So I'm completely on the fence on Windows 7. I'll throw this out there: I have yet to pay for a version of Windows that didn't come with a laptop. I have a desktop currently running a pirated version of Vista Ultimate and a laptop running a legit copy of Vista Business (blech). The desktop is over five years old and struggles with Vista as-is. My laptop does much better, with 4GB of RAM, but Vista's quirks still bug the crap out of me.
It looks like most of the "features" that Vista and XP came packaged with will only be available for download with a verified product key. Most of those "features" were worthless so this is a good thing in my opinion. They're also lightening up on User Access Control, which has bugged me with Vista. In Vista every time you try to run anything new the screen dims and you have to click two or three times to confirm that yes, you did mean to click on that and you do know what it's doing. And when you've got a desktop with only 1GB of RAM that process takes some time if you're doing more than one thing at a time.
From what I understand, Windows 7 is available for pre-order right now for $49 for Home Premium and $99 for Professional. Not a bad bit of marketing, since they've actually got me considering buying it when I never did consider it when Vista came out.
Will you be pre-ordering Windows 7, with the inevitable release bugs, security holes, and flurry of patches? Has anyone tried Windows 7 RC and liked it to the point that they will be willing to pay for it?
Joined: Fri 09-05-2003 10:24AM Posts: 3589 Location: Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the p l a i n s !
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I think the bugs will be much fewer with 7 than with the release of vista for a couple of reasons:
1) Vista users can use an upgrade version and it is basically like installing a service pack for Vista rather than a whole new operating system, which means that 7 is based STRONGLY on a vista backbone.
2) The year of public beta testing probably ironed out the largest flaws from the OS, which is something completely avoided when the secretive Vista was released.
Maybe I am wrong, but I think MS might have actually gotten their act together with this one. I just hope the rumors are true and this OS is much less of a memory whore than Vista was. To answer your question, I am seriously considering pre-ordering. Whether or not is largely up to the state of my finances in the near future and whether or not I want to shed the last bit of connectivity to MS-DOS games (XP still kinda lets it work...).
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Joined: Sun 09-12-2004 8:22PM Posts: 657 Location: somewhere
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I'm not sure of how much of a memory hog Win7 is once its running, but it needs 1 GB of RAM just to install. If its anything like previous Windows releases that means that it probably won't run very well unless you have at least 2 GB of RAM in the machine or turn off all of the visual effects.
I'd suggest running the RC in a virtual machine or a dual boot on your laptop (or desktop if you're feeling bored) to try it out and decide for yourself. I haven't had a chance to try it yet (RAM limitations), but the things I've seen and heard so far have managed to make me want to upgrade from XP finally despite the cost of upgrading my systems.
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I'm running it on my laptop right now and honestly wondering if i should pre-order or not. It basically comes down to if I want to give up $99 dollars or not. But that's a good price for windows.
I like 7. I'm currently running it on my laptop* and it works very well. I haven't had any performance hiccups, except when one of my applications decided it wanted ALL of my memory. I think I was running iTunes and Firefox decided to just go on the fritz (hasn't happened since). I'm not sure quite how 7 would compare to the latest build of Vista, but it's leaps and bounds better than the release candidate of Vista I ran in 2006. It still takes longer to transfer files than XP, but seems to be faster than Vista. Driver support is excellent (I think the only thing that I had to get from windows update was for the webcam and the memory card reader). Though if you run 64-bit its going to be a bitch if one of your drivers is unsighned. The virtual xp is easy to install and use - I played with it a bit but it worked well. UAC seems to have gotten smarter - I run as a regular user, and only get UAC popups when I install a program or change a system setting. Also - It doesn't seem to have those "quirks" that vista has - ie: all of your icons going to blank white rectangles suddenly; deciding you've plugged in flash drives enough times for the day and need to restart before connecting more; or hourglassing and never loading the file/folder you clicked. Very sappy and not at all bone-head stupid. Lastly (and as you've probably already heard about) the new taskbar and windows-key shortcuts are wonderful. I love it, and it will be hard for me to go back to XP if I don't buy 7.
*Intel Core Duo T2500 (2.0Ghz) 2GB DDR2-667 Memory 5400rpm laptop 2.5" hard drive
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BigPeeOn wrote:
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with 7 coming out in october, what do you guys think the likelihood of it coming to MSDN next semester? i'm outta here in december and i would love to snag a free copy before i go. if there is no way its gonna happen id strongly consider pre-ordering and saving 100 bucks for pro...i'm with patrick, ive never bought a copy of windows before but i would buy 7 if not for msdn.
with 7 coming out in october, what do you guys think the likelihood of it coming to MSDN next semester? i'm outta here in december and i would love to snag a free copy before i go. if there is no way its gonna happen id strongly consider pre-ordering and saving 100 bucks for pro...i'm with patrick, ive never bought a copy of windows before but i would buy 7 if not for msdn.
I think Vista was available on the MSDN thing a couple weeks after it was released, so it might be up by December
FWIW, I still had access to MSDN a few months after I graduated. I might still have access now, more than a year after, I haven't checked. I know my MST emial account and all that hasn't been deleted yet.
Joined: Tue 08-15-2006 6:22PM Posts: 255 Location: Tetromino House
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I only have 1gb memory in my laptop and it fills about half at idle. But even with a lot of programs open, I still don't see a slow down. I like windows 7 much more than vista... sorry if you disagree.
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