Windows 7?

[anklebiter]

Anyone using it? If you didn't know, the release candidate is available, and free until June 2010.I've been on it about a week now ( from XP Pro) and I must say I love it.It's fast solid, and everything has been compatible so far from older software and games, to all my hardware.I didn't even need to fight with my network-it just added it's self.MS, you done good!

[Melo]

I'm running it as a dual boot with Vista. No issues so far.

[9876543210]

anklebiter,

How are you handling your partitions? I'm interested in trying it but I'm already dual booting Ubuntu and XP. I guess I'd probably need another partition for Win 7.

[anklebiter]

anklebiter,

How are you handling your partitions? I'm interested in trying it but I'm already dual booting Ubuntu and XP. I guess I'd probably need another partition for Win 7.

7 is on a separate HD.I don't think a partition for a 3rd operating system will be a problem for you if you have the space, XP's boot loader will just ad it on.It don't take much room either.I have a few games installed and all my regular programs etc. It's only 27 gigs.

[billybunter]

I'm tempted by windows 7, because vista has gave me nothing but problems.

[taz25]

Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, BUT....... Just wait till Microsoft posts the price. Guaranteed that it will be even dearer than Vista is

[harry86]

Vista is the modern day ME

Microsoft did their usual and used people as guinea pigs

Windows 7 is an awesome operating system, I have used the beta version for approximately 5 months and its given me no problems.

In fact this morning I installed the new RC version on a pc with 2 GB and its running smoothly.

Expect the final version to be released just before schools/colleges break up next summer - they are hoping that most academic institutes will go for Windows 7 because XP is getting a little long in the tooth - they'll probably stop releasing XP security updates around the same time.

[harry86]

I think the release has been announce for around October this year.

Less versions, less confusing, much better.

[shag_buddy_007]

yeah vista is total pants and people should demand there money back when W7 appears, ive seen so many problems with vista i dont know how gates gets away with it, from the useage i had with W7 i found it refreshing that they might actually have a descent operating system, just hope its not embedded with hidden spys like im hearing about.

[billybunter]

Well, I thought what can I lose. Vista is crap. So installed 7 32bit. Took a bit of fiddling about but it is better than vista by a mile. But then so was XP. But this does work folks!

[burpman]

I used the release candidate for several weeks and loved it and it ran like a champ but they had absolutely no support for the older sound card in my laptop. I tried all the compatible Vista drivers with no joy. I had to give up on it ultimately because of the lack of driver support for slightly older hardware.

[billybunter]

I used the release candidate for several weeks and loved it and it ran like a champ but they had absolutely no support for the older sound card in my laptop. I tried all the compatible Vista drivers with no joy. I had to give up on it ultimately because of the lack of driver support for slightly older hardware.

I had to uninstall and reinstall a few things, but so far so good.

[9876543210]

burpman,

I used the release candidate for several weeks and loved it and it ran like a champ but they had absolutely no support for the older sound card in my laptop. I tried all the compatible Vista drivers with no joy. I had to give up on it ultimately because of the lack of driver support for slightly older hardware.

I had a similar experience, but my problem was with the video card (a compatible sound card driver was found during install). It took a while, and I had to try lots of different drivers, but I finally found a Vista compatible driver that kind of worked, but not all that well. It really started slowing things down to the point where I had to get rid of some of the nice video stuff that Win 7 allowed. I kept checking for an updated driver but I finally figured out that they weren't going to make a good video driver for this laptop (it only has 64 MB shared video RAM).

So I have to say that I really liked Win 7 but it won't run well on my current machine. But I'll definitely put it on my next computer.

One last thing that I haven't found a fix for. I've put the RC on several friends machines and its been working real well for them except for one problem on one machine. One friend is a web designer and uses Flash 8 for a good portion of what she does (she does have CS2 or CS3 but hasn't used its version of Flash much yet). There is some incompatibility with Win 7 and Flash 8 (which is noted during install) so it disables some part of Flash. This incompatibility has pretty much forced my friend to go back to XP to use Flash 8. So now she's back in XP about 50% of the time (Flash is one of her main apps).

So I was just wondering if anyone else had run into this problem and found a fix.

[buttsie]

A couple of comaprisons...all the hype that said windows 7 could be run on as litle as 256ram was just that...hype...its certainly more backwards looking compatible than vista

Windows 7 Review: XP vs Vista vs 7 in 80+ Benchmarks 19/10/09
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/windows_7_review


March 10th, 2009
Windows 7 build 7048 vs. Windows 7 beta 1 vs. Vista vs. XP performance shootout - which is best?


The test systems

I’ve used two desktop systems as the test machines:

* An AMD Phenom 9700 2.4GHz system fitted with an ATI Radeon 3850 and 4GB of RAM
* An Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 2.2GHz fitted with an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS and 1GB of RAM

The tests

There are 31 tests in all, most of which are self explanatory:

1. Install OS - Time it takes to install the OS
2. Boot up - Average boot time to usable desktop
3. Shut down - Average shut down time
4. Move 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from one hard drive to another
5. Move 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from one hard drive to another
6. Network transfer 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from test machine to NAS device
7. Network transfer 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from test machine to NAS device
8. Move 100MB files under load - Move 100MB of JPEG files from one hard drive to another while ripping DVD to .ISO file
9. Move 2.5GB files under load - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from one hard drive to another while ripping DVD to .ISO file
10. Network transfer 100MB files under load - Move 100MB of JPEG files from test machine to NAS device while ripping DVD to .ISO file
11. Network transfer 2.5GB files under load - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from test machine to NAS device while ripping DVD to .ISO file
12. Compress 100MB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
13. Compress 1GB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
14. Extract 100MB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
15. Extract 1GB files - Using built-in ZIP compression
16. Compress 100MB files under load - Using built-in ZIP compression while ripping DVD to .ISO file
17. Compress 1GB files under load - Using built-in ZIP compression while ripping DVD to .ISO file
18. Extract 100MB files under load - Using built-in ZIP compression while ripping DVD to .ISO file
19. Extract 1GB files under load - Using built-in ZIP compression while ripping DVD to .ISO file
20. Install Office 2007 - Ultimate version, from DVD
21. Open 10 page Word doc - Text only
22. Open 100 page Word doc - Text and images only
23. Open simple Excel doc - Basic formatting
24. Open complex Excel doc - Including formula and charts
25. Burn DVD - Win 7 beta 1 .ISO to disc using CDBurnerXP
26. Open 10 page PDF - Text only, using latest Adobe Reader 8
27. Open 100 page PDF - Text and images, using latest Adobe Reader 8
28. Far Cry 2 benchmark
29. Call of Duty 5 benchmark
30. Left 4 Dead benchmark
31. Crysis Warhead benchmark

The results...smaller number is best

http://thumbnails22.imagebam.com/5434/1025a254334127.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/1025a254334127)

[buttsie]

burpman,



I had a similar experience, but my problem was with the video card (a compatible sound card driver was found during install). It took a while, and I had to try lots of different drivers, but I finally found a Vista compatible driver that kind of worked, but not all that well. It really started slowing things down to the point where I had to get rid of some of the nice video stuff that Win 7 allowed. I kept checking for an updated driver but I finally figured out that they weren't going to make a good video driver for this laptop (it only has 64 MB shared video RAM).

So I have to say that I really liked Win 7 but it won't run well on my current machine. But I'll definitely put it on my next computer.

One last thing that I haven't found a fix for. I've put the RC on several friends machines and its been working real well for them except for one problem on one machine. One friend is a web designer and uses Flash 8 for a good portion of what she does (she does have CS2 or CS3 but hasn't used its version of Flash much yet). There is some incompatibility with Win 7 and Flash 8 (which is noted during install) so it disables some part of Flash. This incompatibility has pretty much forced my friend to go back to XP to use Flash 8. So now she's back in XP about 50% of the time (Flash is one of her main apps).

So I was just wondering if anyone else had run into this problem and found a fix.

I dont know about a solution but its certainly a known issue

http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/311-latest-version-adobe-flash-player.html

[anal61]

No one has touched on the simple fact - why upgrade to windows 7.
There is only one benefit - touch screen and lets not forget the price of one of those and would you really want your littlke darlings touching it.

Business will certainly not upgrade as it is a rescource hog,requires a minimum spec which is far skyward of XP so this keeps microsoft from stopping the upgrades as business demands XP be supported and will not be buying new equiptment or shelling out on the training for any new operating system.

You say it is small being 27GB - XP has a footprint of around 600MB so Win 7 needs and extra 26.4GB for what exactly - it is an operating system - a window to other things.

After a few weeks all the bells and whistles will be turned off as you strive to get your PC to do more important things other than look pretty.

The only people who will buy this bloated piece of racoon poop will be the ones who shop in pc "not broken but we'll charge them the earth to fix it" world.

If you shop around it is still easily possible to get a full system with XP and if not you can easily build your own for aropund a fifth the price.

Ask yourself 1 question - Why are they still doing all their work using XP at Redmond - Microsoft HQ.

Rant over.Thank you and good day. :)

[9876543210]

buttsie,

I dont know about a solution but its certainly a known issue

http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/311-latest-version-adobe-flash-player.html

Thanks for the reply but that link is for the Adobe Flash Player. Flash 8 (also made by Adobe) is a professional app that actually creates the animations. Flash Player is for end users and is free while the Adobe Suite (of which Flash is a part) is quite costly.

I've done a few google searches for her on this problem and haven't come up with anything yet. I was just wondering if any other developers around here might have had the same problem.

[spitalhouse]

http://thumbnails22.imagebam.com/5473/a1bab454720638.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/a1bab454720638)

My Desktop - just the way I like it. I tested Windows 7 and after a week decided that XP Pro SP3 with a Tango theme suited me just fine.

Regards.

[DrFishnets]

I have Windows 7 64bit partitioned alongside Mac OSX 10.6.1 Snow Leopard on my Macbook Pro through Bootcamp.

So far It is miles better than shitty Windows Vista as it is faster and more stable but I still get the annoying "Are you sure" message appear when I open programs and applications which you can switch off I believe.

IMHO even though Windows 7 is an approvement it isn't near as good as Snow Leopard even though I have had crashes on that too.

Doc

[MrKinkade]

Dudes I wouldn't touch vista SE= windows 7 with a barge pole ! Iam on Linux and wont go back to micro$hite ever again if you must stick with windows use XP a well matured platform now.

[buttsie]

buttsie,



Thanks for the reply but that link is for the Adobe Flash Player. Flash 8 (also made by Adobe) is a professional app that actually creates the animations. Flash Player is for end users and is free while the Adobe Suite (of which Flash is a part) is quite costly.

I've done a few google searches for her on this problem and haven't come up with anything yet. I was just wondering if any other developers around here might have had the same problem.

I think this probably says it all...from www.annoyances.org

Called Adobe Technical support, waited about 30 mins, and then was told "Adobe
>does not support Windows 7, so the install may or maynot work." (They could help
>if they wanted to).

I guess this is something diferent again

re: Windows 7 wont install Adobe cs3
Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 11:07 am
Windows 7 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by kevin wakefield (1 messages posted)

I have gotten Photoshop CS3 to install just fine, I had it installed until recently when I upgraded to CS4. There was an issue with Windows installer a while back.. they released a fix. I can't remember what it was but you might try that. EDIT: I found that fix and here it is. 1. Open a Command Prompt Window as Administrator 2. Type reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\Disabled Sessions /va /f and press enter.

[pengomix]

I have WIn7 installed, working fine in my lap HP, I have 1Gb in Memory, Pentium 4, Radeon mobill 600.

I don't like windows vista.

[9876543210]

buttsie,

Thanks for the link. Gave it a look and was finally able to find the quotes you had. Not a lot of help but I'll be seeing her machine tomorrow and I'll give that a try but I'm not real enthusiastic.

I was just on the MS Technet Forums and there was a bit more info there but not a lot. It seems (as usual) that the Adobe apps are being their usual pain in the arse. Who knows how long this will take for them to fix.

[billybunter]

Installed w7, great, but can't get an image host to work!?

[Rick Danger]

I am maintaining three Win XP and one Vista machine at home. While I have little doubt (this time) that Windows 7 works well, I'm not getting ready to trip down the garden path.

It took me about a year, including a full reinstall and lots of patches and tweaks to get Vista stable (i.e., not crashing every other day !). If anyone thinks I'm going to pay to upgrade to 7, they're crazy. In my mind, Microsoft should be issuing credits to those customers who suffered through this abomination instead of spending $300M on advertising. Basically if and when my existing hardware can no longer be maintained, then I'll replace those machines with whatever "flavor of the year" OS is out there. And I don't know whether it will be Mac OS, Windows, or a Linux deriative.

I read an interesting post about Win 7 running in 256Mb of RAM. Well, it was claimed back in 2005 that Vista would run in 512Mb. Anyone who has gone through the Vista Wars knows you need at least 2Gb for it to run. Also, remember all the advertising claiming that Vista was the most stable, most secure Windows ever ? I can tell you that when Microsoft releases security updates, I download as many per machine for my Vista machine as I do for my XP systems. Bottom line, DON'T BELIEVE THE PRE-RELEASE CLAIMS.

If you are going to upgrade, pay close attention to the hardware compatibility lists (HCLs) put out by Microsoft and your computer and peripherals vendors. At the very least have extra memory installed in your computer(s). If you are having this done for you go ahead and max out your system with memory. If you have printers and other peripherals that are three years old or more, be prepared to lay out $$$ to replace those devices. Of course, since many new PC offers come with printers included you might save yourself money and headaches just dumping both PC(s) and printer(s).

Ditto any software that is three years or older. Also, be careful if you are trying to install an old version on a new machine and then looking to skip to a new version. I remember years ago we ran into problems trying to upgrade from Office 95 to Office 2000, because the upgrade path assumed you were moving from Office 97 to 2000. You would probably be better off with a clean install of the latest version of whatever product you are using.

If anyone wants more of my two cents, drop me a message. But for right now, I have no intention on going down the Windows 7 upgrade path.

[MrKinkade]

You guys think windows 7 is better/quicker etc ? then think again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay-gqx18UTM

[billybunter]

Well I upgraded to 7 and so far it blows vista away. That said I had uninstall/reinstall my printer and a few other things. But MS owe a lot of people big $$££

[Psx0005]

I'm just fine with XP SP3. Only OS I'll be upgrading will be from OS X Leopard to Snow Leopard :D

[Rick Danger]

MrKinkade wrote:
You guys think windows 7 is better/quicker etc ? then think again

Far be it for me to defend Microsoft. But from the numerous blogs and reviews that I've read, Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista. Then again, anything would be ! So on a subjective basis, it is definitely "better". Is it better than Snow Leopard, Red Hat, Ubuntu - ? I can't say.

That's not to say there aren't problems with 7, or for that matter any operating system. How many of the problems are Windows and how many are caused by "the lose nut behind the keyboard", who knows ?

Some of the comments I've read state that Windows 7 is a less portly version of Vista. If that is indeed true, it couldn't help but be faster.

Couple of things I'm not fond of. First, the Users Account Control (UAC) is good in concept but poor in execution. It is carried over into Win 7, but it now allows you to dial down the 'sensitivity'. Still, UAC is dumb as dirt, since it never updates itself or 'learns' what software the user does want to execute. Windows Firewall does learn, so it can't be that the programmers at Microsoft don't know how to write adaptive code. Secondly, I hate the "tech support by blog" approach. I'm pretty experienced with Windows (and Unix). I don't need to waste time reading a dozen entries telling me to do what I have already tried to fix a problem ! The "blind leading the blind" approach doesn't work for me. Third, it's obvious that either Microsoft or the OEMs underestimated the resources needed to run Vista. I bought a new laptop with 1Gb of memory and it performed very poorly until I upgraded the memory and dumped alot of the Vista features that I didn't need that were nothing but system overhead. As I said in my prior post, don't trust any claims that Windows 7 needs less memory than say Windows XP.

I think trust is the true casuality of the Vista Wars. For example, I DO NOT take automatic updates from Microsoft anymore. I read the details of each release, then decide. Why ? First, I have tried at least ONE DOZEN times to install Vista SP1, even after rebuilding my machine. Even if it installs without errors, the machine crashes a few hours later and I have to back SP1 out. So I've stopped trying. The Windows XP SP3 definitely introduced more overhead to those systems, and I am running Internet Explorer 8 only on my Vista machine.

One other caution: Microsoft routinely removes features from each iteration of Windows which you might not know unless you are fond of pouring through hundreds of pages of release notes. I have seen Microsoft remove fonts from new versions of Windows, apparently not for technical reasons but for licensing issues. So, if you have a lot of Word documents and Microsoft removes fonts that you might be using, you may notice changes in the appearance of your documents.

I am not going to get into any 'religion' arguements. To me an operating system is exactly that. I want it to boot my system, load my apps, and stay out of my way while I work. Any other features are nothing but window (or is that Windows ?) dressing. Vista for me failed my criteria. Having said that, one machine/one user is not a representative statistical sample. But it's clear from the reviews and Internet chatter that Vista was a major disaster, and so far Windows 7 is not a sequel.

Frankly, I would love to see a major tech publication compare Win 7, Snow Leopard, Linux, et. al. side by side. But Redmond would probably sue to keep that from happening. Whatever happened to freedom of speech ?

They took a survey - why men get up in the middle of the night. Ten percent get up to go to the bathroom and ninety percent get up to go home! - Rodney Dangerfield (1921-2004)

[billybunter]

Great post Rick Danger. I have used windows since '95. All worked ok apart from 2000 & vista. 7 to me seems better. But XP was great and after installing vista I was appalled at how bad it was. I think Mac will overtake microsoft sooner rather than later.

[Estreeter]

I bought a new computer yesterday with Vista installed on it, so with it I also bought the Upgrade too Windows 7, I used Vista for about 3 hours and it gave you that nervous feeling. Soon after I loaded Windows 7, I must say I was rather impressed. Not one single sign of it stalling, locking up and doing weird and wonderful thing too the machine and your mind. Always been critical of Microsoft products, but this time I think they have got their act together.
So, Windows 7:thumbsup:

[billybunter]

I bought a new computer yesterday with Vista installed on it, so with it I also bought the Upgrade too Windows 7, I used Vista for about 3 hours and it gave you that nervous feeling. Soon after I loaded Windows 7, I must say I was rather impressed. Not one single sign of it stalling, locking up and doing weird and wonderful thing too the machine and your mind. Always been critical of Microsoft products, but this time I think they have got their act together.
So, Windows 7:thumbsup:

That's the way I felt as well mate. So far so good!

[xxxlover]

I've installed W7 Pro 64bit on fairly hi-spec new computer and apart from a glitches with ATi drivers which seem to have been resolved by installing the newest ones, it works fine. I can't tell if it's intrinsically faster than XP SP3 because the computer is so much better but I like it and recommend it, especially if you're using Vista.

[Estreeter]

I've installed W7 Pro 64bit on fairly hi-spec new computer and apart from a glitches with ATi drivers which seem to have been resolved by installing the newest ones, it works fine. I can't tell if it's intrinsically faster than XP SP3 because the computer is so much better but I like it and recommend it, especially if you're using Vista.
Don't know how you have found it so far,
I've had it for 3 weeks now, and i must say for once I'm impressed with a microsoft product. I've gone out of my way too try and wreak it. I'll be burning a DVD, have iTunes running, be on chat and of course be downloading some huge file and have fun on the forum at the same time and see no sign of it stuffing up. It is stable the whole time. The only time it came close was when i was doing all the above and at the same time i was transfering 20 gig from the C drive too an external drive, but I was pushing it. If ya tried all that with Vista, the PC would go China Syndrome Anybody had any problems yet?

PS, Nero 7 won't work:( but that's not unexpected

[jm1969]

I'm running W7 and liking it a lot (upgraded from Vista Ultimate to W7 Pro). I was dual-booting Vista with Linux (Ubuntu distro) because I really didn't like Vista, but after a few weeks running W7 I went ahead and deleted the Linux partitions. Also running (free) Microsoft Security Essentials for antivirus, so have to say I like what MS is doing lately...

[vcestone]

Anyone have an easy way to install XP as a duel boot on a machine that already has windows 7. I have 64 windows 7 and need 32bit xp for some older programs. Tried virtual PC 2007 but SLOW.

[billybunter]

Don't know how you have found it so far,
I've had it for 3 weeks now, and i must say for once I'm impressed with a microsoft product. I've gone out of my way too try and wreak it. I'll be burning a DVD, have iTunes running, be on chat and of course be downloading some huge file and have fun on the forum at the same time and see no sign of it stuffing up. It is stable the whole time. The only time it came close was when i was doing all the above and at the same time i was transfering 20 gig from the C drive too an external drive, but I was pushing it. If ya tried all that with Vista, the PC would go China Syndrome Anybody had any problems yet?

PS, Nero 7 won't work:( but that's not unexpected

I've had nero problems too mate. Had to uninstall/reinstall three times before it would work:mad: But apart from that microsoft seem to have got it right this time.

[dohupa]

Bloody Nero; crap house development more like it. Hey lads - do it like the pros; get into the popular warez boards and snatch v6.6.1.15 Micro or Lite.

That is, the burning bit only; why do I have to fuck up my system with their joke of encoders anyway and all the bloatware media crap that comes with it arrgggghhhh.... :mad:

Who is the rocket scientist that told them we need all this for anyway? BTW - I have it on Win 7 64-bit and since I will never burn a BD disk (it's not supported in this old version) - I'm happy. :)

[anklebiter]

Anyone have an easy way to install XP as a duel boot on a machine that already has windows 7. I have 64 windows 7 and need 32bit xp for some older programs. Tried virtual PC 2007 but SLOW.

If you dual boot, you need the older OS installed first.Sorry, maybe you have the Win7 CD? It's the way 7 installs the boot menu. MS offers virtual XP for some versions of 7, I downloaded it, but never installed it.

I'm stuck in limbo.ATI has dropped support for my video card, and Win7 installs some generic driver most of my games refuse to run on.It's back to XP till the day I can get a better video card, and current driver support.

[goonerkev]

I haven't seen Windows 7 in operation yet. Is this one of the new built in features ?? :)



http://img128.imagevenue.com/loc586/th_09568_hide-porn-keyboard_123_586lo.jpg (http://img128.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=09568_hide-porn-keyboard_123_586lo.jpg)

[Sharu]

I m on win7 32 bit now, and I m really exited. It s really fast, stable, and like Mvasilj said, its really comfortable, I copied over 200 gb videos and music from my old pc (win xp serv 3) to my new machine, while online gaming and having small talk on teamspeak, and there was no problem with the performance.
the mentioned before annoying "are you sure" question could be disabled in the users menu.
win 7 is what vista was claimed to be. and, btw, win 7 isnt 20+ gb in size, you should only have 30 gb free on your system partition (virtual cage, recycle bin, etc). I mean, thats ok, in times with 1000gb hds, who cares bout 30gb? win xp, with it s 600 mb wanted to have a big amount (compared to the installation size) of free space on your system partition. 30gb is about the double size of win7 32 bit home prem. compared to several gb free for 600mb win xp, what a joke to blame that...
the reason why i stepped to win 7 is multimedia and gaming; sooner or later, new games will support all directX 11 features, and at that point, there is no future for win xp for me. DirectX11 compared with nVidia PhysiX will bring an unbelieveable gaming performance. Microsoft doesn t care anymore, if people prefer to work on win xp, I don t believe, that they will support it, like stated, till 2014. Since the win7 release, there were statements, wich gave me the feeling, that they will stop supporting win xp and vista sooner as thought.

hf

[9876543210]

Sharu,

Microsoft doesn t care anymore, if people prefer to work on win xp, I don t believe, that they will support it, like stated, till 2014. Since the win7 release, there were statements, wich gave me the feeling, that they will stop supporting win xp and vista sooner as thought.

hf

I don't know how long MS will support XP but I think it will be for quite a bit longer. And the reason is that virtually no large businesses switched to Vista (as there were so many problems) and won't switch to Win 7 at least until SP1 or SP2 (if even then). IF the economy starts doing a bit better then some "may" start switching but I don't think that will happen for a while. Friends of mine in IT departments have told me that they currently have no plans for switching as the cost in hardware and software just can't be justified at the moment.

They may put Win 7 on their personal machines but its just not going to happen company wide anytime soon.

[Sharu]

First, I spoke about private users, not any company. I work on both, xp and win7, but not in a professional way.
Microsoft stated to support win xp til 2014, but sp 3 is claimed to be the last sp for xp. Accordding to different sources (ok, im talking about media, pc press), ms is thinking about to stop win xp/vista (if so, I could understand that, vista was a desaster, and win xp is old) sooner than expected. win 7 sp 1 will come sooner than for any other ms os before. that buissenes didn t switch to vista is easy to understand; but the ms wants to make more money. vista caused such a lot of problems, lots of people lost their last trust in microsoft, stepped back to xp or switched to apple/linux, vista made no money. running buissenes with an old os like xp, while hardware is gettn more powerfull, offering multimedia performance, that xp isn t able to handle is not the pole positon for ms (check the difference in the game Crysis on xp with directX 9c and on a directX 10.1 machine with vista/win7). Microsoft is goin to make more and more money with private users, than with companies, and in the last years, microsoft focused on younger generations (xbox, xbox live, marketplace...), they realised that they could make more money with those, who are willing to give all their money for powerfull performance, and that includes win7 too. Another point is, that there is an directX update for vista, that brings vista users a nearly similiar gaming experience like on win 7, but xp isn t able to handle that, so there will come an update, that only brings a handfull more fps, and a little more polygones, but the real fx arent supported on this old os. Would you survive the software war by selling only 8+ years old software? Like I said, it s only the pov of a private user, who is sure, that the vison of ms is the new os in every home. not more or less.
I understand your friends, win 7 itself isn t that expensive, but actual hardware is something, that needed to be planned wisely, when you have to build an intranet or so, for private use, it s not that big amount of money, but for an company...
It s not about if this happens in 1 or 2 or 4 years, but the days are runnin, xp was a phenomenom, no ms os was sold for so long as the only actual os, but ms is back to their 3 years plan (Im sure, that this is a result of the vista desaster, they couldn t let this goin on for the next 8 years). OK, it didn t take 3 years from vista to win7, but win7 is the big step back to this old 3 years plan. If ms holds this plan, Im sure, there will come heavier changes, than in the last years. In a good, and in a bad way.
But til then, we will see...

hf

[Jacktheladat1]

Okay, Win7 is 'the latest.' I personally preferred XP. If it's not broken, WHY mend it?

[luddite]

Okay, Win7 is 'the latest.' I personally preferred XP. If it's not broken, WHY mend it?

Actually, Windows 8 will be released soon, and it is quite different from the previous operating systems.

[9876543210]

luddite,

Actually, Windows 8 will be released soon, and it is quite different from the previous operating systems.

Win 8 is supposed to be released in October. But I have to say I'm not real impressed and think its another Win ME or Vista. They're new start screen and no start button is going to go over like a lead balloon. I can just see IT training dept.'s looking at that and going "No f%#K)^g way". I played with it for a while and just didn't see the point except to confuse. Way to go MS? Another swing and a miss.

[penfold007]

Okay, Win7 is 'the latest.' I personally preferred XP. If it's not broken, WHY mend it?

There were problems with XP which Vista and 7 addressed. The most notable improvement was forcing drivers to run at ring 3 instead of ring 0. Vista introduced other problems, which 7 fixed.

[xerxes10]

As an IT professional working on what I believe is the worlds largest IT infrastructure(certainly in the top 5) I can inform you that we have Windows 7/Server 2010 on pilot at this time. It will be rolled out in the not so distant future.

The fact is XP is long past it's useful lifespan and is starting to cause problems. Large Enterprises/Public Sector organisations are going to have to move on just to keep up.

For a simple example ISP's have to provide TCP/IP optimizers for XP to handle broadband speeds that cable can deliver.

There are only so many patches and updates that can be made before the underlying limitations of the OS cannot be overcome.

It is my understanding that Windows 7 was built on an XP 'engine' anyway, as opposed to Vista which was a ground up experiment which was obviously less than perfect, tho' could work fine if you knew how to get the best out of it. Though that was it's problem(as Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory makes a joke about). In a consumer market where the average punter just wants the thing to do what they want without having to do any fettling Vista didn't live up to expectations.

Funnily enough as a Microsoft/Cisco Professional I've always been a Mac user. :o)

[Lemo]

Okay, Win7 is 'the latest.' I personally preferred XP. If it's not broken, WHY mend it?
Because you can get some improovement in perfomance!
But also you can get some compatibility problems and with sound too :-).

[penfold007]

It is my understanding that Windows 7 was built on an XP 'engine' anyway, as opposed to Vista which was a ground up experiment which was obviously less than perfect, tho' could work fine if you knew how to get the best out of it.

Vista saw a major revision of the NT kernel from the version that XP was based on. 7 was a further minor revision of the same kernel - it built upon Vista, not upon XP.

I've no idea what's new in the Windows 8 kernel, we have an installation here for testing purposes, but the UI is so frustrating to use that I am just ignoring it.

(With apologies for the very delayed reply)

[aka3132000]

Windows 8 is pretty useless unless you have a touch screen.

Vista is too annoying with it's constant prompting to ok a change.

Windows XP works but if you are using the 64 bit version, it's not great

Therefore Windows 7 (64 bit version) is only the usable one currently from MS.