Windows 7

[Darth Nostril]

Quite clearly stated - upgrade is 32 bit to 32 bit, 64 bit to 64 bit, no crossover, and that's Vista to Win 7, XP & XP64 have to be fresh install.
Although the install does archive your existing windows folder just in case there's files in there you need to extract.

[Transbot9]

I thought I had issues with the student version from the UltimateSteal offer, but it turns out it was just an incompatibility with my wireless card and once I sorted that out, it's been working perfectly since then, no complaints here.

Right, K, and from the looks of things the main issue is it's peeps not reading the documentation on "why things don't work the way you think they should." I'm downloading me that ISO, though - that'll save me a few bucks on ordering a physical disc, so all I need to do is buy the code.

Oh, quick question about XP emulator in Pro - can it emulate 32bit XP when running 64bit Win7, or is XP forced to run @ 64 bit? Some of the archaic games I like to play now and then would probably work in Vista/Win7 if it weren't for the outdated installer screaming "It's not 32bit!"

[Xon]

64bit x86 Windows can natively run 32bit apps. But not 16bit apps (use VirtualPC or dosbox for those).

[Xon]

Finally got around to upgrading to Win7. Took a backup image before doing an inplace upgrade, all up the process took about ~2 hours. About 45 minutes todo the backup, and the bulk of the rest of the time was the in-place upgrade gathering the old files rather than installing windows.

I then imaged the drive onto my 120gb SSD (g skill falcon, now to play the waiting game for the new firmware with TRIM support) after a little hoop jumping to move it from the 250gb drive it was running on (trimmed system restore to 20gb rather than 80gb did it). Except for video drivers, I didn't have to touch any drivers.

The only changes I made to my apps was to change ffshow to not decode MPEG2/MPEG4 because Windows now does that.

[MKSheppard]

I then imaged the drive onto my 120gb SSD (g skill falcon, now to play the waiting game for the new firmware with TRIM support)

Don't upgrade the firmware!

Right now, the major SSD manufacturers who are worth a damn, like OCZ or Intel, are having major problems with TRIM firmware implementation and bricking the drives.

It's really incomprehensible why Intel or OCZ waited so long to begin to release the firmware for TRIM -- for example, Intel will begin shipping drives with the TRIM firmware on 7 November -- when they had all summer to play around with the final release etc versions of Windows 7, allowing them to begin to ship the TRIM firmware in september, ensuing that drives with the firmware already on it would be in stores for Windows 7's release.

[Xon]

The g skill firmware with Trim support isn't even out yet, I'll wait at least a few months before getting it because ssd firmware has a really bad history.

[frogcurry]

I'm a little late to the party but Dell finally delivered my new laptop. At first I thought it was just Vista again in appearance, but I did a test to compare to my Mum's Vista laptop (which is pretty much a clean install). With a few gadgets loaded (slideshow, clock and calendar) both cores are running about 6 -10% to run those plus some firefox windows. My Mums (slightly slower but otherwise very closely specced) laptop runs at 30-40% processor load with Vista with the same low duty. Not quite an apples to apples comparison I know, but they've obviously fixed the excessive and unnecessary background processes that used to annoy me when using her computer.

So far I've had no real problems using it, and only the taskbar control panel (right click) confuses me- It talks about "Combining buttons" to select whether it displays text or not next to each running icon. Go figure.

[Uraniun235]

I think something's wrong if Vista is using that much CPU power at idle; I run Vista and I don't run into that. Are you sure that's not something like the anti-virus running?

[starslayer]

If you want the 64-bit version, Microsoft made an ISO available here that you can burn to a disk and do a clean install with. It only works with one of the student upgrade keys though.

Is that Home Premium or Pro?

[DesertFly]

If you want the 64-bit version, Microsoft made an ISO available here that you can burn to a disk and do a clean install with. It only works with one of the student upgrade keys though.

Is that Home Premium or Pro?

Haven't used it myself, but if it's anything like the normal install media for 7 (or Vista, even), then it will have all options available, and which one is activated depends on which edition the key you have belongs to.

[phongn]

Haven't used it myself, but if it's anything like the normal install media for 7 (or Vista, even), then it will have all options available, and which one is activated depends on which edition the key you have belongs to.

For some bizarre reason, Microsoft stopped doing that with W7.

[Darth Nostril]

Getting really hacked off with NVidias utterly shite multi monitor support in Win 7.
For fucks sake it is the very same driver I had just updated to on XP64 right before I got Win 7, on that I had clone or I could span across multiple monitors vertically or horizontally.
On Win 7 I have clone or 'extended' desktop, ie I can drag floating tabs onto the 'spare' monitor if the software supports it, I cannot span the app itself across both monitors because the next time I fire it up the app is scrunched up on one monitor.
Vue 7 Infinite does not have floating tabs and so I am reduced to resizing it each and everytime I want to use it, I did not pay to have my software retrograded like this, looks like I'm better off reformatting and reinstalling XP64 & ripping out the Quadro and getting an ATi instead for stability.

[Netko]

Haven't used it myself, but if it's anything like the normal install media for 7 (or Vista, even), then it will have all options available, and which one is activated depends on which edition the key you have belongs to.

For some bizarre reason, Microsoft stopped doing that with W7.

Its a dumbing down based on automatic metrics they get. Overall, I'm really happy with the simplifications that come for the installer for each successive Windows version, but this one is pretty annoying. Apparently, there was a large contingent of retards who didn't enter their product key when asked (reasonable - maybe you don't have the key handy for whatever reason, want to copy-paste it in case of getting it digitally or whatever), but then proceeded to install the wrong version of Vista when asked to select it (stupid). Windows 7 still ships with all versions on a disc (unlike XP and earlier); however, by default, it includes an text file which version the media is supposed to install. Its possible to modify your media (image) so that it doesn't contain that file, in which case the 7 installer reverts to the Vista behavior, however you cannot get an version unlocked image from Microsoft.

[Archaic`]

Upgraded to Windows 7 this evening. Thusfar, I haven't had a very good experience with it, to be honest. The drivers the system used for the motherboard's onboard network adapter don't seem to be working correctly, and I'm constantly getting disconnected from the internet. Even a small blip is enough to disrupt these downloads, so just trying to get the proper drivers for it are turning into a real chore. Not sure what if anything I can actually do about it though except be patient...or get someone else to download these executable files for me.

We'll see how it holds up once I can actually start really installing stuff on here.

[Shinova]

Just installed Windows 7 fresh. (note: if you do a full clean install, try deleting your drive's partition and re-creating it; setup will automatically create a small separate system-only partition that windows 7 seems to use for strictly behind-the-scenes system purposes. I'm thinking that some people might end up missing out that bit, but I don't know if it'll have any actual effect)


Had some initial problems trying to install motherboard's ethernet driver, but vista compatibility mode solves it. Runs like a dream so far, updates are MUCH faster than Vista. Haven't done much else, but it seems to run much faster than vista by default. We'll see after I start piling my programs back on the system.

[Rye]

has there been any word if the student upgrade download issue for 32-to-64 has been fixed?

The article I posted last week in this thread had a way to get the 32 bit installer:

http://windows7.digitalriver.com/servle ... D.46354000 In the Web form select the Download Option in the drop down menu and include "64-bit Installation Block" in the first line of your problem description.

If you want the 64-bit version, Microsoft made an ISO available here that you can burn to a disk and do a clean install with. It only works with one of the student upgrade keys though.

Is this professional or home edition? I'm going from Vista 32 to W7 Pro 64, and they've totally not answered any of my emails asking them for this goddamned thing. Googling, it looks to be Professional, so I hope it's right.

[Rye]

Turns out it is. Thanks DA! You're a frustration-saver.

[Archaic`]

Upgraded to Windows 7 this evening. Thusfar, I haven't had a very good experience with it, to be honest. The drivers the system used for the motherboard's onboard network adapter don't seem to be working correctly, and I'm constantly getting disconnected from the internet. Even a small blip is enough to disrupt these downloads, so just trying to get the proper drivers for it are turning into a real chore. Not sure what if anything I can actually do about it though except be patient...or get someone else to download these executable files for me.

Turns out the problem I had was IPv6. The old router just couldn't cope with it. Once I turned it off, everything went swimmingly.

[frogcurry]

Upgraded to Windows 7 this evening. Thusfar, I haven't had a very good experience with it, to be honest. The drivers the system used for the motherboard's onboard network adapter don't seem to be working correctly, and I'm constantly getting disconnected from the internet. Even a small blip is enough to disrupt these downloads, so just trying to get the proper drivers for it are turning into a real chore. Not sure what if anything I can actually do about it though except be patient...or get someone else to download these executable files for me.

Turns out the problem I had was IPv6. The old router just couldn't cope with it. Once I turned it off, everything went swimmingly.

Sorry to bother you, but this is interesting and I'm trying to understand what happened here if you're willing to share. So do you have a IPv6 compatible network adapter which switched into that mode when you installed Win 7, but which had previously operated only in IPv4 under your last version of windows (presumably win XP)? How'd you work out that was the problem?

[Archaic`]

The problem was that only my computer's on-board ethernet was compatible with IPv6. All our other networking hardware, the range booster and router, wasn't. Windows 7 has both IPv6 and IPv4 switched on for all networking by default. It seems that even though it recognized the IPv4 connection was present and IPv6 wouldn't work, it kept retrying IPv6, which would cause things to cut out.

As for how I worked out it might be a problem....I just googled it. ^^;;; Apparently, several people had similar issues with the range booster and router I was using under Windows Vista 64 bit, and I just tried some of the solutions they'd mentioned there.

[frogcurry]

Ah, thank you for the explanation.