while Win7 nailed the 4 percent mark. After two months, Win7 jumped to 5.71 percent, while Vista was barely over 2 percent after the same amount of time. 'Course, the newest version of Windows had a holiday season to help it out right from the get-go, but there's still no denying that people are flocking to the system even now. What's most interesting, however, is that the overall market share of Windows 7 alone has now surpassed all OS X versions that are being tracked (10.4, 10.5 and 10.6), so put that in your pipe and smoke it. Smoke it long and hard.
Click to expand...
 
Capricorn

Capricorn

Monkey
Jan 9, 2010
425
0
Cape Town, ZA
win7 rocks. Not saying it's completely perfect, what micro$oft product is?! But do yoursself a favor and just ditch 32-bit of anything and move over to 64-bit. Software support is much much better, and running 32-bit legacy software does work for a very very large percentage of the 32-bit install base. Having more than 4GB of memory is just sweet. None of that 3.2GB limitation BS you stuck with with 32-bit systems.
32-bit OS, vista and the floppy disk should all join turds at the bottom of the septic tank.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
Open My Computer, C:, then right click on program files and hit properties. That'll tell you the size. I bet you have a ton of garbage in there.

Go to your control panel and add/remove programs, see if there's stuff listed that you don't need.

I don't remember exactly what my Windows 7 install takes up but it comes on a single DVD, there's no physical way for it to take up 70gb of space. A DVD holds 4.7gb. Assuming it's completely full and they did some wonderful heavy compression on it, they might eek out 3:1 compression, putting the maximum size Windows could install at around 15gb.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
Westy said:
My biggest disappointment with 7 has been the incompatibility with older software.
Click to expand...
Really? I haven't found anything yet that won't run. Sometimes I have to specify it to run in compatibility mode but the only incompatibility I've found has been if a hardware manufacturer has chosen to not write a Vista/7 driver.
 
syadasti

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
I've only checked one computer, my Win7 installation is around 12GB.

Westy said:
My biggest disappointment with 7 has been the incompatibility with older software.
Click to expand...
You might try changing the installation or run settings (run as admin/compatibility mode/etc), I've yet to find any of my old programs that won't run.

If you have the proper CPU and Windows 7 version you can also virtualize with XP Mode (never needed to use this feature yet) -

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
So right click on your Windows folder and hit properties, see if the missing space is going there. You can browse your C: drive and poke around until you find your missing space.
 
binary visions

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
MMike said:
20 gb is my old stuff. 35 GB is stuff that came preinstalled. Win 7, Office, and whatever Dell installs in business machines. fact remains, my 130 GB hard drive is more than half full and I've had it for less than 24 hours.
Click to expand...
So uninstall stuff.
 
SkaredShtles

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
67,775
14,142
In a van.... down by the river
MMike said:
20 gb is my old stuff. 35 GB is stuff that came preinstalled. Win 7, Office, and whatever Dell installs in business machines. fact remains, my 130 GB hard drive is more than half full and I've had it for less than 24 hours.
Click to expand...
130GB is a tiny-a$$ hard drive. Either get a bigger one, uninstall some useless $hit, or quit your b1tching. :monkey:
 
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