Windows 7

[raptorrex]

any of you actually using windows 7 atm? what do you think?

 

[mike os]

I'll let you know 2 weeks after sp1 is released .... maybe LOL

 

[Truck]

had the beta, i still prefer XP

 

[andywg]

Playing with it as it is a way to get a free (for now) 64 Bit OS to take advantage of gaming with the new computer (why sell a computer with 4GB of RAM and close to another 2.5GB VRAM with only a 32bit OS which can only map 4 GB total?).

So far it looks quite nice. Certainly a step up from Vista and a little more ergonomic. It isn't the same as XP, but that isn't the worst thing in the world. Being someone who also uses Ubuntu and OSX (Tiger) I can see that in some areas Windows still has a long way to go, but at least they are starting to make some moves in the right direction.

 

[raptorrex]

Playing with it as it is a way to get a free (for now) 64 Bit OS to take advantage of gaming with the new computer (why sell a computer with 4GB of RAM and close to another 2.5GB VRAM with only a 32bit OS which can only map 4 GB total?).

So far it looks quite nice. Certainly a step up from Vista and a little more ergonomic. It isn't the same as XP, but that isn't the worst thing in the world. Being someone who also uses Ubuntu and OSX (Tiger) I can see that in some areas Windows still has a long way to go, but at least they are starting to make some moves in the right direction.

cant get the rubbish to work. needs a hard reset every time i use ie and nearly as often for firefox. top it off its destroyed my image, so i am unable to downgrade, without paying for a disk from MS. thats full vista price!!!!!!!!when it does work, its not bad. hate being ripped off though. try to help with develpment, and get a £100 bill.

 

[raptorrex]

well i finally got the machine sorted. for god sake, everyone, don't do an "upgrade" install. use the "custom" setting.

7 is up and running fine. though i have yet to use it in anger, it is stable and much quicker than the vista install. being a DELL it is most likely as close to the Microsoft "ideal" for a windows 7 install, so i have no hardware conflicts to report.

I'm not keen on the new "LIVE" but will get used to it. not that much to report, though i like the new PAINT, and Calculator (built in converter).

more reports to come.

 

[saltynay]

Truckasaurus why do you prefer xp is it the layout or the speed? If its the speed and you have access to a students email (childs) you can register for a free copy of server 08 you can then install this and install vista gui this makes vista 5-15% faster in a general view of applications the drawbacks are that some games may not work although I haven't had any problems and some anti-viruses you need the server edition as opposed to the desktop.

Andywg VM ram does not affect your total its graphics ram that does, if you believe you have sufficient ram turn off the paging file. Your pc will make bootup faster however some apps may demand it be turned on so try it for a while and change if you run into problems. If you have a retail copy of vista then the key can be exchanged between the 64 bit and 32 bit version although you will have to torrent the disks or request one from windows for £8 last time I checked. If you like linux you my like to look up Maryan its a very good E17 distro.

Boboboy what are you talking about it corrupting a disk image for vista, when you buy vista you buy the activation code not the media e.g. dvd that you install it from that is generic any code will work with it providing its the right edition (home, business, etc) unless its an oem then you also need the right bit version

Its a beta why would you install it as your main OS unless you are a beta tester this is why betas for OS's shouldn't be open to joe bloggs. It is nowhere near as stable as vista or server 08 (with a vista gui) I have BSOD 50+ times because its a beta your meant to push its limits not use as everyday although you can if you wish but it runs out on august the 1st so little point. Unless you are prepared to lose the data originally on the hdd partition, partition the hdd or use it in virtual computer so that your data is not harmed.

 

[Truck]

Truckasaurus why do you prefer xp is it the layout or the speed? If its the speed and you have access to a students email (childs) you can register for a free copy of server 08 you can then install this and install vista gui this makes vista 5-15% faster in a general view of applications the drawbacks are that some games may not work although I haven't had any problems and some anti-viruses you need the server edition as opposed to the desktop.

both, is it me or do some people just find vista like a migrain? flashy colours everywhere really annoying.

 

[saltynay]

I think its just you and all those colours and effects can be turned off very easily but if your happy why spend money on an upgrade you don't need/want spend lets you have more money for your aquariums

 

[mike os]

both, is it me or do some people just find vista like a migrain? flashy colours everywhere really annoying.

I find vista to be the best OS microsoft has released to date......xp included, you just have to have the right hardware to run it, software wise it offers better support for legacy than xp, and in real terms is just as fast and far far more stable...

 

[saltynay]

Actually statistically its not as fast but every new version of windows is a bit slower because the previous version was designed for hardware that is 3 years old (traditional gap between windows versions xp was the exception). Its very stable though and an excellent all round OS its designed for hardware of the times however one of my pcs is a pentium 4 which I built 4 years ago and it happily runs vista. Its not that much slower then the one I am on now which oldest part is 4 months old, severely overclocked and watercooled.

 

[andywg]

Andywg VM ram does not affect your total its graphics ram that does, if you believe you have sufficient ram turn off the paging file. Your pc will make bootup faster however some apps may demand it be turned on so try it for a while and change if you run into problems. If you have a retail copy of vista then the key can be exchanged between the 64 bit and 32 bit version although you will have to torrent the disks or request one from windows for £8 last time I checked. If you like linux you my like to look up Maryan its a very good E17 distro.

But Video Ram, as in Graphics Ram, or RAM on the graphics card does affect the total RAM which is pageable. I don't recall putting VM RAM in my posts, if I did I apologise.

I don't have a retail Vista and having used Windows 7 there is no way at all that I will go back to Vista once retail 7 comes out. I quite like Linux, but hate having to often spend a long time getting fairly simple things to work, even with Ubuntu. That's why my "normal use" computers (web surfing, email, word processing) are Macs.

I find vista to be the best OS microsoft has released to date......xp included, you just have to have the right hardware to run it, software wise it offers better support for legacy than xp, and in real terms is just as fast and far far more stable...

Once 7 comes out I predict you may change your mind. 7 is flexible enough that my work's IT department have it running fine on a Pentium III . It is basically what Vista should have been, a stable OS with backwards compatibility and able to run on a multitude of machines, rather than:

 

[7755matt]

I had Win7 as a dual boot with Vista64 and 've just deleted the partition and gone back to Vista. I love vista, best OS i've used, only thing I would do is integrate the UAC differences from Win7

 

[saltynay]

But Video Ram, as in Graphics Ram, or RAM on the graphics card does affect the total RAM which is pageable. I don't recall putting VM RAM in my posts, if I did I apologise.

I don't have a retail Vista and having used Windows 7 there is no way at all that I will go back to Vista once retail 7 comes out. I quite like Linux, but hate having to often spend a long time getting fairly simple things to work, even with Ubuntu. That's why my "normal use" computers (web surfing, email, word processing) are Macs.

I find vista to be the best OS microsoft has released to date......xp included, you just have to have the right hardware to run it, software wise it offers better support for legacy than xp, and in real terms is just as fast and far far more stable...

Once 7 comes out I predict you may change your mind. 7 is flexible enough that my work's IT department have it running fine on a Pentium III . It is basically what Vista should have been, a stable OS with backwards compatibility and able to run on a multitude of machines, rather than:

I don't think you can trade between 32 to 64 bit on OEM copies but not completely sure I got one of the mods (the ones who get betas a week before public launches and inside scoops) on Microsoft software developers network to email microsoft directly and last time I checked they hadn't replied. You could always try and torrent the disk for your version and install, backing up your data ofcourse

32bit = 4gb addressing capacity made up of a 750mb reserve in xp and a 875mb reserve in vista for addon cards such as graphics cards, soundcards, etc. Second priority is physical ram sticks or dimms which complete the rest of this capacity and virtually lose the potential difference.

Page file: Using the hdd as ram it stores the info in preparation for cpu calculations but is slower then the ram, it is however has more stamina as A mechanical hdd can write to the same sector an almost infinite amount of times. A Flash based or Solid state disk can write to a disk a set amount of times which is set at manufacture. The paging file is windows dump folder it is written to almost every minute with new data which is fine with a mechanical hdd it does hinder performance slightly with a SSD harddrive it doesn't hinder performance much but it does kill the drive which is expensive.

You can turn off the paging file forcing the computer to only use ram which gives you a nice performance boost at startup as the slower hdd is not used, the problem with this is that some programs won't run without a paging file they have it written into there core architecture you gould have 16gb of ram and it would never run until you set a paging file. These programs are not ones that the general home user would use except photoshop may have this but the paging file is easily turned on and off.

Have you got an antivirus for Mac contrary to there adverts the very first virus to be rapidly spread was designed to exclusively affect macs and there are still people distributing viruses for macs. Ubuntu isn't a good OS its popular and ok as a springboard to get started but its in a constant state of development that never results in anything beneficial they can't make serious improvements to the core of the OS within 6 months.

Vista is not a memory hog it uses 30-40% of memory to preload your programs it predicts what you are going to open next and preloads it so that it opens near instantly. If you don't want that feature you can turn it off. I am not a vista lover it has flaws it should not however be directly flamed or insto facto thrown in the trash its a good operating system. OSX has a great interface and is really well optimised it helps that to run OSX you need to have hardware it supports letting them write the software which is perfect for the hardware involved, windows needs to work for everyone and all hardware.

 

[mike os]

so win7 beta is looking good andy?