Here Comes Windows 7.

[Tandum]

Please don't bash Microsoft in this thread. This is just a heads up.

Windows 7 is due for Public release on October 22nd. XP is almost 8 years old and about to be withdrawn from the market. I have been running various versions of Windows 7 for several months now and I believe it is one of the best Windows yet.

I have recently received the release version so I bought a new hard drive today and installed the 32bit version on my astro laptop. I have been running the 64bit version exclusively on my desktops until now.

All my astro applications and cameras installed without issue however if I used the QHY5 drivers from the QHY website instead of Gama's site, it thought the camera was a some sort of TV card and would not install it. The only problem I see at the moment is with the WSC polar alignment program. It throws up a .net error for trying to write to restricted registry areas and fails to ask me for my registration information when I start it, but it runs regardless.

The software uses about 700meg of ram at idle and I find it quicker than the previous XP installation on this 2gig single cored Celeron laptop with 2 gig of ram. This may be because I can now run the hard drive in AHCI mode instead of IDE mode which is significantly faster, or it could be because this new hard drive spins at 7200RPM instead of 5400RPM or it could be both.

If your about to buy a pc, make sure you get one with the Windows 7 Upgrade option. Your a mug if ya don't.

[dugnsuz]

My IT drummer friend (strange juxtaposition I know...) reckons it's a very sweet OS - but have to add that he's swapped over to Ubuntu and loves that too!!
Doug

[Tandum]

My kid runs ubuntu off a usb stick :)
He won't install it proper cos it won't play games :)

[dugnsuz]

Yeah my IT friend says the same - tiny footprint, fast as s@#t!!!!, but only good for basic tasks!
Doug

[Omaroo]

Good stuff Robin. By all accounts it should be a good release. I've run it under a VM environment on my QuadCore and it screams. Stable as heck, but then again, so Vista 64 has been too. So good to leave XP and it's inabilities behind once and for all. :thumbsup:

[sadia]

I am running the 32bit as well and couldn't get the Metauide running. Anyoneelse had the same issue?

[danielsun]

The only issue I had with windows 7 was it would not run "Open GL " to run Starry Night pro plus 6.

[Jules76]

Windows 7 is a damn fine OS. I was involved in the official Microsoft Beta Program (not the public release) so I've seen the OS from early development up, and even those early builds ran much better then Vista. That was VERY impressive considering early builds usually don't have much in the way of optimisations in the code.

I've been running the final RTM build for about a month now on all my PC's and it's a great OS to use which runs on a lot less resources then Vista. Even my ASUS Netbook with 2GB of RAM, 1.60GHz Atom Processor and a tiny 8GB SSD* drive runs Windows 7 Starter Edition (the edition designed for Netbooks) perfecty.

* In case your wondering, after install on my 8GB SSD drive I had about 1.5GB free. This is fine for me as I only use my Netbook for Stellarium and basic web browsing/email etc. Windows 7 has a much smaller install size compared to Vista.




Sounds like it could be a driver issue more than anything. I've been running Stellarium (which also uses OpenGL) on my Netbook and PC without any issues with Windows 7.

[Omaroo]

...which is the responsibility of the graphics card vendor Daniel, not MS. :) Have you installed the very, very latest drivers for your card?

[danielsun]

It was a few months ago now and at the time had the latest drivers but I now know that there is a NVIDA upgrade available so other than that I think Windows 7 will be a much welcomed OS.


Cheers Daniel.

[mithrandir]

I've decided ATI's support for OpenGL in both Windows and Linux is so poor that the Radeon HD2900XT - in all other respects an excellent card - will have to go in favour of an NVidia card.

[TheDecepticon]

I really wanna try it, it has all the looks and sounds of a good system and I'm really getting tired of old faithful and reliable XP(I think XP has been a great system, limited, but very good). Is VM ware freeware so I could give it a bash?

[garyp]

Well I have just purchased a new computer with vista and it has an upgrade to windows 7. My old one I still have with XP on it. I am enjoying reading this thread as I have only just got Vista and wondered how much better windows 7 is. Sounds like it might be good from reading here.

prehaps I'll upgrade.

Cheers
Gary:)

[DJDD]

yes, it is. VMware ESXi is freeware.

[DJDD]

I am waiting until it is officially released rather than getting Vista and upgrading. I would rather start from a fresh install.

of course, I could just use a technet license as I have to evaluate the OS...

[Omaroo]

You may also try Sun VirtualBox - which I've found faster than VMware on just about every platform I've tried it on. Might be worth a crack - and it's free too. :thumbsup:

http://www.sun.com/software/products/virtualbox/get.jsp

[Kevnool]

Let us know if you get it up and running.
Cheers Kev.

[AstroJunk]

Mine works perfectly with openGL and Starry Night 4.5 Pro Plus, so once your drivers are sorted I'm sure it will be fine.