Windows 7

[Aeroplane]

I installed windows 7 on a new partition so I could have all of the benefits but few of the risks.

 

I liked it, for the first few weeks. Then, microsoft released an update which caused problems with 'tdx.sys', some sort of network stack.

 

The problem was.. BSOD every few minutes when using a Samba share. This wouldnt be a problem for the average user.. who dont have Samba shares, but for corporate users and people like me who do.. it was disasterous. I need my samba to access the internet because of the stupid way my university has set up their network.

 

Ive been using XP again for a couple of months now.

[Sir Galahad]

[Emulated]

Hmm, that explains a lot!

 

BTW: Have you had a chance to play around with W7 yet?

[Sir Galahad]

Hmm, that explains a lot!

 

BTW: Have you had a chance to play around with W7 yet?

We just had the OS delivered today, but have been totally rushed off my feet. With a bit of luck I'll be able to load it on our test machine tomorrow. I hope they have rectified that update, otherwise I could be getting the BSOD as well! But we have been assured that that 'little blip' has been sorted! Where have I heard that before? lol

[TalonRider]

Hopefully, my employer won't use it right away. They want us to leave our computers turned on at night, but we do have to log off. IT usually warns use ahead of time if they are going to be doing any upgrades.

[Emulated]

We just had the OS delivered today, but have been totally rushed off my feet. With a bit of luck I'll be able to load it on our test machine tomorrow. I hope they have rectified that update, otherwise I could be getting the BSOD as well! But we have been assured that that 'little blip' has been sorted! Where have I heard that before? lol

Don't rush it! Savour every minute!

 

Little blip? Which 'little blip' would that be? No, they seem to be doing rather well with removing the bugs (from what I've heard), so build 7070 should be quite nice.

 

Hopefully, my employer won't use it right away. They want us to leave our computers turned on at night, but we do have to log off. IT usually warns use ahead of time if they are going to be doing any upgrades.

I agree, it should only really be used in a professional setting, once MS have ironed out all the bugs. Saying that, I think the release version of Win7 will be their most stable one yet.

 

I still doubt many business will rush to 7, unless they're on Vista, where it would be a much recommended upgrade.

[Sir Galahad]

Well, after a few days having a look at this I'm underwhelmed. It looks like vista but with the ability to use touchscreen & a few pretty touches here & there.

When we really put it through it's paces with a high end graphics card & game, guess what? It crashed, 3 times. We gave up after the 3rd crash. Vista oddly enough runs this perfectly. So if your a fan of online gaming I would avoid this like the plague until these issues are sorted out. Also being able to run seperate windows at the same time is not new, also vista. The installation incidently took forever, just over an hour.

The networking interface is a huge improvement though with the homegroup so you can share files etc with other PC's with a individual passkey needed for each PC to log on.

On the plus side it starts up faster than any OS I've seen, very impressive. Also the power management is a huge improvement turning off ports when not in use. It's more aesthetically pleasing than Vista & the desktop is more functional.

In my opinion give this 6 months after release before you even touch it. That way they should have ironed the bugs which are still very much evident.

[Emulated]

Trust those many things to go wrong for you, given how I've been saying how good it is.

 

But yeah, if you're having those many problems, then it's clear that some more time is needed to weed out the bugs and polish it off.

 

In related news, 84% of IT pros don't intend on upgrading to Windows 7 in the next year. I think I can see why.

[Sir Galahad]

Yeah, the huge thing was the graphics card more than anthing else. For that reason I certainly won't be upgrading til it's sorted.

The other bits & pieces were just bloody annoying, they may get it sorted....eventually.

[Emulated]

Yeah, the huge thing was the graphics card more than anthing else. For that reason I certainly won't be upgrading til it's sorted.

The other bits & pieces were just bloody annoying, they may get it sorted....eventually.

I don't blame you. What's the use of having something nice and shiny if you can't see it all the time?

 

I think it needs some more time in the oven.

[DragonFire]

I concur with the knight; have heard similar stories concerning the graphics cards.

[Cuddles Win XP Pro]

[Emulated]

I concur with the knight; have heard similar stories concerning the graphics cards.

Yeah? I have to admit, it was the first time I had heard of the issue. (I don't look in Win 7 forums, so it could be widespread and just avoided me)

 

[Cuddles Win XP Pro]

XP Pro? Naah, XP Home for me, I'm afraid.

[Sir Galahad]

I think the problem with XP, regardless of the version you have, is all the updates that have been created for it. From my own version, and the one I use at work, I find it runs incredibly slowly compared to Vista or Win 7 for that matter. It will come to a head that companies will have no choice but to upgrade to a newer OS.

Also, I hear on the grapevine, that Microsoft are withdrawing free support for XP as well, which I believe is a calculated move to get people upgrading pretty sharpish. If they produced something that didn't have so many flaws I wouldn't have a problem with this. Vista was a PR disaster, though now running very well, Win 7..... well, time will tell I guess.

[Drewbie]

I think the problem with XP, regardless of the version you have, is all the updates that have been created for it. From my own version, and the one I use at work, I find it runs incredibly slowly compared to Vista or Win 7 for that matter. It will come to a head that companies will have no choice but to upgrade to a newer OS.

Also, I hear on the grapevine, that Microsoft are withdrawing free support for XP as well, which I believe is a calculated move to get people upgrading pretty sharpish. If they produced something that didn't have so many flaws I wouldn't have a problem with this. Vista was a PR disaster, though now running very well, Win 7..... well, time will tell I guess.

 

Issue is with xp home, it supposed to be made all it is, it's a locked up version of xp pro, I think the xp pro machine, which is still decent, eventually needs to be upgraded to windows 7.

[Emulated]

I think the problem with XP, regardless of the version you have, is all the updates that have been created for it. From my own version, and the one I use at work, I find it runs incredibly slowly compared to Vista or Win 7 for that matter. It will come to a head that companies will have no choice but to upgrade to a newer OS.

Also, I hear on the grapevine, that Microsoft are withdrawing free support for XP as well, which I believe is a calculated move to get people upgrading pretty sharpish. If they produced something that didn't have so many flaws I wouldn't have a problem with this. Vista was a PR disaster, though now running very well, Win 7..... well, time will tell I guess.

I agree with your point about the updates. I recently reinstalled XP on a machine and spent ages downloading and installing the many patches and security fixes that were available. With something like XP, which has been out for around nearly 8 years, there's been so many updates that it's becoming ridiculous.

 

Hopefully Windows 7, when released, should be able to stand on its own two feet longer than XP did, and still maintain some speed regardless of how many times its been updated.

 

Yep, free XP support was 'terminated' last Tuesday, (14th). You can still get support, but you're gonna have to pay.

 

Security fixes will be provided freely until 8 April 2014. Now that's a bloody long time!

 

Have you also heard the rumour that MS might be changing the UI of Win 7? That would be interesting to see.

 

Issue is with xp home, it supposed to be made all it is, it's a locked up version of xp pro, I think the xp pro machine, which is still decent, eventually needs to be upgraded to windows 7.

That's true. Once finished, I'm sure that Windows 7 will be much better than any version of XP. (Well I hope!)

[Sir Galahad]

Who's going to have XP installed on their machines in 2014? It's slow enough now, by then you could make a cup of tea & the window would still be changing!

They are changing the UI. From the things I've heard, most impressive. I just wonder how many builds there are going to be!

Personally I want to see what the x64 version can do.

[Emulated]

Who's going to have XP installed on their machines in 2014? It's slow enough now, by then you could make a cup of tea & the window would still be changing!

They are changing the UI. From the things I've heard, most impressive. I just wonder how many builds there are going to be!

Personally I want to see what the x64 version can do.

No one hopefully! (Who knows, perhaps Linux market share would be higher by then?)

 

Yeah? Cool!!! Screen caps of the new UI would be gladly appreciated! (I'm asking everyone out there!)

 

I've never understood the real benefits behind x64. It seems to me that people spend more time complaining about driver issues and stuff. Are there any real benefits beside a slight increase in speed?

 

Oh and some more news: The public RC is rumoured to be released on May 5th. I just hope it fixes some of those issues we've been having!

[Phantom]

Who's going to have XP installed on their machines in 2014?

Hmm... same type of people who still run windows 95/98 today? lol

 

I've never understood the real benefits behind x64. It seems to me that people spend more time complaining about driver issues and stuff. Are there any real benefits beside a slight increase in speed?

AFAIK x64 is noticible when your doing heavy graphics, mathmatics, and the like. I have a x64 machine and when I did benchmark tests comparing Ubuntu 8.10 (32 and 64) they performed roughly the same in general areas, but 64 did better when it came to mathmatics and such. Course you can always ask my BFF google (you can always find all the best answers). If not, check wiki... my other bff lol

 

Oh and before I forget when I did the same benchmarks with ubuntu 9.04 beta and Win7 beta, ubuntu performed slightly better though it didn't do as well when it came to supporting newer drivers and such (my Nvidia card when I downloaded the driver corrupted my kernal... windows 7 loved it lol)

 

Eric

[Emulated]

Hmm... same type of people who still run windows 95/98 today? lol

Shhh! We're not going to talk about those!

 

AFAIK x64 is noticible when your doing heavy graphics, mathmatics, and the like. I have a x64 machine and when I did benchmark tests comparing Ubuntu 8.10 (32 and 64) they performed roughly the same in general areas, but 64 did better when it came to mathmatics and such. Course you can always ask my BFF google (you can always find all the best answers). If not, check wiki... my other bff lol

I have also read similar things regarding complex applications and its use in the scientific community. I should have been clearer and stated that, what are the benefits for the average user? E.g. MS Word, Firefox, iTunes and stuff? In some games I've only seen a negligible increase in the FPS. Unless it increases stability when multitasking, I can't see how it's a real benefit for everyone.

 

Perhaps we've yet to see this type of software take full advantage of running on a x64 OS.

 

Oh and before I forget when I did the same benchmarks with ubuntu 9.04 beta and Win7 beta, ubuntu performed slightly better though it didn't do as well when it came to supporting newer drivers and such (my Nvidia card when I downloaded the driver corrupted my kernal... windows 7 loved it lol)

In the short time that I used Ubuntu, I had problems with drivers. Win7, for the most part, was quite adept in that area.

 

You can bet that MS are working with Nvidia and Ati for Win7, given the fact that it needs a 'competent' graphics card to run with aero.

[Sir Galahad]

If anyone's interested, the Windows 7 Release Candidate is available for download from Microsoft. Both 32 & 64 bit downloads available. Looks like the licence will last until early next year.

 

Who's brave enough?

[Emulated]

If anyone's interested, the Windows 7 Release Candidate is available for download from Microsoft. Both 32 & 64 bit downloads available. Looks like the licence will last until early next year.

 

Who's brave enough?

ME! PICK ME!!!

 

The first thing I done yesterday was pick up the new RC. I've installed it over the old one and I have to say, it's pretty darn good.

 

When I have the time to migrate over, I'm going to make it my primary OS!

 

What about you, Galahad? Given it a test with those (dodgy) graphics cards yet?

[Sir Galahad]

I do not have a dodgy graphics card, more the O/S is a tad on the shite side. Mine's a high speed GC, so be very interesting to see if they've fixed the bug

 

I am going to overwrite XP with it on my second drive though, just to see what happens. Though am not optimistic! I never use XP anymore, so no great loss.

 

What I will say to people, do not overwrite your primary OS with this. The software is about 3.1GB so allow at least 20GB in any partition you make just to be safe.

[Emulated]

I do not have a dodgy graphics card, more the O/S is a tad on the shite side. Mine's a high speed GC, so be very interesting to see if they've fixed the bug

 

I am going to overwrite XP with it on my second drive though, just to see what happens. Though am not optimistic! I never use XP anymore, so no great loss.

 

What I will say to people, do not overwrite your primary OS with this. The software is about 3.1GB so allow at least 20GB in any partition you make just to be safe.

Hehehe, sure.

 

It's still just an RC, so we'll have to wait and see. I take it you're using Vista? I'm still on XP, so for me, Windows 7 is a significant jump.

 

I agree, I've got it on a partition for the moment. It's going to stay there until I've tried all the features I use a few times to make sure it's stable.

[Sir Galahad]

Yeah, Vista 64bit. Works like a dream to be fair. Though a far cry from when it first came out!

 

Whenever I used XP it was soooo slow compared to Vista, but nothing I have now is reliant on me still having it in my system.

[hh5]

If anyone's interested, the Windows 7 Release Candidate is available for download from Microsoft. Both 32 & 64 bit downloads available. Looks like the licence will last until early next year.

 

Who's brave enough?

 

I vmwared it

What else