Windows 7

[MKSheppard]

So today is IIRC release/launch day for Windows 7.

Anyone here planning on getting it, and if they do, what are their experiences with it?

I'm particularly interested in speed/stability/compatibility issues.

Speed; is it all that it's hyped up to be? Is it actually a bit faster than XP?

Stability; Windows has been pretty stable since Windows 2000 came along and fixed the horrid mess that was 9x; but there's always the possibility of some instability creeping in.

Compatibility: How well does it run your older applications and hardware?

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I'm actually getting 3 copies of Home Premium today, two for myself and one for my father. I was able to get them at the pre-order deal of £50 each, which is pretty good value for a full version Windows OS.

Anyway, I have been using the release candidate at home for a good few months now and, put simply, I've found it to be a big improvement over XP but with none of the drawbacks of Vista.

Stability: I've never had a crash when using it.

Compatibility: I'm using some obscure bits of kit (like a non-brand wireless keyboard) and it works with that just fine. It can load Vista drivers for anything as I recall, and most things have those now.

The main thing I was concerned about with it was game compatibility, but I have yet to find a game that runs on XP which won't run on Win7 - and I play quite a few older games.

Performance: good, easily on par with XP in my experience.

Now this is subjective point, but the UI design is nice. As someone who never moved over to Vista, I was getting pretty sick of the XP UI after all the aeons I have been using it.

Again, a small point but the installer is really nice (I believe this is the same one from Vista, if you've used that) and even doing a full format/reinstall was simple and seemed like it only took 20 minutes.

The Media Centre is really nice for videos - however if you have a well organised music collection like me it will totally fail to be useful; It doesn't take directory structure into account at all when displaying music, so you just get a massive sea of tracks. You can try to arrange it by "album" and such like - but when I try to do that it splits albums up in multiple small groups, for example if one album has tracks from different artists (hardly uncommon). This is a bit of a let down as the Media Centre is great otherwise.

There is some silliness: it appears you can no longer force Windows to install unsigned drivers, though it wouldn't surprise me if a hack turns up quickly to disable this feature.

Games are now organised into their own "program group" in control panel - which means you will end up going to add/remove programs a few times and thinking "Huh, where are my games?" before you get used to it. Older games not programmed for this will end up in add/remove programs instead of the games group, also.

Keep an eye on Tweakguides.com as he will be releasing a comprehensive Win7 tweaking guide in the coming weeks, and he always does a really good job on those.

[Mr Flibble]

I tried the RC and was really pleased with it, so I got the released version also.

I'm no expert on speeds, but it runs everything I have used with it smoothly. One area where it does excel is installation time, which was much shorter than both XP and vista for me.

I haven't had any major issues with software I use, including old games. I particularly like the XP mode available for Professional and Ultimate, it runs very nicely for me.

I too have had no real stability issues so far.

My only problems I have encountered are with my tablet PC. On the RC the touchscreen wouldn't align properly (I haven't yet tested the 'full version' with this yet though). Also the fingerprint reader software that came with the tablet did not work with the RC, which is the only incompatible piece of software I have encountered so far.

[General Zod]

So today is IIRC release/launch day for Windows 7.

Anyone here planning on getting it, and if they do, what are their experiences with it?

I'm particularly interested in speed/stability/compatibility issues.

I'm going to be looking into getting it when I can find a decent netbook in the next few months with Win7 loaded. You could always opt for an upgrade but. . .well, upgrade mileages may vary.

Speed; is it all that it's hyped up to be? Is it actually a bit faster than XP?

Overall? Yes. On a clean install it takes about 40 minutes, significantly faster than XP, though upgrading from an existing install is about the same. Performance wise it has better memory management and a lot of increased functionality. Though I wouldn't recommend trying to run it on anything less than a P4.

Stability; Windows has been pretty stable since Windows 2000 came along and fixed the horrid mess that was 9x; but there's always the possibility of some instability creeping in.

Windows has been pretty stable since Vista's latest service pack. Win 7 is pretty much a cleaned up, far more stable version of Vista that should have been released the first time around. Driver support is vastly improved as well; I was able to install it on an older HP laptop and didn't need to install any of HP's standalone drivers to get basic functionality.

Compatibility: How well does it run your older applications and hardware?

I believe there's an XP compatibility mode to handle older software. I can't really say I run software that's more than a few years old though.

[White Haven]

It actually goes a good deal beyond compatibility mode. If you have Pro or Ultimate and a processor with virtualization functions, you can download software from the Microsoft site that lets you run a virtual XP system inside 7. Haven't had a chance to give it a serious run yet, but the first thing I'm gonna do once I get my box set up is try to installed KOTOR 2 without the various voodoo that makes it work on Vista to see how good the system is.

[Mr Flibble]

It actually goes a good deal beyond compatibility mode. If you have Pro or Ultimate and a processor with virtualization functions, you can download software from the Microsoft site that lets you run a virtual XP system inside 7. Haven't had a chance to give it a serious run yet, but the first thing I'm gonna do once I get my box set up is try to installed KOTOR 2 without the various voodoo that makes it work on Vista to see how good the system is.

Yeah I have tried the beta of the XP virtualization. It works quite nicely. I haven't tried it with KOTOR 2 though, but several old games and other software that I have tried worked without a hitch, so I suspect you shouldn't run into any problems with KOTOR 2.

[White Haven]

It's not so much that I particularly want KOTOR 2 to work over other games, it's just that it stands out in my mind as a prime example of software hatred of Vista, and as such it'll make a good test.

Rant: God dammit, the web-distribution 7 upgrades are shit. They're not bootables, you HAVE to do an in-OS upgrade as far as I've been able to discern.

[Azazal]

Rant: God dammit, the web-distribution 7 upgrades are shit. They're not bootables, you HAVE to do an in-OS upgrade as far as I've been able to discern.

Good to know, I can get the download through school for free, but that sucks if it won't boot to run the install

[Archaic`]

I've got access to the student offer, which thankfully here in Australia includes distribution media (though for about $15 extra). I'm not going to have time to install it for a few weeks anyway, so I'm going to wait and see how things go before ordering it. I've heard a lot of things about it from users of the RC, but I'd like to get some more information on if it's actually worth it first.

[White Haven]

I'd wager a decent chunk of change that the 'distribution' is just the DL files on a disc. The US got the same offer.

Status update: The in-place upgrade works quite nicely, and it does seem to wipe out your old registry, but save your files in an automatic backup. I'd still RATHER have a bootable media, but as upgrades go, it's a close second to an actual reinstall; it doesn't try to carry over all your old software.

[Stark]

Damn, I've been too busy at work to order my student upgrade. I didn't have any problems at all with the RC and the compatibility features are far better than XP/Vista, so I'll certainly be getting the full version.

Win7 is also extremely scalable; it boots on things like netbooks faster than XP.

[phongn]

I've been running the RTM for months, it's been very, very good. I also run the starter version in a virtual machine for web testing and it's amazingly smooth.

There will probably be driver issues to be ironed out. It runs pretty much everything I've thrown at it.

[El Moose Monstero]

So I just did the upgrade from Vista to 7, and I've had major problems even though the compatability tool said it would all be fine.

I've had a 'bad header' BSOD and an IRQL less than equal and just this second, a Memory management message too. Has anyone got any ideas on what I need to do to correct this? At the minute, I've not even managed to have Windows open for 5 minutes, barely enough time to get it to finish sorting it's first installation settings out.

My computer had been running absolutely fine on vista, so this sudden glut of crashes after upgrading is worrying.

[Vendetta]

So I just did the upgrade from Vista to 7, and I've had major problems even though the compatability tool said it would all be fine.

I've had a 'bad header' BSOD and an IRQL less than equal and just this second, a Memory management message too. Has anyone got any ideas on what I need to do to correct this? At the minute, I've not even managed to have Windows open for 5 minutes, barely enough time to get it to finish sorting it's first installation settings out.

My computer had been running absolutely fine on vista, so this sudden glut of crashes after upgrading is worrying.

Boot to the windows recovery environment that's now standard in 7 and run the memory test therein. It will tell you if there's actually a memory problem.

If it comes up clear, blitz the system and do a clean install.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Win7 is also extremely scalable; it boots on things like netbooks faster than XP.

Boot times tell us relatively little about the actual performance. The faster boot probably means just that booting has been parallelized, which will speed it up even on a single processor core system and of course much more with multiple cores. That said, it is clear that Windows 7 is faster than Vista and it's probably faster than XP on modern hardware with at least 2 GiB of memory. However, I would not even want to try it one a true legacy system from the 1999-2004 period, most of which run XP just fine. Perhaps you might get away with a fast P4 Northwood or Athlon XP with sufficient memory.

[General Zod]

So I just did the upgrade from Vista to 7, and I've had major problems even though the compatability tool said it would all be fine.

I've had a 'bad header' BSOD and an IRQL less than equal and just this second, a Memory management message too. Has anyone got any ideas on what I need to do to correct this? At the minute, I've not even managed to have Windows open for 5 minutes, barely enough time to get it to finish sorting it's first installation settings out.

My computer had been running absolutely fine on vista, so this sudden glut of crashes after upgrading is worrying.

Did you upgrade with the Student Version? If so it seems that the way they packaged it makes it have tons of issues on people's machines when they attempt the upgrade. Supposedly a fixed version is in the works.

[El Moose Monstero]

So I just did the upgrade from Vista to 7, and I've had major problems even though the compatability tool said it would all be fine.

I've had a 'bad header' BSOD and an IRQL less than equal and just this second, a Memory management message too. Has anyone got any ideas on what I need to do to correct this? At the minute, I've not even managed to have Windows open for 5 minutes, barely enough time to get it to finish sorting it's first installation settings out.

My computer had been running absolutely fine on vista, so this sudden glut of crashes after upgrading is worrying.

Did you upgrade with the Student Version? If so it seems that the way they packaged it makes it have tons of issues on people's machines when they attempt the upgrade. Supposedly a fixed version is in the works.

I did use the student upgrade package - it did seem to finish the upgrade ok, but BSOD's abound afterwards. Do you know if it is the way the installer is packaged that makes it not work or is it the actual program itself which is faulty? What I mean is, when they send me a back up cd, should I try that or should I just write off my desktop machine until they've produced a working installer? Thanks by the way, I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to obliterate everything only to find the same error again.

[ray245]

Seems like Apple is doing tons of aggressive marketing to deter people from buying Windows 7.

[General Zod]

I did use the student upgrade package - it did seem to finish the upgrade ok, but BSOD's abound afterwards. Do you know if it is the way the installer is packaged that makes it not work or is it the actual program itself which is faulty? What I mean is, when they send me a back up cd, should I try that or should I just write off my desktop machine until they've produced a working installer? Thanks by the way, I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to obliterate everything only to find the same error again.

The article doesn't really give specifics, unfortunately. Changing the installer to an ISO seems to work for some people, so it's up in the air whether or not that's the problem. Probably a good idea to revert back to your original OS if you can until they cough up a fixed version of the upgrade.

[Vendetta]

The faster boot probably means just that booting has been parallelized, which will speed it up even on a single processor core system and of course much more with multiple cores.

Booting has been parellelised to some degree at least. Driver loads are now all at once rather than sequential, for instance.

Win7 is also extremely scalable; it boots on things like netbooks faster than XP.

I would still use XP on a netbook, because 7 still eats batteries like pringles.

[Netko]

It actually goes a good deal beyond compatibility mode. If you have Pro or Ultimate and a processor with virtualization functions, you can download software from the Microsoft site that lets you run a virtual XP system inside 7. Haven't had a chance to give it a serious run yet, but the first thing I'm gonna do once I get my box set up is try to installed KOTOR 2 without the various voodoo that makes it work on Vista to see how good the system is.

KOTOR (both versions) have had behind-the-scenes hacks (compatibility fixes) added in 7 which allow them to run without any messing around (although a no-cd crack is recommended) - I've played through both on 7 recently (for academia, 7 has been available since august). You can't use XP mode (the VM XP in 7) for 3d accelerated stuff, but it works great and integrates well for office apps (for example, older AutoCADs that flat out don't work on Vista).

Seems like Apple is doing tons of aggressive marketing to deter people from buying Windows 7.
<snip>

Apple used to have excellent ads in this PC vs Mac vein, but it seems they needed an easy target, because all three of these are truly horribly bad used car salesman stick.

[MKSheppard]

Okay, I got a Toshiba Laptop with Win 7 x64 on it today, because of the fact I'm going to be spending all week this week researching at the National Archives with Tony Buttler, and well; normally, I would use the family laptop; but my brother stepped on his laptop, broke it, and is now using the family laptop for school.

So in order to make commitments i had made with Tony, I had no other option but to use the money I'd been saving for the eventual upgrade of my present computer to Windows 7 (More RAM, possibly a SSD) on this laptop.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So I just did the upgrade from Vista to 7, and I've had major problems even though the compatability tool said it would all be fine.

I've had a 'bad header' BSOD and an IRQL less than equal and just this second, a Memory management message too. Has anyone got any ideas on what I need to do to correct this? At the minute, I've not even managed to have Windows open for 5 minutes, barely enough time to get it to finish sorting it's first installation settings out.

My computer had been running absolutely fine on vista, so this sudden glut of crashes after upgrading is worrying.

Did you upgrade with the Student Version? If so it seems that the way they packaged it makes it have tons of issues on people's machines when they attempt the upgrade. Supposedly a fixed version is in the works.

I am having that particular problem right now. There is a read/write permissions error when i unpack the install files. I am going to try to convert it to an ISO (or "obtain" one) and then burn to disk and boot from that. I have a valid key so it isnt exactly in violation of their EULA to do that.

[MKSheppard]

It doesn't boot up as fast as I expected; but that might be due to my copy of Windows 7 x64 not being a "clean" microsoft install, but larded up with OEM Crap. I uninstalled Norton. Ugh. They must pay OEMs bucketloads to put their garbage on their computers.

[Ryushikaze]

I've not gotten my upgrade copy yet, but I'm curious to know, if I'm running the release client, is it possible to upgrade from that, or do I have to do it from Windows Vista? I suspect it's the latter, but I figure if anyone knows to the contrary, it would be someone here.