Windows seven...

mask of sanity

Seeing as there is an extensive thread about vista I thought I might be able to get a few answers about windows seven. As a student I am able to get it for £30 which doesn’t sound bad at all but just have a few questions first.

1) Is it worth it? I’m currently running Vista and havn’t had a great deal of issues with it as an OS but it seems a logical step to take seeing as its only £30.
2) Do I have to format my hard drive? I’ve got 60gb of music and nowhere to backup to atm, so don’t want to have to format. The version of vista I’m running is a 32 bit one and I’ve been led to believe that if I were to install the equivalent windows seven one it just does it as an upgrade. Is this correct?
3) If I can do it as an upgrade do I require the 16gb needed to install windows seven or will it just install over the current vista installation.
4) If my laptop runs vista will it run windows seven? I tried running the upgrade advisor but in true windows fashion that doesn’t work...

Thanks,

Rich.

joec1

1 - Yes
2 - indeed...
3 - Yes
4 - Yes (7 is smaller)

gkerr4

I don't have win7 (i'm a mac user!) but from what I have read:

1) - up to you really - £30 is worth a go- different if you have vista and hated it like I do on one machine (vista made me "go mac")

2) yes - only XP users need to do a bare-bones install - win7 will upgrade vista (although i personallly would want to backup my drive and music before proceeding - can you not borrow a little portable drive or something?)

3) it won't need the 16gb - it wil install over vista - you might even save some hard disk space.

4) it should do - vista is pretty resource intensive and apparently 7 is leaner so if you are running vista at an acceptable speed you "should" be able to swallow 7. I think there might be migration tools on microsoft.com which will benchmark your machine and tell you if it wil be ok.

good luck!

ColinJ

mask of sanity wrote:

I’ve got 60gb of music and nowhere to backup to atm, so don’t want to have to format.

I had my sister on the phone yesterday asking me how to try and salvage my nephew's music, videos and photos from his trashed laptop hard drive. He's extremely upset.

My hard drive died on me a couple of years ago and at least 3 people I've worked with have had the same problem.

Save the money you would have spent on Windows 7 and buy something like one of these instead. Get that backup done!

mask of sanity

Cheers gkerr4, shall go for it I think. I can always reinstall vista if it doesn't work...

ColinJ wrote:

I had my sister on the phone yesterday asking me how to try and salvage my nephew's music, videos and photos from his trashed laptop hard drive. He's extremely upset.

My hard drive died on me a couple of years ago and at least 3 people I've worked with have had the same problem.

Save the money you would have spent on Windows 7 and buy something like one of these instead. Get that backup done!

It does need to be done for sure! I once deleted all my music on my Ipod buy accident (80gb worth) and had no backups for a lot of it! I could have cried!!!

I have a 1Tb external HDD but it's full of films and TV series! Although I do have 20gb of X-files and 40gb of 24 which I blatantly won't ever watch!

redddraggon

You should always back up data, and IMO data should be stored on a drive separate to the one the OS is on.

mask of sanity

redddraggon wrote:

You should always back up data, and IMO data should be stored on a drive separate to the one the OS is on.

I've got all my uni work and photos etc. backed up on the external, just not my music.

Just out of interest redddraggon, did you upgrade your pc to windows7? As you mentioned that you could get it in the other thread.

redddraggon

mask of sanity wrote:

redddraggon wrote:

You should always back up data, and IMO data should be stored on a drive separate to the one the OS is on.

I've got all my uni work and photos etc. backed up on the external, just not my music.

Just out of interest redddraggon, did you upgrade your pc to windows7? As you mentioned that you could get it in the other thread.

I'm going to eventually, I only just reinstalled Vista two weeks ago, and don't fancy going through the effort of installing everything just yet. I going to buy it when I get my first lot of money off uni, hopefully next week. Whether or not I install straight away or not depends on whether or not I have the time.

TBH I have no issues with Vista, so I'm in no rush to install Win7.

Simon Notley

Windows 7 is a massive improvement over XP (never used Vista). It's the first version of Windows that I have felt reasonably happy using by comparison to Mac OS X, so much so that I currently have both in dual-boot on my mac. I only use W7 for work though, but it's a fairly user friendly experience when I do though.

gkerr4

Simon Notley wrote:

Windows 7 is a massive improvement over XP (never used Vista). It's the first version of Windows that I have felt reasonably happy using by comparison to Mac OS X, so much so that I currently have both in dual-boot on my mac. I only use W7 for work though, but it's a fairly user friendly experience when I do though.

Hmm - thats interesting - how are you running it on the Mac? parrallels? - i see that boot camp support is coming later in the year but curious to see how you are getting on with it.

on my previous MBP I had vista running like a dream but since I changed to the unibody MBP I haven't bothered running dual boot - was toying with the idea though.

Simon Notley

gkerr4 wrote:

Simon Notley wrote:

Windows 7 is a massive improvement over XP (never used Vista). It's the first version of Windows that I have felt reasonably happy using by comparison to Mac OS X, so much so that I currently have both in dual-boot on my mac. I only use W7 for work though, but it's a fairly user friendly experience when I do though.

Hmm - thats interesting - how are you running it on the Mac? parrallels? - i see that boot camp support is coming later in the year but curious to see how you are getting on with it.

on my previous MBP I had vista running like a dream but since I changed to the unibody MBP I haven't bothered running dual boot - was toying with the idea though.

I'm running the 32-bit trial version of Win7 using boot-camp. It works fine even though it says it isn't supported. There are guides online to installing it, but it's fairly straightforward. I'm not sure if the 64-bit version would work, I heard conflicting things about the drivers, but I'm sure it will once official support comes along.

I tried it with parallels and it was really really slow. This might just be my machine though, it's fairly low spec compared to the pro (Mac Mini 2Ghz Core2Duo, 4GB RAM, Nividia 9400M).

cjw

I'm not going to risk it for a while (if ever). XP was fine then upgraded PCs and laptop came with Vista. Slow, buggy and wouldn't run quite a bit of software (including MS Office :evil: ). It is still slow, but at least all of my software runs on it now and that's the problem... I can imagine that switching to W7 things like Garmin, Memory Map, Photoshop, video streaming [this to a netgear box that Negear say wo'nt work at the moment] will not work. So if I upgrade it would be weeks of trying to find work arounds, patches etc to reach my current level of functionality.

So I won't be upgrading at least for a year until the bugs are fixed. And then we are seriously considering going MAC.

moray_gub

cjw wrote:

I'm not going to risk it for a while (if ever). XP was fine then upgraded PCs and laptop came with Vista. Slow, buggy and wouldn't run quite a bit of software (including MS Office :evil: ). It is still slow, but at least all of my software runs on it now and that's the problem... I can imagine that switching to W7 things like Garmin, Memory Map, Photoshop, video streaming [this to a netgear box that Negear say wo'nt work at the moment] will not work. So if I upgrade it would be weeks of trying to find work arounds, patches etc to reach my current level of functionality.

So I won't be upgrading at least for a year until the bugs are fixed. And then we are seriously considering going MAC.

Far far better than Vista ,I have windows 7 Professional x64 on a desktop and x32 home premium on alaptop with loads of software like yourself and hardware etc and nothing has caused any bother so far . What do you mean by a netgear box that wont work a the moment work do you mean your router ?

gtitim

Just downloaded it, gonna try it tonight on my media center pc

cjw

Moray Gub wrote:

cjw wrote:

I'm not going to risk it for a while (if ever). XP was fine then upgraded PCs and laptop came with Vista. Slow, buggy and wouldn't run quite a bit of software (including MS Office :evil: ). It is still slow, but at least all of my software runs on it now and that's the problem... I can imagine that switching to W7 things like Garmin, Memory Map, Photoshop, video streaming [this to a netgear box that Negear say wo'nt work at the moment] will not work. So if I upgrade it would be weeks of trying to find work arounds, patches etc to reach my current level of functionality.

So I won't be upgrading at least for a year until the bugs are fixed. And then we are seriously considering going MAC.

Far far better than Vista ,I have windows 7 Professional x64 on a desktop and x32 home premium on alaptop with loads of software like yourself and hardware etc and nothing has caused any bother so far . What do you mean by a netgear box that wont work a the moment work do you mean your router ?

No... Netgear EVA8000

http://forum1.netgear.com/forumdisplay.php?f=85

It's effectively a receiver for streaming video to the TV - all of my DVDs are on a terastation harddrive. It will not work with W7.

freehub

Are you getting Windows 7 on the cheap if you are at uni? If so get it, it's great, with college I can get Windows 7 Pro for free.

redddraggon

freehub wrote:

Are you getting Windows 7 on the cheap if you are at uni? If so get it, it's great, with college I can get Windows 7 Pro for free.

The question is x64 Win7 Pro or x64 Win7 Home Premium? Both are £30

freehub

Pro.

mask of sanity

redddraggon wrote:

freehub wrote:

Are you getting Windows 7 on the cheap if you are at uni? If so get it, it's great, with college I can get Windows 7 Pro for free.

The question is x64 Win7 Pro or x64 Win7 Home Premium? Both are £30

Get the equivalent one to the Vista you're running as it means it's only an upgrade rather then a full install.

freehub

I'd do a full install anyway.

redddraggon

mask of sanity wrote:

redddraggon wrote:

freehub wrote:

Are you getting Windows 7 on the cheap if you are at uni? If so get it, it's great, with college I can get Windows 7 Pro for free.

The question is x64 Win7 Pro or x64 Win7 Home Premium? Both are £30

Get the equivalent one to the Vista you're running as it means it's only an upgrade rather then a full install.

Naaaaaaaaaaaah, I'm not silly, I'd only ever do a clean install , none of this Upgrading silliness.

Pro it'll be.

mask of sanity

redddraggon wrote:

mask of sanity wrote:

redddraggon wrote:

freehub wrote:

Are you getting Windows 7 on the cheap if you are at uni? If so get it, it's great, with college I can get Windows 7 Pro for free.

The question is x64 Win7 Pro or x64 Win7 Home Premium? Both are £30

Get the equivalent one to the Vista you're running as it means it's only an upgrade rather then a full install.

Naaaaaaaaaaaah, I'm not silly, I'd only ever do a clean install , none of this Upgrading silliness.

Pro it'll be.

I am! Can't be bothered to reinstall all my programmes again! It's already distracted me from my dissertation more then I would like! Shall install at a time when I'm not relying on my laptop as much!

justrideallday

Gizmodo have lots on windows seven. Check out these links and you will prob learn all you need:

http://gizmodo.com/tag/pst/windows7/
http://gizmodo.com/5150298/windows-7-the-complete-guide

the first link is all the windows seven articles - all posts linked to windows seven in some way and some of the more useful posts are a fair way down the page
the second link takes you to their guide of windows 7 - upgrading, what's new, how to personalise it etc

Hope that helps

freehub

I find an OS runs slower when upgraded when compared to a nice fresh install, it only takes an hour to install all your programs.

cee

I am running x64 Win 7 Enterprise on both my work stuff laptop and my media centre

I did the upgrade for both machines (i.e. from vista...no format and re-install) and it went great.....

about 30 minutes for each..

Do it....do it hard!