Windows 7 v Vista

[telecasterguru]

Can somebody explain to me what would be achieved if I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7?

How would this affect the current programs that I run on my laptop?

Is it a good idea or not?

Why do people say that Vista has been a disaster? I have never had any problem with it.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated as I am not a computer person.

Frank

[gary]

Hi Frank,

Some might say the age old advice of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes
to mind. ;)

[DJDD]

i agree, if Vista works for you (lucky you!) then don't upgrade.

[MrB]

I have been using Vista SP1 for a year now and have never had a problem.
XP was only good once it's problems were sorted with service packs 1, 2 and 3.
Vista is now up to SP2.

What ever happened to PC magazine cover disks distributing Windows Service Packs?
I want to install SP2 but it's far too big for me to download (dialup) :(

[Rod66]

Hi Frank.

Upgrade to Windows 7 like your life depended on it. You will notice a vast improvement. One of the easiest upgrades to ever grace the face of a computer screen and by far the best operating system Windows has been able to put out for consumers. (not including Windows 2008).

Speed is the single biggest improvement.

Just do it... :D

cheers

Rod

ps I'm leaving for an undisclosed overseas destination now, so I'd be happy to hear how the upgrade went on my return... one day.. honest...

[dpastern]

1) I agree, I have no idea why people have incessantly whinged about Vista - I've used it since May 2009 without issue. I know many people who have similar experiences

2) If it ain't broke don't fix it. Never a truer motto

3) NEVER upgrade imho. Upgrade process causes a wide variety of issues from my experience. Windows just breaks...I always recommend backing up data, wiping existing system, clean install, import data. It's the *safest* way from my vast experience. Not necessarily the easiest, or fastest, but the safest.

Dave

[telecasterguru]

Thanks everyone.

One concern that I have is that it costs nearly $400 to upgrade and think this is a bit rich.

XP to Vista and now Windows 7. If Vista is so terrible they shouldn't charge to upgrade to the operating system that it should have been.

Frank

[MrB]

Frank, Microsoft do offer a free Vista to Win7 upgrade path... conditions apply though.
I do not qualify :(

Check here if you qualify: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/buy/offers/upgrade-option.aspx

[toryglen-boy]

i would check on driver support first.

I have been using W7 now for months, and i can see very little difference with it and Vista SP1

:)

[mithrandir]

Vista is such a wonderful thing that work still downgrade every new PC/laptop to XP SP2 before delivering it.



I can cut you a CD if that helps.

[MrB]

Cheers Andrew, will help heaps.
Sent you a PM.

[Tandum]

Windows7 will use half the memory of vista to boot and sit idle, it will run software that vista won't and it's far more stable than vista. They are on a winner with this one.

If you are one of the 2% of people that are happy with Vista, stick with it.

[mswhin63]

Windows 7 upgrade and complaints may have been self generated. Can you imagine Microsoft providing a stable software that could be used forever, that wouldn't make nowhere near enough money.

Windows 7 is visually appealing and expected to suit the masses. So spend your money folks.:bashcomp:

[Harpspitfire]

id rather buy a new computer/win7 then upgrade, but let me ask this- i use XP and am happy with it, no problems and it runs all my astro stuff- i use a computer for basic info, occasional buying, photoshop, astro programs and mail-- is there a point in me even buying a win7 computer?

[dpastern]

With the current computer, probably not. Any future computers will have x64 CPUs, so newer operating systems have x64 options, and you can grab them and have more RAM in your machine that you can use. If you don't need the RAM, then stick with what you're using (if it works for you and you're happy).

Dave

[mithrandir]

Try telling the laptop/notebook manufacturers that all boxes are to have 64 bit CPUs.:rofl:
The limit on the amount of RAM you can have is the product of slots and maximum supported DIMM sizes, not the 17,179,869,184GB that the address bus allows. That means 8GB on this x64 box or the laptop. But with laptop 4GB DIMMs at over $1K each, in effect 4GB.

[dpastern]

Well, that's laptops for you Andrew. One reason why I'm not a fan (proprietary hardware). Most laptops these days are Intel dual cores, which obviously support x64. I wouldn't recommend buying a laptop that wasn't.

Dave

[leinad]

I was running Vista on this lappy with 2GB mem, 2Ghz Centrino Duo.
Just loaded Windows 7 RTM and loading all software back on. Boot up times are fast!

Windows 7 has XP Emulation built in, so all your XP compatible programs should work without a problem.?

[supernova1965]

Vista is such a wonderful thing that work still downgrade every new PC/laptop to XP SP2 before delivering it.



I always called that an upgrade when I did it for a client:lol:

[telecasterguru]

My desk top runs XP service pack 3 and that is when the problems really started.
I still can't get it to run properly but I have no idea how togo back to SP2.

Frank

[bobson]

Frank,

Microsoft has it on their website how to uninstall SP3 for XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950249

I would recommend BACKING UP all important data before you do it.

SP3 is known to cause problems for many users, some even go that far to suggest Microsoft deliberately made it this way so people buy Win 7.

Good luck

bob

[Ian Robinson]

Vista is pretty resource hungry, and full of bloatware.

I've stuck with XP , and see no compelling or good reason to get to Win7.

But I held out for years with W98 too unlil my old notebook was killed by a power surge , and my old P2 desktop keeled over.

From what I've heard , W7 is supposed to be a leaner beast than Vista .

I'd suggest holding off parting with your money until W7 SP1 is released as Windows OSs are always full of bugs and glitches when released.

[supernova1965]

I am running SP3 on all my XP machines and they are running fine. I don't know what may have happened with your install but when SP3 installs it creates a system restore point you should be able to go back to that I think or any that you have setup before by yourself. Hope this helps

[supernova1965]

Hi
You could always install the release candidate and use that for free right up to October next year when it will start shutting down every 2 hours if you get the media off the net I have spare product keys I can supply free of course as to windows always being buggy I agree but I have to say that I have been using Win7 for a year now and have not found any serious problems with it.

[Ian Robinson]

Nah.... I wont be spending my money on W7 any time soon. I am not interested in making MS or Gates or his cronnies any richer thankyou , on the principle of it.

XP Pro SP3 works for me.... if it aint broke , why fix it .

[mithrandir]

When I said work supplies new boxes with XP SP2, I didn't mention they also set the reg keys so SP3 will not install.

They'd only do that because of problems they know of with software we use.

[Starkler]

I still have my spare pc running win2k :lol:
It will still do anything I require of it as an emergency backup machine.

[Moonboy]

You still can get PC magazines with service packs on them.
I brought a PC User Magazine a few months back with vista SP2 on it...
I didnt need it but i gave it to a mate for his birthday, he loved it :)

[MrB]

Heh, I have a few old laptops laying around.. one is an XT (http://www.retrothing.com/2005/12/oddball_micros_.html) so runs DOS, one has Win3.11 on it, one has Win95c, two with Win98SE, old desktop with Win2K and this lappie with Vista.

Good fun firing up those old lappies now and then.

[luka]

When Vista came out it was a half-baked system with missing drivers, very slow user interface, fully loaded with DRM crap...
On the top of that it was very resource hungry and you basically needed a very fast computer to run it. This limited the market for it and, to make things worse, Micro$oft decided to label computers with low specifications as Vista compatible to increase profits. Of course Vista would run like a dog on them leading to lots of complains...
Things have improved a bit with the subsequent service packs... but it is still a very resource hungry and slow OS.


Windows 7 is something like Vista SP3... with fancy user interface and less memory hungry but basically the same deep down.
But instead of releasing it as Vista SP3 Micro$oft saw a great money making opportunity and has turned the Vista mistake into a Windows 7 success. Basically they waited for the drivers to mature and hardware to catch up and made a huge advertising campaign... which seems to be working well.

What happened with the new technologies Longhorn was promising to bring???

[supernova1965]

To the best of my knowledge Longhorn was the code name for the Server OS that was being worked on when they were testing Vista. I was at TAFE doing CERT IV in Information Technology when they were released and we had both Vista and Longhorn released to our Trainer to practice on.

[Omaroo]

No - it was Vista itself.

Wiki:

[Glenhuon]

Installed Win 7 on this machine a couple of days ago and apart from the not unexpected upgrades to drivers and some programs it went really well. Only found two small programs out of the many I have on here that do not run. Noiseware and another minor one.
My wireless internet is running much smoother and faster than it did with XP.
I did the hard way, backed up the data, installed Vista for a couple of hours (multiple things would'nt work) and then 7 over the top of it. All my files etc came through intact, programs/drivers that wouldn't work with Vista did. A few things that were iffy were fixed by automatic updates over yesterday.
Had to re-install AVG freee, Spyware doctor, Registry mechanic, Video and Printer drivers manually, but no hassles doing these.
MS got it right this time, make sure the OEM vendors had the updates ready before releasing 7.
Looking at the instructions it appears you can upgrade from XP, but your files and settings will be lost.

Bill

[Glenhuon]

Upgrade here from Harvey Norman was $180 + a free TV dongle thrown in.
Comes with 32 and 64bit install disks

Bill

[dpastern]

The earliest released snapshots were longhorn I believe. The name change to Vista was a decision made very late in the development process. I remember seeing screenshots from osdir many years ago (with longhorn).

Dave

[OzRob]

I bought a new laptop with Vista pre-loaded. After a month it would not boot. I stupidly tried twice to reinstall the OS only for it to do the same. In effect I paid for the lastest version of software and ended up using the previous version like so many other people. I'll be waiting to see how this version goes before even considering upgrading.

[AstroJunk]

Why didn't you take it back if it was faulty?

[Jules76]

OK, I need to set some things straight and clarify what some people have said. :) I don't want to come across as a "know it all", but I've been playing around with PC's for about 20 years, been working in the industry for about 8 years, and I've been an "Official" Microsoft Beta tester (not these public releases they do now) for about 12 years. So I like to think I know a thing or two about PC's and have seen first hand the development of many an OS. ;)




I don't know where your getting $1K each from, that's WAY overpriced. Wholesale price inc GST for 1 x 4GB SODIMM is about $220 for DDR2 and about $500 for DDR3. Considering HP, Dell etc have HUGE buying power in comparison, they can easily do it for less.



Windows XP Compatibility Mode is a seperate download and is only available for Professional and Ultimate. Most people are going to go for the cheaper Premium so that will catch a lot of people out. Also, your CPU needs to support Hardware Virtualisation (Intel VT for Intel CPU's and AMD-V for AMD CPU's). Again unforunately, a lot of the cheaper CPU's don't support this. This feature is more marketed towards business users and "power users" (enthusiasts).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization has a list of CPU's known to support Virtualisation.

However in saying that, Windows XP Mode works great. It is basically a copy of Windows XP which is run within a virtual machine. Any program which runs on XP will run in there. And the beauty of it all is that any program you install within this Windows XP, will appear on your start menu in Windows 7 for easy use.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/windows-xp-mode.aspx



From my experience Beta Testing with Microsoft, I would have to say without a doubt that Windows 7 is the best operating system they have released as far as stability and glitches go. Right from very early in the testing stage (I'm talking way before RC), it was very stable and reliable, and this was a common feeling amongst fellow testers I've known for years. Trust me, I've seen my fair share of OS's to know this, and some really buggy ones (Windows Millenium says hi :rofl:). I've just never seen an OS from Microsoft so well polished so early in it's development in 12 years of testing!

If you said Vista, I'd agree with you. :thumbsup:



Yes it's true, Windows 7 was developed from Vista code. The same could be said for Vista which was developed from Windows XP code. And in turn Windows XP which was developed from Windows 2000 code. I admit this is a bit of an oversimplification, as a lot of the code does get reworked, but this is what basically happens.

At some point you need to draw the line and have a seperate product. But perhaps we should instead call it Windows 2000 Service Pack 10?



Codenames, like Longhorn etc, are just names they give the OS during it's development, they are never intended to be final.


As for my oppinion on the OS, it's great. :) There's really not much more I can add to the positive things people have already mentioned about stability, speed, less resources etc. Whether or not you wish to go to Windows 7 is really up to your circumstances. If your happy with what you have, don't upgrade. It's really only people that enjoy having the latest technology who feel the need to upgrade. However if your in the market for buying a new PC, do yourself a favour and get Windows 7. You can't go wrong. :thumbsup:

[dpastern]

I'm well aware of that. Whilst I haven't beta tested officially for Microsoft before, I have beta tested for another operating system. I've also done y2k testing for probably the largest federal department many years ago now. When Microsoft provides a good command line, it'll be something to cheer about. Show me something like gawk/sed/cut/sort in DOS ;-)

Dave

[mithrandir]

cygwin. Shame they have to use LessTif. OpenMotif is so much reliable.

Or M$'s Unix Services

[dpastern]

Screw that Andrew. Rather use Linux or BSD any day, might as well use the *real* thing lol.

Dave

[mithrandir]

Or AIX, or Solaris, or HP-UX.

But given that you might be forced to use M$ for political reasons, cygwin http://www.cygwin.com (http://www.cygwin.com/) or UnixUtils http://sourceforge.net/projects/unxutils/ , or M$ Unix Services http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=896c9688-601b-44f1-81a4-02878ff11778&displaylang=en give you an approximation of a *real* O/S.

Andrew

[supernova1965]

The only thing stopping Linux from taking off for the home user is lack of all the games that you can play on Windows. For serious work I use Linux

[mithrandir]

If you want to play games, buy a PS3, or Wii, or DS, or XBox.

[Kal]

I'll be building a new box for W7 soon (already started buying components). I've bypassed vista on all fronts, never used it at home, and it was only rolled out where I work (hp) within the last year on refreshed work pc's so I never used it there either.

[Kevnool]

Ah windows 7 now i went into our local shop with the cash to purchase but put it back in my pocket when i asked him about upgrading my Toshiba A300 from XP to 7 then he has told me its no go as it wont overwrite,

He then went on to tell me i have to go back to toshiba and get every driver i need then fresh install.

So i scratched my head walked back out with the cash in my pocket and still to this day i`m still wondering why.

Not that i,m really worried about it but i did want to do the upgrade at that time but now i just don't seem fussed about it at the moment but later on when techies now a bit more i may convert then.

Cheers Kev.

[supernova1965]

What he meant was that you can't do an upgrade from XP to WIN 7 because Microsoft have made big changes from XP to WIN 7 and the differences mean you cant upgrade you have to backup all your data and format your Hard Drive and do clean install. A pain because you have to reinstall all your software but I personally think that the improvements make it worth while. As for drivers from what I can see of your Lappy on the net I think that you would have no trouble there should be heaps of drivers for that one.

[Starkler]

For me theres just too many things that I can only do in windows.

I have spent too much time in linux manually editing configs, trying to configure, patch,compile and otherwise mess about just to make things work like windows does out of the box.

If I wanted to build a server box I would use linux, for everything else windows just makes it easy, and it just works.

[Tandum]

You won't get Bluray on linux either :(

[Kevnool]

Thx Warren looks like the upgrade will have to wait till something happens to this lappie....... i.e blue screen of death.

Cheers Kev.

[Tandum]

Kev, if it works why try and break it? From a dealer point of view, Win7 is a god send, it downloads all the drivers it wants from the net but most are inside the package. I'm so sick of finding xp drivers for del/hp/toshy/asus/all the rest out there. You go to the download page and there are 4 drivers for 4 different wireless cards in the same model. It sux ....