Windows 7

[J-M v2.5.5]

Having a spare PC here, I figured I'd... erm... try Windows 7.
So I... uh... "acquired" the x86 Ultimate edition (this PC has a 32-bit processor) and installed it.

And wow! I'm amazed! I was really sceptical about it being so good and awesome and all that, but it really is as good as people have been saying. There's a whole bunch of incredibly useful new functions (right-mouse on the "Explorer" icon in the quick launch bar shows the folders/files you frequently open, for example) and it's actually fast. It's as least as fast as Windows XP, which I had installed on this PC before trying Windows 7. Infact, it might actually be faster!

And everything works flawlessly thusfar! Has anyone else tried this surprisingly good OS?

Also:

 

[PBarnum]

I never got what was so wrong with Vista. I have been running it for about a year and a half and I have never had a problem. But yes, Windows 7 is awesome.

 

[Thothie]

I have an alt-boot for it just to fix other folk's systems who have issues with it. Do not use it as main OS... I have a Vista-only laptop that does not like XP that I've been considering tossing 7 onto, and seeing it'll stick, but I rarely use that laptop these days. I mostly stick to the netbook, which has about a quarter of the horsepower, runs on XP, and yet also runs circles around that Vista laptop - save for the lack of 17" screen.

In any case, I see no point in 7 if you aren't already saddled with Vista. Still has the media protection layer, and still isn't as fast as XP. It's also not as broadly software and hardware compatible as either XP or Vista. You'd need about 10x the efficiency to make me switch to a media protected OS.

But if I had to choose between Vista and 7, there's no question. Hitler it is.

 

[Borya]

Minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7[101] Architecture 32-bit 64-bit
Processor 1 GHz 32-bit processor 1 GHz 64-bit processor
Memory (RAM) 1 GB of RAM 2 GB of RAM
Graphics Card DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM driver model 1.0 (For Aero)
HDD free space 16 GB of available disk space 20 GB of available disk space
Optical drive DVD drive (only to install from DVD/CD Media)

Minimum Recommended
Processor 233 MHz1 300 MHz or higher
Memory 64 MB RAM2 128 MB RAM or higher
Video adapter and monitor Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution
Hard drive disk free space 1.5 GB or higher
(additional 1.8 GB in Service Pack 2[34] and additional 900 MB in Service Pack 3[35])
Drives CD-ROM drive or DVD drive
Input devices Keyboard. Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
Sound Sound card. Speakers or headphones

________

I still don't see where people are getting this 'faster' from, unless windows uses a non-euclidean scale for system performance in relation to system requirements...

 

[Thothie]

Second half is XP requirements, I assume.

In fairness, Microsoft has not tried to claim that 7 is faster than XP this time around, just that it is faster than Vista.

Vista:
• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 GB of system memory
• 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
• WDDM Driver
• 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
• Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
• 32 bits per pixel
• DVD-ROM drive
• Audio Output
• Internet access
(Less than 2% of the Windows systems in the world qualified for this when Vista was released)

7:
• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
• XP mode requires an additional 1 GB + 15GB Drivespace (which is VERY odd when you look below)
(Yay, we've more than halved the drive space requirement!)

XP:
• 233 MHz CPU (less than a third of the other two)
• 64 MB (less than 1/16th of the other two)
• 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of HD space (...)
• Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor, 16 colors
(No, contest.)

Of course, Win 3.1 has half those requirements again, nevermind DOS or Linux, but unlike those, these three all run the same bloody software. It's downright depressing that we've multiplied the power we use so many times over to do the exact same task, only more slowly.

 

[Blasto121]

I am using 7 right now, and can say that my 7 installation vs my xp installation. 7 wins in speed, mostly due to how the system is managed. Now I am not saying 7 is flawless in anyway, but 7 is a very good step up, I have in fact moved almost entirly to it because of the speed improvments and just overall better performance.

while XP may have much lower requirements, it also doesn't know how to use the newer hardware. A good example is my CPU, I am running a phenom 2 x4 954. While I can use XP with it, making it quite responsive and quick. XP is on the flip side not written with multi-core computing in mind. Windows 7 is a different story it is able to use my CPU in a way XP can't, thus getting better results. Obviously if you meet the requirements for 7 doesn't acutomatically, mean it will run better. Hardware does play a pretty hefty role in what OS you should be using.

I say anything Running DDR3 and multi-core CPU's would be better off with windows 7 than xp speed wise. Inverse for most other hardware sans maybe some really high end DDR2 machines with multi-core CPU's.

windows 7 is a decent improvement over xp for new hardware.

 

[SilentDeath]

I've been running windows 7 for a while. It runs fast like blasto said it works well with the newer hardware. Haven't had any complaints so far.

 

[Thothie]

I say anything Running DDR3 and multi-core CPU's would be better off with windows 7 than xp speed wise. Inverse for most other hardware sans maybe some really high end DDR2 machines with multi-core CPU's.

windows 7 is a decent improvement over xp for new hardware.

Benchmark it. I think you'll find it's a false perception. I've never seen any benchmarks where Win7 comes close to XP.

I've got 4GB DDR3 and a Quad Core CPU. My XP flies circles around my Win7 boot in every benchmark I've tried (we're talking between 25% and 400% faster). Combine that with all the software compatibility issues and the evils of the media protection layer, and needless to say, I only use my Win7 boot once in a blue moon (literally this month!), and then only for debugging purposes.

Vista and Win7 use a memory model which is supposedly more efficient with 4GB in 64-bits. However, XP-64 (and technically 32), have this same memory model, it's just a matter of switching a registry switch to enable it. It's off by default because it's horribly inefficient if you have less than 4GB, and it loads all sorts of stuff into memory that almost no one ever uses (one reason why XP, under default settings, uses so much less memory than either Vista or 7). I don't usally use said memory mode as the only time it actually is more efficient is when you are running multiple media and graphics applications at the same time. XP does its desktop display in software mode, so the overhead of hardware accelerated desktop is not there, thus you have to be running a lot more crap at once to make it worth shifting so much to active memory while under that OS.

I've said this elsewhere, but you also have to understand, that neither Vista nor Win7 is really a new operating system. Both run under the XP kernel (and the XP kernel runs on the WinNT kernel as adopted by Win2000 - ie. the last time M$ REALLY made a new OS). There's nothing different at the core of the OS, it's only that Vista piled a whole bunch of new crap on that already overloaded kernel (same as when Windows ME piled its sh*t on top of the Win98 kernel, and crushed it to death). Win7 does the same thing, but it at least optimized its crap.

Now, if the XP drivers for your hardware suck, or you just don't have them, then yes, go 7. If you really have to have a pretty OS just to look kewl, then yes, go 7 (you can get plugins to do this in XP, but the overhead they add quickly defeat the purpose of having XP). ...and if you have to use Vista, for one of these reasons, by the gods man, run away and get 7. But if you are serious about function over form when you use your computer, but require Windows compatibility, then there's just no contest: XP it is. (Although, if you aren't a gamer, and your hardware will let you get away with it, and don't spend too much time on the net, Win2k = even better.)

 

[Thothie]

...and before anyone yells at me for writing that rant when I SHOULD be working on getting this patch out...

 

[PBarnum]

Lol, awesome. I love office jousting.

 

[Mikkel]

Windows 7 64bit runs smooth on my machine. I can't complain.
I like what they did to the networking. Big props. Otherwise it's just XP with an overhaul imo.

Machine: Core i7 920 @ 2.8GHz, 6GB DDR3 RAM @ 1600MHz, ATi Radeon 4890 Super Clocked Edition.

 

[Blasto121]

the networking features are a huge plus, finally I can push 7 gigs across the network quickly. I think it only took like 15 minutes last night to push 6 gigs across two windows 7 computers.

overall performance though windows 7 is technically slower, however via using the a computers video card it does make the system faster though be it not much. In the end the power difference between xp and 7 is right around 5%. I am willing to give that up for DX11 and no spyware for a while, not to mention the system has maintained its snappiness with me constantly uninstalling and reinstalling and pushing large files through the hard drive.

Never failed once I started doing video editing and pushing large files XP always slowed down.