SPCR

Now its out, has anyone installed it on their PC/Laptop yet.?

I am not personally interested in knowing about upgrades, I understand they are as frought with problems as all MS upgrades are, and so are not worth bothering with, especially as it can take so long that its usually quicker to backup/nuke/re-install than upgrade. The "Easy Transfer Wizard" seems to be a useful opton for most people, as it seems to do a lot of the grunt work for you, but also takes its sweet time.

There are a few things I would like to know from people who have installed their new shiny OS.

Fistly the spec of the machine they have installed it onto, including the OS you were using before.

How it compares to your old OS in terms of performace, problems, things not working/installing.

Your like/dislike of the new interface, and its (un)useful features, quirks and anything else you would like to mention.

Especially I would like to hear from people who have been using Beta versions of the OS for weeks/months. Specifically have you nuked your drive and re-installed it and found any difference at all compared to the Beta that you were using - please mention the Beta release version number.

I also have a couple of questions for anyone who might know. Why is the "Retail" copy of Home Premium cheaper than the "OEM" copy.??? This is quite bizarre, as it has always been the other way round. Another question on the same line, do MS have a 64-bit "Retail" copy that is cheaper than the "OEM" copy. The prices here in the UK are £67 for the "Retail" version, and ~ £80 for the 32-bit or 64-bit "OEM" versions.

Please ladies and gentlemen list all of the information that is relevant, and dont skip on the specific details of the machine, as this can be crucial.


Andy

I got mine preordered and according to the website it was delivered today to my work (i get things sent there if they need to be signed for).
Unfortunately im off this week, so i either have a half hour drive to work on my day off just to pick up a parcel or wait until Monday.

andyb wrote:Fistly the spec of the machine they have installed it onto, including the OS you were using before.

How it compares to your old OS in terms of performace, problems, things not working/installing.

Your like/dislike of the new interface, and its (un)useful features, quirks and anything else you would like to mention.

Especially I would like to hear from people who have been using Beta versions of the OS for weeks/months. Specifically have you nuked your drive and re-installed it and found any difference at all compared to the Beta that you were using - please mention the Beta release version number.

Test Machines:
Intel D945GCLF2 (945GC + Atom 330)
Kingston 2GB DDR2 800
Seagate Momentus 5400.3 250GB
Triple Boot: Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP2 x86, Windows 7 RC x64

ZOTAC IONITX-D-E (ION + Atom 330)
Kingston 4GB DDR2 800
Seagate Momentus 5400.4 320GB
Triple Boot: Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP2 x86, Windows 7 RTM x64

From my usage, Windows XP still feels the fastest (UI-wise - everything's just snappy) but I've found Windows 7 to be quite responsive. More responsive than Vista at any rate. I reckon if the computers I was testing it on weren't so underpowered, I wouldn't notice any difference between the responsiveness of XP and 7. UAC is much less obtrusive than it was in Vista.

All the apps I've tried work in Windows 7. I had the beta installed on the D945GCLF2 build and that had some issues with the graphics card but upgraded drivers directly from Windows Update fixed it. So far, I haven't noticed any difference between the RC and RTM versions and they just worked flawlessly with all the hardware mentioned above. I was surprised it recognized and supported the wireless card on the IONITX-D-E with no additional drivers required. Even the S-Video out on the Intel D945GCLF2 works great. I have it connected to my parents' old 24" CRT.

I did encounter some problems with the network cards (broken connection, etc) after one of the updates, but turning off checksum offload in the advanced settings fixed the problem.

One of my gripes, though, is I just can't get VC-1 hardware acceleration working in Windows Media Center 64-bit. There are third-party fixes for 32-bit but I have yet to find any for 64. I'll be installing Windows 7 x86 one of these days (nuking the Vista partition) and see if I can get VC-1 acceleration then.

Another source of irritation is network sharing. Homegroup works wonderfully if all your computers are running Windows 7. Unfortunately, sharing to XP machines required some tinkering with permissions.

Thanks for your excelent response. I keep on hearing people who have found W7 to be snappy on underpowered machines, and I like to continue to hear that.

Regarding the networking, that is a pretty damning problem. The quantity of people who have home networks nowdays is huge, and few people are going to install W7 on every PC at the same time. I will look forward to that issue with trepidation, as I know of many such problems with Vista and XP.

One linked issue is the dreaded shared printer problems between Vista and XP, has that been resolved.? For those who dont know about the problem, here it is in brief. XP machine with a shared printer, Vista machine tries to print, several minutes go by then eventually it prints.


Andy

Hi there should have probly posted earlier been using complete legit complete of windows for about a month now. I managed to get my copy from MSDN AA, which is where the uni has a deal with Microsoft for software

windows 7 seems to work perfectly, I haven't had any major issues as a power user, visual studio 2009, 3DsMax 10, photoshop cs4 all work perfectly not a single hic-up.

one lil problem I found was with Latex printing PDF files using PDF creator results in a really fuzzy pdf output probly to do with some of the software and not windows 7 fault.

O one other thing I didnt even have to break out a single Driver CD or go download anything, everything just worked, on first boot it found all my hardware and just updated all the drivers automatically.

My specs:
OS: Windows 7 professional 64-bit(6.1, Build 7600)
Mobo: Asus p5k-e wifi deluxe
Bios: ver-08.00.12
Cpu: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600
Memory: 6144MB Ram
Graphics: XFX 8800GTS 320mb
OS hdd: Intel xm25 80Gb
slave hdds: Wd 1Tb green, seagate 250Gb

Pritty old pc, but does all my work fine over all runs much faster than vista with MUCH faster boot times and shutdown downs

overall a much needed improvement over vista ^^

Hi,

I've been running Windows 7 RTM (the final version) on my Thinkpad X31 for almost a month. Got it off my university's MSDN-AA site. I haven't tried the betas or the RC before.

The specs are Pentium M Banias 1.4 GHz, 1 GB DDR DDR-333, ATI Mobility Radeon 7000 (16 MB VRAM), 80 GB Seagate 5400.3 ST980815A (peak throughout around 45 MB/s), Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 3B. Laptop was built in May 2004.

It shipped with XP. Had Vista installed on a 40 GB 4200 rpm drive when I got it, and the less said about that phase, the better. I've ran XP as well as various versions of Ubuntu on it. Most recently, it was slumming it out with an install of Kubuntu which evidently went horribly wrong at some point, as every disk access was oh so slow.

I'm using it pretty lightly, almost a glorified netbook, primarily browsers (Chrome + Opera), putty, foxit, occasional remote desktop.

It works. No problems. Satisfied.

It feels a bit less instant than XP at its best, but I am happy to trade that for an OS that feels 2009. The changes from Vista don't seem to be major, but what I did notice, I liked or was at most ambivalent about. Can't say I ran into something I used in XP or Vista that doesn't work satisfactorily in Windows 7. Most Ubuntu installs I've had eventually got frustratingly slow on disk access for reasons unknown (2-3 seconds to bring up Alt-F2 box), and this is better so far. I've installed Microsoft Security Essentials package, more for the peace of mind than anything. I think it slowed things down a little bit, but it's definitely still acceptable.

For my use, 1 GB is fine; sometimes when I sail north of 15 browser tabs the system feels like it could use 2 GB which is the max on my system. Alternatively, a faster hard drive (pretty much anything you can buy these days) would also help, but I haven't bothered.

I'm not running Aero because of the ancient video card. The basic interface seems fine.

This wasn't supposed to be my primary computer, and I think that's the best way to try the OS. If you don't have a second computer, try to throw up a VM, and just see how you like it. This seems like a bad OS to fight and insist it do things your way or the way you're used to; sorry if this seems Applesque, but I do think letting it do things on its own is a good idea.

qviri wrote:This wasn't supposed to be my primary computer, and I think that's the best way to try the OS. If you don't have a second computer, try to throw up a VM, and just see how you like it.

+1. Specially not if you've got a particularly esoteric set-up. There was quite a bit of learning on my part due to the reworked UI. Fortunately, there wasn't really any frustration (at least using it as a normal desktop) since the computer I had it installed on wasn't a production machine. I only needed to push the button on the KVM and I was back to my regular XP desktop. Alas, the same can't be said with trying to use it as an HTPC.

qviri wrote:This seems like a bad OS to fight and insist it do things your way or the way you're used to; sorry if this seems Applesque, but I do think letting it do things on its own is a good idea.

It's new that's why it's like that. Give it some more time and we'll have all sorts of hacks on it, too. In the meantime, it works quite well accomplishing the usual tasks for the most part.

rus great on eeepc 900a 1.6 atom 1GB ram 4GBssd-

I just finished installation today (Home Premium 64), and it's great so far! It loads just as fast as XP Home did, it seems to handle processes faster, and I can use all 4Gbs of my RAM now! It seems a little bit slower on high graphics 3D games, though. But other than the games, it's great, and I'm happy I got it.

My PC (see sig) just got the Win7 upgrade. I like it very much. Much more stable than the last Beta I tried. It definitely improves upon Vista in all the ways that count.

Seems to be a lot peppier on my machine than Vista was. I'm planning an upgrade to my WHS (from AthlonXP to Athlon X2) this weekend so I haven't connected it to the WHS yet, but I don't expect that to cause any problems.

I'll be upgrading my HTPC (the one in my sig) this weekend also to a 785G/Athlon II system, so that will get the Win7 treatment as well. I'll follow that up with my wife's laptop (Latitude D610) and maybe my work laptop (Latitude E6500) at some point in the future.

I installed 7 [x64] on my main PC - spec in sig - last weekend (still dual-boot with XP at the moment, to ease the transition) and am loving it so far. Got an SSD at the same time so it is ludicrously fast, but I can't really tell how much of that is due to SSD, 7, or just the fact that it's a fresh install.
I'm still getting to grips with the different ways of doing things, lots of new little features. Nothing about it has really blown me away, it just works like I expect a computer to work, makes XP seem really clunky and bodged together when I go back to it.
Has a few issues with some programs; Winamp, VLC, Steam, but only minor stuff.
No idea why the Retail version is cheaper than the OEM version, but I do know that the Retail version includes 2 DVDs, one for 32bit one for 64bit.

computer specs are in my sig...

windows 7 has been a pretty good experience so far... i moved directly from winXP pro, to win7 pro, which i got for free from school...

i've been on win7 pro for about a month now, but i spent the last 2 weeks in hong kong, so i've only had 2 weeks of actual usage. the only real complaints i have are with some of the menus. in XP, i could double click the network icon in the systray and click on properties to make any changes i needed to TCP/IP settings. in win7, i have to click on the network icon (which i find to be ugly as sin), open the "network and sharing center", and click a link to my LAN connection status and THEN click on properties to get at my TCP/IP settings. in general, the control panel is laid out in this convoluted "what would you like to do today?" fashion; too many of these setup and troubleshooting wizards in the main window (as opposed to XP, where they were found on the side bar).

i can understand this kind of layout for a "home" edition or something, but if you're going to make a "professional" edition, users should be able to get to the guts of things without going through a pretty little "network center" complete with diagrams and setup wizards.... just show my my connections and let me tamper with the settings.

i dislike the new start menu...

the systray icons for sound and network are ugly...

mr. poopyhead wrote:computer specs are in my sig...

*snip*

the systray icons for sound and network are ugly...

and get these damn kids off my lawn, arrrr.....

Hi

I have a problem with sound in my new OS Windows 7. When I configure the speakers in properties to 5.1 channel, it shows that device works properly, but when I play the music in win media player just the central speaker works. Can someone help me about this problem. Please

Upgraded an HTPC with Intel DG45ID E4200 2gb Ram WD500gb drive from Vista HP to Win7 Pro (clean install).

Three things have been good: (i) all devices worked with drivers installed by Win7 right off the bat; (ii) networking works (haven't even tried Homegroup but even just setting the network to a private network - everything worked immediately; and (iii) personally, I like the UI tweaks in windows explorer and media center.

Only issue thus far: windows media center and WMP12 force use of built-in video codecs (replacing FFDShow, which I need for external subtitles). There are solutions out there to try.

Incompatibilities: WinAAM, vmcRemote and Norton 360 (Norton might be fixable as I haven't yet ventured to install the offered v3 upgrade yet).

It doesn't seem to be any faster than Vista (except perhaps file copying is faster). I had a stable Vista install before and everything worked (albeit with a lot more accumulated effort over the last year). As with Vista, I still have occasional blue-screens with just a clean install and after updating all drivers. No major benefits thus far but since the install is pretty painless, I thought it was worth a day's time.

Will give it about a month, then start moving other PCs to Win7 as well.

A lot of features aren't plainly obvious, and some are down right hidden. So it's best to read up on the features to get the most out of it. Here is a good place to start.

starwalker wrote:Hi

I have a problem with sound in my new OS Windows 7. When I configure the speakers in properties to 5.1 channel, it shows that device works properly, but when I play the music in win media player just the central speaker works. Can someone help me about this problem. Please

Probably better to start your own thread, it's a little off topic.

And posting details of your setup might not be a bad idea...

Hi,
installed Windows 7 Ultimate yesterday. Took about 10 minutes.
I still have to get all my apps installed.

My old webcam doesn't seem to be supported by the standard drivers... Will have to look into that...

I've noticed something whacky about icons in Windows 7 (I believe Vista does this also). I downloaded a small .exe file that has its own icon, but W7 replaces it with some other random icon. I've tried playing around with some settings, and each time it seems like W7 picks some other random icon, and now all .exe files look like that. Navigating in Windows Explorer, the icons are different again, and different yet again in the status bar. Bizarre.

Another thing that's a bit crappy, I use the "Classic" theme as I hate bling. Unfortunately when dragging icons around the screen it just shows a little square instead of the actual icon. Why has MS downgraded such a simple thing? It's kind of ugly.

i'm seriously considering switching back to XP...

the list of windows7 annoyances is growing steadily...

It isnt 10 years old and plays dx10, dx10.1, dx11.

and it is faster for gaming and handles crashes better.

Oh, it's supported. that helps.

And it is much more secure than XP.

aside from that it makes me want to load my xp disk right now.

64 bit Win7 Pro is where you want to be unless you get the ultimate.

Mine was 30 dollars! Paid another 10 for a disk in the mail.

You cant have a severely old system and load it up. It just doesnt fly that way. Modern for modern. I would say it quite obviously is meant for 4 to 8 gigs of ram and quad core. You can tell it likes it a lot and uses it. My xp used 2 cores with 2 hotfixes and self registry edits and only 3.2 gigs of my ram. xp64 was never a real option for almost anyone, i hope no one pulls that card out. That's always annoying.

mr. poopyhead wrote:i'm seriously considering switching back to XP...

the list of windows7 annoyances is growing steadily...

your video card is not supported in windows7. (ati dropped that) I wouldnt touch win7 without a 3000 series or higher card. that's just a tip. processor wise you are fine.

~El~Jefe~ wrote:I would say it quite obviously is meant for 4 to 8 gigs of ram and quad core.

Hahahahahaha.

Sometime over the weekend I am going to dip my toes in, run some benchmarks, aplay some games etc etc, and see if I can live with it where I simply couldnt with Vista.

If I can it will stay, and find its way onto my SSD, but only time will tell.


Andy

~El~Jefe~ wrote:It isnt 10 years old and plays dx10, dx10.1, dx11.

and it is faster for gaming and handles crashes better.

Oh, it's supported. that helps.

And it is much more secure than XP.

aside from that it makes me want to load my xp disk right now.

64 bit Win7 Pro is where you want to be unless you get the ultimate.

Mine was 30 dollars! Paid another 10 for a disk in the mail.

You cant have a severely old system and load it up. It just doesnt fly that way. Modern for modern. I would say it quite obviously is meant for 4 to 8 gigs of ram and quad core. You can tell it likes it a lot and uses it. My xp used 2 cores with 2 hotfixes and self registry edits and only 3.2 gigs of my ram. xp64 was never a real option for almost anyone, i hope no one pulls that card out. That's always annoying.

Ultimate isn't necessary for the average user, and neither is Pro. I can do all I want with Home Premium 64-bit.

A comparison of the different versions can be seen here for those interested.

JVM wrote:
A comparison of the different versions can be seen here for those interested.

M$ fails to mention no RDP hosting, client only in home .
Of course there are other remote options that work for accessing a home 7 machine.

for now XP is still a better OS than win7

1. performance:

http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/informat ... ista-vs-7/

2. multicore management:

http://www.infoworld.com/t/platforms/ge ... ticore-273

3. battery life:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/11/13/te ... windows-7/

and also: system resource consumption, compatibility with hardware, etc.

I cannot see any real advantage to move to windows 7. Cosmetic issues can be solved by installing new skins or transformation packs. My XP modified looks better than Vista.

greenfrank wrote:for now XP is still a better OS than win7

XP=SP3 / eight years of tweaks and fixes.
7=SP0 / one month old.

So have you tried 7? Benchmarks are one thing...user experience is another.

greenfrank wrote:for now XP is still a better OS than win7
3. battery life:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/11/13/te ... windows-7/

and also: system resource consumption, compatibility with hardware, etc.

compatibility with hardware--any new hardware has drivers for both, and it will only go in 7's favor.

battery life--um, they disabled power saving features? that's kind of, oh, important in a BATTERY LIFE comparison, ya think.

JVM wrote:

~El~Jefe~ wrote:It isnt 10 years old and plays dx10, dx10.1, dx11.

and it is faster for gaming and handles crashes better.

Oh, it's supported. that helps.

And it is much more secure than XP.

aside from that it makes me want to load my xp disk right now.

64 bit Win7 Pro is where you want to be unless you get the ultimate.

Mine was 30 dollars! Paid another 10 for a disk in the mail.

You cant have a severely old system and load it up. It just doesnt fly that way. Modern for modern. I would say it quite obviously is meant for 4 to 8 gigs of ram and quad core. You can tell it likes it a lot and uses it. My xp used 2 cores with 2 hotfixes and self registry edits and only 3.2 gigs of my ram. xp64 was never a real option for almost anyone, i hope no one pulls that card out. That's always annoying.

Ultimate isn't necessary for the average user, and neither is Pro. I can do all I want with Home Premium 64-bit.

A comparison of the different versions can be seen here for those interested.

Only pro and ultimate can use the true, 2d xp virtual mode out of the box.

that's quite nice. I can run some special software on it for telnet serving without having a second comp running.