Windows 7: A rebadged, much better Vista?

[snathanb]

I loaded Linux distributions on both of my computers and never looked back. I'm not a Microsoft hater or anything but linux works great for my situation. It's free, does not require hardware upgrades for older machines, easy to use and opens most Word (.doc) and Excel (.xls) files nicely when using open office.

That's all well and good, but this is a thread about Windows 7. If you want to talk about your particular Linux distribution, feel free to start a thread and do so.

 

[gbjbany]

Maybe it's the version of the hardware then, i have a very recent card. 8600gts from evga.

 

[snathanb]

1. allocate/free some space on a drive for win 7 , i think it's a min of 15gb.
2. when you intsall windows 7 dont pick upgrade, pick custom. Then it will ask you where to put it, put it in the space you just created in 1 and you should get dual boot.

Yep, that will work just fine. I am test driving 32 and 64 bit versions right now, along side XP and a Linux distro.

 

[Bulldog]

Well my nvidia video wouldn't work on my HP system when I installed Win7, I figured it might be a driver issue but I didn't even try to figure it out. I just installed Win7 on my Gateway laptop that also has Nvidia graphics and it works fine.

Windows 7 actually found the few drivers I needed by itself :up for my test system. I do have an ATI HD 2600 VGA in the test system. and an external Sound Blaster unit via USB. I have not installed any Virus protection as of yet.

I did a new raw install on the unit, next week I'll do an upgrade from XP and see how it sets up.

 

[Bulldog]

Guys, I just installed AVG 8.0 and it s running fine in windows 7. :up It's free what the heck, and I stay on the safe side of the city anyways

 

[SatelliteGAL]

Windows 7 actually found the few drivers I needed by itself :up for my test system. I do have an ATI HD 2600 VGA in the test system. and an external Sound Blaster unit via USB. I have not installed any Virus protection as of yet.

I did a new raw install on the unit, next week I'll do an upgrade from XP and see how it sets up.

You mean a clean install on an XP machine right? It says you can not "upgrade" from XP.

 

[JoeSp]

1. allocate/free some space on a drive for win 7 , i think it's a min of 15gb.
2. when you intsall windows 7 dont pick upgrade, pick custom. Then it will ask you where to put it, put it in the space you just created in 1 and you should get dual boot.

Thanks:up Once I used the right program to burn the ISO onto a DVD Windows 7 64bit loaded right up. First thing I noticed is it is considerably faster then Vista 32 bit on my computer. I have a Q6600 with 3 mb of ram (I am going to upgrade to 8mb next week) and a Nvidea 9600 card. I really like the simplicity of how Windows7 is set up. Next thing I noticed is how fast the internet is running. Once again very noticable over Vista 32-bit. I really like this product.

On to my next question, should I load a 64-bit driver from Nvidea? I noticed W7 loaded a 32-bit driver. Also, I am in need of a SM Bus driver for my HP. Should I use the one in Vista?

 

[meStevo]

I have an e6600, GTX260 and 4gb of RAM and a some SLI MSI Platinum mobo (P6n?). What should I be wary of if I want to try a 64bit OS for the first time? Or just jump right in while it's free?

I guess the only thing holding me back is I've kinda 'moved into' this OS for now and am still enjoying putting it through it's paces, ideally I'd like to not have to go through that again till im installing the RTM version I suppose.

 

[Bulldog]

You mean a clean install on an XP machine right? It says you can not "upgrade" from XP.

Yes, a clean install. I call that "Raw"

I was going to try and do an upgrade from XP next week, but I was not aware that you can't up grade from XP? First I heard of that, but I'll look into that.

Thanks for letting me know.

 

[gbjbany]

Thanks:up Once I used the right program to burn the ISO onto a DVD Windows 7 64bit loaded right up. First thing I noticed is it is considerably faster then Vista 32 bit on my computer. I have a Q6600 with 3 mb of ram (I am going to upgrade to 8mb next week) and a Nvidea 9600 card. I really like the simplicity of how Windows7 is set up. Next thing I noticed is how fast the internet is running. Once again very noticable over Vista 32-bit. I really like this product.

On to my next question, should I load a 64-bit driver from Nvidea? I noticed W7 loaded a 32-bit driver. Also, I am in need of a SM Bus driver for my HP. Should I use the one in Vista?

Havent looked at a Video driver yet, but i installed the vista smbus driver for vista seems to work ok. that's next !
Also i installed avg 8.0 as a virus checker since i use that on xp anyway.

Lastly i just installed the vista hd realtek drivers, which although windows 7 was working didnt provide the same control i had in xp. Now that is working fine i used this one 6285_Vista_APO_PG536.zip

 

[JoeSp]

I just downloaded a 64bit driver from Nvidea for my 9600gt. File size was 95mb and took about 23 minutes to download and about 5 minutes to install. I actually downloaded the new Vista 64-bit drivers that are dated Jan 8th, but when installing I noticed that the install stated that it was Nvidea 64-bit driver for Windows 7 dated in Dec!

Everything went smoothly and it appears that my desktop is more detailed and the graphics run faster. I ran a performance check and the video did increase but only by a factor of .1 so the new drivers did do something but not much. Haven't found any hiccups yet and now I am on to watch a tv show from one of the networks to see how well the video drivers work.

 

[The Insider]

Thanks:up Once I used the right program to burn the ISO onto a DVD Windows 7 64bit loaded right up. First thing I noticed is it is considerably faster then Vista 32 bit on my computer. I have a Q6600 with 3 mb of ram (I am going to upgrade to 8mb next week) and a Nvidea 9600 card. I really like the simplicity of how Windows7 is set up. Next thing I noticed is how fast the internet is running. Once again very noticable over Vista 32-bit. I really like this product.

On to my next question, should I load a 64-bit driver from Nvidea? I noticed W7 loaded a 32-bit driver. Also, I am in need of a SM Bus driver for my HP. Should I use the one in Vista?

3mb? I recomend you upgrade to at least 1 gb Perhaps even 2gb would be good

 

[gbjbany]

Any of you Played any of the games, love the mahjong titans cant stop playing it.

Also a little tip on google search for windows 7 stuff, use windows7 you dont get all the windows xp vista 98 etc stuff. Probably all knew that but thought it worth a quick post. Found a couple of useful forums for drivers etc.

 

[meStevo]

Ya I had been using "windows 7" in quotes, only thing i dont like about the OS so far, is the generic name making search a pita in some circumstances

 

[mike123abc]

I wonder if Microsoft will select a marketing name for Windows 7. How far in advance of Vista's release did they select Vista?

 

[meStevo]

I wonder if Microsoft will select a marketing name for Windows 7. How far in advance of Vista's release did they select Vista?

They said this is its retail name.

 

[JoeSp]

3mb? I recomend you upgrade to at least 1 gb Perhaps even 2gb would be good

I meant 3gb

Tried to download ABC's video player to watch their shows but it would not download -- asking for a specific browser. I e-mailed them a request to allow us to download a driver to test for Windows7 (even the XP 32-bit driver should work.) I watch a Bones from Fox, it took a little longer to start but once it did start it was very smooth. Only thing I did not like was the Cisnos moniker in the lower right corner and the pause-forward-backward button always being visable. But the show ran silky smooth. I also watch a little of a movie on Justin TV. That went well too. Alot less hangups then normal. Have to watch a complete movie to see if it does better.

 

[SatelliteGAL]

OneCare is being discontinued so that is probably why.
I have an HP and had no problems with video or sound. All was fine.

I downloaded Windows 7 beta from Microsoft and installed it on my HP. I know it is a beta and will have a few bugs but what I didn't expect was this. 1) I had to download and install beta display drivers from nvidia. The ones that work with Vista will not work with Windows 7. 2) I had to download beta audio drivers from Realtek. Vista drivers will not work in Windows 7. 3) I had to download a beta version of virus software that expires before the beta version of Windows 7. I was using Windows Live OneCare. It will not even work with Microsofts own beta system and a beta version for Windows 7 isn't available. That irritated me enough to send feed back to Microsoft letting them know that it was not acceptable to me to have to give up Virus protection that I paid for and use one from someone else. They should have had their own virus software ready for the beta release. These are the same problems that I went through with Vista. It took nvidia quite a while to get drivers that worked right and now here we are starting all over again. The realtek drivers that I use in Vista work but not as good as they should. It took many updates from them to get drivers that work fairly well. Now here we go starting all over again. I will not be suckered in to installing Windows 7 (final release version) until until I know that all drivers work properly.

 

[xterra]

Windows 7 must be a way to try to stimulate the economy. I don't feel a bit sorry for these companies that want you to buy new sh*t all the time. Hope they all go out of business.

 

[mike123abc]

Windows 7 must be a way to try to stimulate the economy. I don't feel a bit sorry for these companies that want you to but new sh*t all the time. Hope they all go out of business.

It would be nice if MS were to do a decent upgrade price since this version of windows is "supposed to work". But, knowing MS they will want $150+ to upgrade. They really should do a $20-$50 upgrade for existing Vista users to cover the media and distribution costs.