Windows 7 opinions so far

[bjr]

Anyone using window 7? What do you think, is it just a minor upgrade from the Vista OS. Is it worth the money? bjr

 

[GPintheMitten]

I asked my son who is a Microsoft Partner and he really likes 7 but suggested I wait and when I buy a new computer, it will come with it instead of upgrading the OS on my machine. But mine is about 4 years old.

 

[beenthere]

Minor upgrade from Vista (which is a disaster IMO).
I was hoping it was a move back to XP, but not.
Too much of a rush to get the system to emulate the Mac system. Again, just my outlook.
I hate Vista that is on my wife's computer, and hate having to give her some assistance. Much happier with the XP on my computer.

 

[bp fick]

What is this Windows7 of which you speak?

 

[California]

Earth to Fick-

I just bought a Windows 7 laptop for my wife. I put on Avira (antivirus) and Mozilla Firefox, and connected it into the family wireless network. No hassles at all. Whatever I learned on XP, worked to set this up.

In this limited experience, I didn't see anything different from XP. This was a welcome contrast to her previous laptop with Vista that seemed to resist and screw up anything you attempted.

 

[GPintheMitten]

Yah, I still have XP and am happy. Used Vista a few times on other people's computers and just didn't like it much but I didn't have time to get used to it.
My son said he did not like Vista either but likes 7, for what that's worth.

I guess you can upgrade your current copy of Vista to W7 for $120. Have you looked at the hardware requirements? Run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor? Personally, if I had a one year old computer or thereabouts, I would upgrade to Windows 7.

But like I said before mine is too old to put money into. When I'm ready I'll get a 64 bit machine and go to Windows 7 Home edition and Office for Home/Students at that time.

 

[kevindsingleton]

I use Windows 7, and like it. I also use the XP virtual machine, for compatibility with other apps, and it's very handy. I totally skipped Vista, but got plenty of that "flavor" with Server 2008. Computers keep getting better, and cheaper, and Windows 7 is part of the improvement.

 

[MikePA]

I run Windows7 as well as OSX 10.6.2. Both are fine operating systems with Win7 getting the nod because of better application compatibility.

 

[timswi]

Just had to buy a new desktop machine because my XP got hammered by malware and it destroyed the hardware and software..it was 5 years old anyway.

So far I think that this is the best OS Microsoft ever came up with. The machine is scary fast and everything connects without effort. The 32bit apps don't look all that great on this 64bit OS, but most of them function just fine.

My DSL speed is now amazing, and I live at the max from the switch.

Takes some getting used to if you are a hardcore XP user as I am, but once the initial shock is over, it's great.

I have to say that I HATE the Office 2007 that came with it...I think I'll stick with the '03 version.

 

[radioman]

I have been in the computer feild for nearly 20 years. So far, if you have a pc that can handle vista then it can handle win7. However I don't see the point of upgrading without a new pc that comes with win7 anyways. I my eyes, any pc that is 4 years old is doomed to have issues with hardware. You cannot beat the price of the new pc WITH win7 compared to having a vista pc and buy 100 bucks upgrade and may need to replace hardware in future. Not wise in my pc eyes.

A side note- if you have vista home, then win7 premuim is fine. If you had vista ultimate, win7 professional is good. the win7 ultimate is a complete waste of money unless you want microsoft bitlocker etc..

 

[JB4310]

I'm pretty tech illiterate, got my first PC in 2000. but I work for some geeks and I pick their brains a bit.

Most of them agree the best operating systems were 98, XP and now 7 is supposed to be the next real system worth it for business to upgrade to. everything in between was junk, according to some of those in the tech business, that I know anyway.

I've got a 5 year old Sony Vaio w/XP that has been flawless.
I'll be in the market soon for the latest and greatest available now.

JB.

 

[SPIKER]

SO LETS SEE :

I been using PCs for well LONG time and MACs first, (apple IIs )

My first PC I owned was a Win 3.11 for work groups, (Still miss that old system was dang near flawless Pentium 75mhz) & I paid 2500.00 or so back in 1994.
I later bought a Win 95 DELL machine that was well not so good, pentium 133mhz cost 2300.00... I ended up selling the dell and hooking up the old Win 3.11 lol.
I then built a PC from scratch installed Win98, later installed Win98SE onto that machine, pentium 550 clocked to 600mhz,cost me about 1400 to build top of line parts. I'm still running it too, though clocked it back to 550mhz a year or so ago as it started acting up! (not on it now though I have a shinny new win7 64bit laptop) Win98SE was excellent op system... not to mention no BS S/N stuff that prevented it form being installed onto extra machines if ya needed to.
I also tried Win2000 WOW that was bad.. dis-installed that on several machines & put win98se on them. Later WinXP came a long and I liked it pretty well, I have it at work on a Engineering machine WinXP64 bit. It also works like Win98SE nearly flawlessly compared to Win2000 or Vista. I have not really used VISTA enough to say it blows but take many of the people I work with and or know's word for it..

I would so far say my almost a weeks worth of Win7 is pretty good. I just tonight downloaded and installed Office 2007 Enterprise version which is pretty much everything. I got it through work with home user thingy for all of 9.95 I had almost opted to buy it from BB with the laptop for 90 bucks, boy I'm glad I passed on it... This laptop is DUAL CORE PENTIUM T6600, 2.2ghz processors with a cost of $635.00 with tax It is amazing price to performance that we now have vs what it was 15 yrs ago ...


I am not totally sure I like the new laptop as the screen seems to be keep going to a bright contrast and washing out the colors very bad. I think this is in the hardware not the Win7 software though.

anyhow so far I'm pretty happy and the old version emulator seems to work pretty well as I have loaded a couple OLD software programs onto here and tried them with mostly good results...

Mark

 

[schmism]

win7 = what they wanted vista to be, but ran out of time else end up haveing to stall for another (has it been 4 years?)

so win7 = Vista SP2

if your not happy with vista performance you wont be any more pleased with win7 and xp will still run faster on teh same hardware.

ill be useing XP until i finally convert over to a linux distro 100%. the future is in open source softwere that anyone is free to change and add to.

 

[John_in_TN]

I am pleased with Win 7. I upgraded from 64 bit Vista as soon as 7 was availabe.
I wasn't having any big issues with Vista but find 7 is noticeable faster and even more trouble-free, so far. I do have a six month old machine with an I7 processor and 8 gig of ram.

 

[MikePA]

the future is in open source softwere that anyone is free to change and add to.

For some home users, maybe. Not for businesses. Funny, *nix zealots have been saying this for years.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

My only complaint with Vista or Win7 is the lack of drivers for my printer and scanner that aren't that old. I've been using Vista for a yr, came with this computer, and it's fine. Santa just brought me a new Win7 desktop that I just started to play with. One thing I like is I can now natively play my HD videos without using the camera's application.

 

[aczlan]

win7 = what they wanted vista to be, but ran out of time else end up haveing to stall for another (has it been 4 years?)
so win7 = Vista SP2

Pretty much.

if your not happy with vista performance you wont be any more pleased with win7 and xp will still run faster on teh same hardware.

I disagree. I have upgraded from XP or Vista to 7 on several computers at work and 7 has been faster than Vista while keeping neck and neck with XP, even with Aero on. PC mag did a comparison (similar to ones seen elsewhere) which found XP and 7 to run at almost the same speed on the same hardware. If I can keep the same speed (or be close enough that I cannot tell the difference) while upgrading to the latest version of an OS why shouldn't I?
I would not buy a retail copy of 7 (I am a cheapskate), but I can get it for free through school and will be installing it on my computer at home soon.
I also would get 7 over XP on any new computer. It doesnt make sense not to.

ill be useing XP until i finally convert over to a linux distro 100%. the future is in open source softwere that anyone is free to change and add to.

Meh, I run CentOS at work (VMWare server) and have tried Ubuntu. I am unimpressed with the hardware support provided by Linux and the software support of linux from VMWare. There is a video driver issue with one kernel version (older one) and a VMWare issue with the newer kernel...

As a server OS running on known to be compatible hardware it is good, but I wouldn't want to use it as a desktop OS.

Aaron Z

 

[Scooby074]

Heres my take. Win7 is Xp with a vista skin..

Smooth performance like XP with the "show" of Vista.

However, i feel speed wise its about the same as vista in practice.

I have a pretty fast computer. Corei7 920 with 6gb corsair Dominator ram, OCZ 60GB SSD and speed wise Win7 is no faster on this machine than XP on my old (P4 3.0GHZ) system!!!

I had high hopes for 7 being faster than vista, but im not seeing it.

 

[Alan L.]

In my opinion what Intel giveth Microsoft taketh away. The REAL productive speed of this modern computer I am using is slower to me than the IBM PC from 1980. Yeah it does more at one time and is prettier, but whatever advances there are in hardware speeds are quickly taken away by the poorly and sloppily written Microsoft code. This is what happens when you have no competition.

What really hacks me off is all these new software applications that give you a 4" by 4" data entry screen when you have 19" of real estate to work with, but most of it is wasteed.

 

[Gem99ultra]

I didn't find anything minor about Window 7. Bought a new pc and Windows 7. Discovered that half of my programs would not run on the new 64 bit program and machine!

And PCMover (Laplink) just made things worse. It shut down midway through program transfers, locking out the HD space it had used. Ended up having to reformat my new HD and buying many new programs.

I had no problems with Windows XP. Win 7 answers a question that nobody asked.