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Old 10-22-2009, 02:07 AM   #1
Richard Waller
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Default Windows 7 - 22 Oct

The day has dawned. Has everybody got Windows 7 installed? Any comments?

   
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Old 10-22-2009, 03:00 AM   #2
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Seems similar to Vista for the most part.

Extra features will some time getting used to.

One thing I really appreciate is Microsoft's Free Virus Protection
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Old 10-22-2009, 05:45 AM   #3
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My understanding is that W7 is Vista, fixed.

I'm in no rush to move to it ... I still like XP. I prefer waiting at least three to six months to let the eager ones beta test the software for me.
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Old 10-22-2009, 06:05 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by donmcc View Post
let the eager ones beta test the software for me.
We have quoted before on this topic. When a system goes live, just 50% of the bugs have surfaced; the rest will be found by the innocent users who always have new ways to screw up.

   
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Old 10-23-2009, 02:14 AM   #5
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As previously mentioned here, I have been using Win7 in beta and lately in RC version on two PCs with no issues. It is given an elderly laptop a new lease of life, having a (relatively) small system resource requirement.

Our first release version (at special student rate) was downloading from Digital River at 2 minutes past midnight yesterday, and used to update a Vista machine yesterday morning. The full update took a little over 3 hours, as even though it seemed complete well before then and the system could be used, there was a lot of disk & processor activity which I guess was related to housekeeping required after an upgrade. The clean installs made with beta & RC were much quicker.

Interestingly, at an early stage in the update all programs are checked for compatibility. It spotted that Pinnacle Studio 12 is incompatible with Win7 and advised removal before continuing with the install. No problem with the current Studio 14, though.

The upgraded PC runs a quad core AMD Phenom and it is already obvious from the CPU usage gadget that I have on the desktop, that the OS makes more use of the 4 cores than Vista did, and the whole system seems much more responsive & faster.

Then at about 10am two full copies on DVD arrived from Amazon, ready to go on the PCs currently using RC. A further copy to update a recently purchased Toshiba laptop won't be arriving until early December, apparently because Tosh have not yet finished required changes to their drivers, and will be shipping Win7 and driver DVDs in the same package.

   
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Old 10-22-2009, 06:21 AM   #6
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Well I've had the RTM real deal version installed for tha best part of a month now via MSDNAA. It IS similar to vista. Hoewver, it is more polished and slicker!

Installing W7 took just 15-20 mins! Mind you, I do have an Intel Quad Core Xeon rated at 2.13Ghz and overclocked to 2.8Ghz, so i gues that helps!

The Aero Galss effect is more intelligent as the trasparency effect works on maxmised title bars as well. The task bar is fully transparent and pinning apps to tha taskbar works a treat. One neat touch is the download indicator. You know whenyou download a file from a site and you get a dialogue box popping up with a green progress bar telling you how that X% of the file has been downloaded? Well, you get a progress bar on the IE icon on the taskbar too! Dunno if this works for Firefox.

IE was very slow a times when running Vista as was Firefox, hence my moving to Chrome which was tollererable. IE on W7 is now much, much faster than it ever was on Vista.

MS seems to have gotten the feature set right on the different versions. If you wanted the multimedia and home entertainment features, you bought Vista Home prem or Ultimate. If you wanted the business features, you got Vista Business or Ultimate. Vista Ultimate had all features included. Now you can get W7 Pro and enjoy EXACTLY the same MM and entertainment features of Home Prem. You can play DVD's without any extra software!

My main criticism is in the pricing. Full versions of W7 Home Prem costs £99.99 at a well know retailer, here in Britain. W7 Pro costs £147.99 whilst W7 Ultimate costs £153.99, just £6 more than W7 Pro! W7 Ultimate is surplus to reqs in terms of fetures as it contains only a couple of extras over W7 Pro. On the other hand, W7 Pro is surplus to reqs on price grounds as it's just a few pounds cheaper than W7 Ultimate! If buying W7 other than Home Prem, then Ultimate is the way to go.

W7 Pro takes up 'only' 14.3Gb on my HD. I say 'only' because Vista Business took up over 20Gb and did less! Anyone with a PC running Vista at a good speed will not need to worry if their unit will be able to run W7. The only thing I upgraded in my PC for W7 was the HD. everything else stayed the same.

With regards to drivers, W7 is a star! Vista had a big problem at first with regards to drivers. Partly down to lazy hardwar mfrs not getting drivers ready on time! W7 can use Vista drivers with no worries. More to the point, the driver disk for my motherboard is now going to gather dust as it is now redundant. I had to use it to install drivers after a fresh Vista install. Now with W7, all the drivers are installed from the W7 disk! With Vista, the drivers for my Soundblaster soundcard installed okay fom the web. However, the sound would often be lost when my PC woke out of standby. Now with W7, the drivers install from the web in the same way. However, much more software install options are offered. Not only that, but the standby sound issue is solved too! My monitor and Lexmark colour laser printer all have native W7 drivers installed too.

Software is no problem either. MS Office 2007 installs and operates perfectly as expected as does Adobe CS4 Design Std. Indeed, they run better in W7 than they did in Vista. On the whole, I find W7 a very positive experience.

Hope this has not bored you too much!!!
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Old 10-22-2009, 02:42 PM   #7
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Quote:
Installing W7 took just 15-20 mins! Mind you, I do have an Intel Quad Core Xeon rated at 2.13Ghz and overclocked to 2.8Ghz, so i gues that helps
I expect doing a clean instal, as you seem to have done,helped too. It took me 114 min (from putting in the DVD to restarting a program) to upgrade, but I didn't have to reinstal anything.

   
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Old 10-22-2009, 06:51 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Beloved View Post
One thing I really appreciate is Microsoft's Free Virus Protection
You don't need Win 7 for that. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download for XP and Vista, too.
--Judy M.

   
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Old 10-22-2009, 07:11 PM   #9
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I ordered a copy during the 50% off sale last summer. I got an e-mail from BestBuy saying Win 7 is in the mail. It should arrive by Monday, I hope.

I'm going to install it as a dual boot with XP.
--Judy M.

   
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Old 10-22-2009, 10:49 AM   #10
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Not that it matters much but shouldn't this thread be in Software? what does it have to do with Web Site Building & Maintenance?

   
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