Windows 7 for Christmas ?

Rik · May 16, 2009, 09:09:55

BBC BASIC was very fast to boot.

Glenn · May 16, 2009, 09:19:56

All Amigas were too

Rik · May 16, 2009, 09:31:18

Simple but happy days.

Sebby · May 16, 2009, 12:13:04

The same cannot be said for nowadays!

Rik · May 16, 2009, 12:21:30

No, though the Sammy gets reasonably close. An OS on a ROm, though, did make life nippy.

zappaDPJ · May 16, 2009, 13:45:05

Computers that stored operating systems in ROM/EPROM where, ironically, years ahead of their time. Since installing Vista I've become far more aware of the an ever increasing drop in productivity due to operating systems that rely on hard drives. As a result I've been keeping a close eye on the cost and size of solid state drives.

They have now become big enough and cheap enough to hold an operating system and perhaps just as importantly any operating system work space needed including swap files so I will soon be going down that route.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-078-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1427

Lance · May 16, 2009, 13:47:30

Not to mention the benefit of the lower power, noise and heat. For too long now hard disks have been limiting performance and I think SSDs are the only way forward.

Rik · May 16, 2009, 15:26:15

I'll third that - pretty much instant startup, it has to be the future.

Sebby · May 16, 2009, 16:58:43

Macs pretty much already do it.

Rik · May 16, 2009, 17:00:05

Steve · May 18, 2009, 19:39:33

Just to cheer you up

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10242555-64.html

In essence, suggestions are that Windows 7 is not going to come cheap but will be more expensive than its XP and Vista equivalents although those of us who had to add additional ram to upgrade from XP to Vista will not suffer additional hardware costs this time round.

cavillas · May 18, 2009, 20:18:46

I tried a windows 7 installation. It went very fast and well. I was surprised that it picked up all my hardware including my Epson printer/scanner as well as Graphics card and inbuilt soundcard also my webcam. It seems very fast starting up and shutting down.

Sebby · May 18, 2009, 20:34:00

Quote from: stevethegas on May 18, 2009, 19:39:33
Just to cheer you up

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10242555-64.html

In essence, suggestions are that Windows 7 is not going to come cheap but will be more expensive than its XP and Vista equivalents although those of us who had to add additional ram to upgrade from XP to Vista will not suffer additional hardware costs this time round.

You can't put a price on an OS that works.

Plus it seems that Microsoft need to make some serious cash this time around (though that's not to say they're in trouble).

Steve · May 18, 2009, 20:51:53

People are going to need to be convinced that this is a step forward especially if they've already upgraded to Vista. I am sure they're after the die hard XP users but with the growing popularity of Netbooks with a trimmed down OS they may find that they are too late.

psp83 · May 18, 2009, 21:56:49

I've been a vista user since it came out and was happy with it. I have now been using Windows 7 RC on my main laptop for a while now and find it much better than Vista, the new bar takes a while to get used to but its good to see a change to it for once

Only problems i've had was with internet connection (seems to be fixed now) and Eset Security Suit wouldn't work but its working now after upgrading to version 4.

Laptop Specs :
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz
4GB RAM

Glenn · May 18, 2009, 22:47:57

I find the task bar flashes when web pages are closed, moving the pointer across the the flashing part of the bar stops the flashing

psp83 · May 18, 2009, 23:05:04

Quote from: Glenn on May 18, 2009, 22:47:57
I find the task bar flashes when web pages are closed, moving the pointer across the the flashing part of the bar stops the flashing

Dont get that on mine.

Rik · May 19, 2009, 09:03:25

Sounds like a graphics driver issue, Glenn.

mynnydd · Jun 01, 2009, 18:13:16

I have windows 7 RC Ultimate on the sammy nc10. Runnining it for a month and totally flawless, it uses less ram than vista.
It also comes with a windows media player update; media player in vista always made other programs hang but not the new version.
There are some nice touches but it is not such a change from vista compared with xp to vista.
Since installing it I have not opened vista.

Rik · Jun 01, 2009, 18:16:04

That's good to know, mynnydd. Nice little machines, the NC10s, aren't they.

Sebby · Jun 01, 2009, 20:15:14

And Windows 7 seems to be a nice little OS.

Odos · Jun 02, 2009, 00:03:48

I've been running Win 7 RC 64bit as my main OS for the last couple of weeks. Switched back to XP 64bit today as I don't like it at all, it's to "controlling".

As an OS for someone who just wants to browse the web, e-mail, occassional word or excel document etc it's fine. A vast improvement over Vista

As others have mentioned it starts up and shuts down quicker than Vista and doesn't use as many resources BUT it's no faster starting than XP ( even though I stripped it down to the bare minimum ) It's also a bit of a con here as well because even though you get into the desktop quick you can't actually do anything for a few seconds as it's still loading in the background.

It also uses more resources than XP. Add to that it won't let me do some things that I want/need to do ( Access denied ) it was the same even if I didn't install UAC ( removed it from the install disk with Vlite ). The thing which was the last straw for me was that it still suffers from Vista's problem of insisting IT knows how I want directories displayed. I always set the view to "details" for everything. Fine until you restart/reboot then Win 7 changes the view to what it believes it should be

So for me it's a better OS than Vista but not as good as XP.

Rik · Jun 02, 2009, 09:00:24

Given your findings, Tony, I suspect I will agree. I rejected Vista for similar reasons, I like to tell the machine how to do things, not the other way round.

Sebby · Jun 02, 2009, 20:24:37

I think XP is pretty much perfect, other than its dated look. XP behind the scenes with an interface like Windows 7 would be perfect. Saying that, Windows 7 is probably a better OS than XP "under the hood".

Odos · Jun 02, 2009, 22:49:32

Quote from: Sebby on Jun 02, 2009, 20:24:37
Saying that, Windows 7 is probably a better OS than XP "under the hood".

I tend to agree with you Sebby, unfortunately M$ has buried that good OS under a mountain of eye candy and marketing cr*p. Now if they did two versions, one as is for the public in general and another with all the eye candy and OTT controls etc removed for those of us that prefer it, then I think I'd buy it.