Windows 7

[w00dland]

Who jumped in and made the upgrade?

I personally reformatted this weekend by taking advantage of the student price for Windows 7. It's only 30 bucks if you can prove that you're in college, which is a MAJOR discount. Actually the first legit copy of windows I've used in a really long time, and I've gotta say the updates are kinda nice. Overall I havn't experienced any real problems, and for the most part its been a very pleasing experience. Better than Vista thus far for me...

[BrianPlencner]

I have actually been running the Release Candidate since it came out in April (Windows 7 Ultimate x64) and have never had any problems.

Back in October I attended a launch party for Windows 7, and everyone got a free version of Windows 7 Ultimate x32. Since the 32 bit key works with the 64 bit version as well, I reformatted and installed that version.

So far, I love it. It does everything that I want it to do, and more.

My system:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3.0 GHz
Memory: 8 GB DDR2
HD: 500 GB
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 9400 GT Video Card - 512GB DDR2

WIll be upgrading the video card to a 1 GB here soon.

--Brian

[Goku1910]

I've made the jump using a student discount as well.

Thing I love about Windows 7:

Resume windows after unexpected shutdown
Comes out of sleep faster
Old Games work (Worms World Party)
Windows auto Tile
Custom Themes

Things I don't like

Huge Icons (Changeable)
No Dreamscene (needs hack)
No fast user-switching still

[Goku1910]

Video Card: EVGA GeForce 9400 GT Video Card - 512GB DDR2

WIll be upgrading the video card to a 1 GB here soon.

--Brian

I'm quite the computer wiz here Brian, not just the memory size of the card matters. Things you want to pay most attention to is stream pipelines. Those determine how much data the GPU can handle at one time.

No sense of having more memory without a fast GPU processor to use it.

If you're looking for high-end, I recommend the Nvidia GTX 260

[FRD714]

Let me guess, Windows 7 was your idea too?

[rct2wizard360]

mac os x snow leopard

...oh wait

[Goku1910]

mac os x snow leopard

...oh wait

^Too expensive, I paid $20 for Windows 7.

haha, silly people with their macs.

[BrianPlencner]

^ $20. Ha! I got mine for FREE!

Also, Tigerdirect.com has been running a contest for the past month (think it goes till the end of the year) where they are giving away 77 systems with a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate for 77 days. Forget exactly when it started (I think back in October on the launch date). So, you may want to check that out as well.

--Brian

[w00dland]

mac os x snow leopard

...oh wait

^Too expensive, I paid $20 for Windows 7.

haha, silly people with their macs.

I'd really rather this thread not turn into a Mac vs. PC competition. Both systems have their pros and cons, and neither side will back down.

[Goku1910]

Well mac is more secure because Virus creators don't attack to the lower amount of users. That's a pro.

But the way I see it, is 64-bit systems are more complicated with architecture, so they are harder to attack anyway. So PC kinda evens out with Mac on that one.

Virus creators don't bother attacking mac as much because they know not many people are using it compared to PC. But I can care less, I know what I'm doing and I know what NOT to do to get infected.

[Director_Guy]

I have a Mac but my gal has a pc with Vista and supposedly can upgrade to 7 for free... have yet to do that, though.

[Goku1910]

I have a Mac but my gal has a pc with Vista and supposedly can upgrade to 7 for free... have yet to do that, though.

The biggest improvement I've see is how fast it comes out of sleep mode. It's pretty impressive.

[sfgamfan717]

Wait, if I have Windows Vista I can upgrade to Windows 7 for free? I thought you had to pay.

[Goku1910]

Wait, if I have Windows Vista I can upgrade to Windows 7 for free? I thought you had to pay.

Yes you do.

as for how much it will cost depends. If you have a valid student e-mail ending in .edu you can get either Windows 7 Professional, or Home Premium for $20

If you have Vista Home Premium, you can upgrade to 7 Home Premium, etc.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, if your PC with Vista was purchased within a certain time frame, it may be eligible for a free upgrade. Check here for details: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/buy/of ... ption.aspx

[Director_Guy]

Hers was in that time frame.^

[Jackluver18]

Does anyone on here have it? and what do you rate it?

[Goku1910]

Does anyone on here have it? and what do you rate it?

I have it and I would coincidentally, rate it a 7/10

But if you don't have it, get it if you use Vista.

I explained in a different post, don't feel like typing it again. I'm very lazy.

[Jackluver18]

^ it's ok, Im just asking because I'm hoping to get a new laptop soon and I see they all have Windows 7 and I just want to see how people like it

[Goku1910]

It's better than Vista and that's good enough for me.

If you've used Vista before, the biggest differences you will notice is Start-up/Shutdown times and easy device set-up.

[BrianPlencner]

As I said many posts back, I've been running Windows 7 since April. As far as a scale of 1 to 10 on how I like it, I would put it at a 9. Everything just works the way it is suppose to. Keep in mind that I did not use Vista...I went from XP to Windows 7.

As an example of "it just works": In XP, if you wanted to watch a DVD movie (on actual DVD..not a download of the file), you had to either install software that came with it, a 3rd party application (Win DVD comes to mind), or search the internet for the codex (Divix, anyone?). In WIndows 7, Windows Media Player will allow you to play the DVD, without any additional changes or modifications. You put in the DVD, select Windows Media Player, and poof! Your DVD plays.

Want to burn a music CD? Built-in to the OS using the media player. Want to burn files to a blank CD or DVD? Again, built into the OS, and it WORKS the way it is suppose to.

The one thing that I had to adjust to was the "Where the **CK did they move this to" shock coming from XP. The GUI is different, things are not exactly where they were in XP. But, if you used Vista, you should not have any problems. But, if you were an XP fan, and you go to Windows 7, my tip would be to just take a step back, and look at what Microsoft has done. If you clear your mind so to speak, and look at the change as an adventure rather then a burden, you will find that the placement and grouping of the icons, where you go to set things, etc does make a lot of sense.

It is also very stable OS. While I was never one to get XP to crash on a daily basis, I have not had a problem in Windows 7. This may be due to the fact I'm running the 64 bit version

Application Support: Unless you have a lot of games or software from more then 5 years old, you should not have any problems in Windows 7. Driver support is also very good. Where you may run into issues is with the 64 bit version. Like in Vista, drivers for hardware do need to be digitally signed, so older hardware (scanners, printers, etc) may not work. I did find one application that does not work in Windows 7 x64, and that is the VPN software for my company (checkpoint). It works fine on Windows 7 x86, but they did not release a version for the x64 platform. Kind of a bummer, as I would love to load up my T61 Lenovo Laptop with 8 GB of RAM, and run Win 7 x64. But, without the VPN, there is no point to that.

To sum it up: Make the switch to Windows 7. If you are going for new hardware and you have the cash, go with a 64 bit CPU and run the 64 bit version of Windows 7 with 4+ GB of RAM. You'll never look back at your 32 bit OS again.

--Brian

[Goku1910]

Very well said Brian!

Nearly matched my opinion.

[Jackluver18]

Ok thank you, that might help me a bit