Windows 7 v Vista

[bobson (Bob)]

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 (Warren)]

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 (Warren)]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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 (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by 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

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 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Ian Robinson

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

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

[Moonboy (Gus)]

Originally Posted by MrB

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)

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 (Simon)]

Originally Posted by Starkler

I still have my spare pc running win2k

Heh, I have a few old laptops laying around.. one is an XT 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 (Warren)]

Originally Posted by luka

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

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 (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by 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.

No - it was Vista itself.

Wiki:

Development of Windows Vista occurred over the span of five and a half years, starting in earnest in May 2001,[1] prior to the release of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and continuing until November 2006.

Microsoft originally expected to ship the new version sometime late in 2003 as a minor step between Windows XP (codenamed "Whistler") and Windows 7 (codenamed "Blackcomb" and "Vienna"). Vista's original codename, "Longhorn", was an allusion to this plan: While Whistler and Blackcomb are large ski resorts in British Columbia, Longhorn is the name of a bar between the two mountains that Whistler's visitors pass to reach Blackcomb. Gradually, "Longhorn" assimilated many of the important new features and technologies slated for "Blackcomb", resulting in the release date being pushed back a few times. Many of Microsoft's developers were also re-tasked with improving the security of Windows XP. Faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on August 27, 2004 that it was making significant changes. "Longhorn" development basically started afresh, building on the Windows Server 2003 codebase, and re-incorporating only the features that would be intended for an actual operating system release. Some previously announced features, such as WinFS and NGSCB, were dropped or postponed.

After "Longhorn" was named Windows Vista in mid-2005, an unprecedented beta-test program was started which involved hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies. Between September 2005 and October 2006, Microsoft released regular Community Technology Previews (CTP) to beta testers, and two release candidates to the general public. Development of Windows Vista came to a conclusion with the November 8, 2006 announcement of its completion by co-president of Windows development, Jim Allchin.

[Glenhuon (Bill)]

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 (Bill)]

Originally Posted by 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

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

Bill

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

No - it was Vista itself.

Wiki:

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 (Rob)]

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 (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[Jules76 (Julian)]

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.

Originally Posted by mithrandir

That means 8GB on this x64 box or the laptop. But with laptop 4GB DIMMs at over $1K each, in effect 4GB.

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.

Originally Posted by leinad

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

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/win...s-xp-mode.aspx

Originally Posted by Ian Robinson

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.

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 ). 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.

Originally Posted by luka

Windows 7 is something like Vista SP3... with fancy user interface and less memory hungry but basically the same deep down.

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?

Originally Posted by 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).

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.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by Jules76

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

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 (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by 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

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

Or M$'s Unix Services