Topic: Windows 7 questions

[TheOtherBelmont]

So I'm planning on building a new PC sometime in the next month or two and was planning on making the upgrade to Windows 7.  First of all I know a few people on here are running it, how are you liking it?  I'm currently using XP on this old computer and haven't even bothered with Vista except the few times I've used it on a friend's computer.

Another question I have is about playing games and running older programs with it and while I don't do a lot of PC gaming there are a few titles (mainly Mass Effect) that I want to play with it and was wondering if games run on Windows 7 without too many problems or if you have to revert to that Win XP mode that comes with Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.  Also, what version of Windows 7 should I get?  I mainly use my computer for internet usage, the occasional game, listening to music, and watching videos from time to time.  I'm leaning towards Home Premium or Professional so far.

I also had a question about RAM.  I'm so out of the loop with RAM usage, but I was thinking 4 GB should be enough, but if that seems like overkill let me know.

[Ghandi]

I'm running Home Premium at 4 GB of RAM and I haven't had any problems so far other than Mass Effect but it's unrelated to Windows 7. I don't know if 4GB is overkill but you could probably run it with less. I was playing Torchlight the other day, minimized it, and loaded L4D with no slowdown.

[ren]

I'm running Windows 7 Professional on 2gb of ram and it's nice and smooth. I've heard there's a noticeable differerence with 4gb RAM but I can't attest to that. The only reason I have Pro is because that's what the student version is. If I was buying retail I would've gotten Home Premium. I've never used Windows XP mode and never had to; everything runs fine on 7.

I love it. Every once in a while I have to use a computer with Windows XP and it get's incredibly frustrating. A lack of Start search and keyboard shortcuts make everything go far slower.

[sirean_syan]

I upgraded to Home Premium about a month ago and it's working well enough. A couple weeks ago I had a problem where the explorer would crash every couple minutes that I eventually traced back to a startup program with Acrobat, which was strange. I could find lots of people experiencing the same problem, but it was always being caused by something else. I've also had some issues with how, I think, Win7 likes to keep track of files. A couple of times I've had to go into the command prompt to properly delete or move something because things haven't always been exactly where the explorer shows them to be. Finally, if you want to customize your folder setup in the start menu it's not as easy as you might think. Apparently there are two folders where the "All Programs" shortcuts are kept, one of the main folders is slightly hidden, and you can't always just move things around within the menu. I'm guessing this is probably related to the last issue I had.

Still, I've been happy enough with the performance. I upgraded mostly because I do have a modern 64bit system and wanted to actually make use of 6gigs of RAM (or at least say that I could make use of it). The upgrade was cheap at the time I ordered it, so I figured it was time.

[Schlotzky5]

I updated to 7 from XP about 6 months ago(RC). Like you, I skipped Vista because of all the problems. So far, I can't find one reason to go back to XP. I have 2GB ram and I am wishing I had 4. Right now, I've got chrome, itunes, win media player, utorrent and foxit running. According to 7, I'm using 80% of my ram.

Also, remember that compatibility mode doesn't come with home premium.

[ren]

That's weird. I have open Firefox, iTunes, Last.fm, OneNote and Excel and I have a gig free.

[scottws]

The only Windows 7 compatibility problem I have had was with Nero Back-It-Up 4.  It doesn't seem to recognize the Windows Shadow Copy there.  Then again it did recognize it under Vista, it just didn't work.  Since then Nero has released Back-It-Up & Burn, but I haven't bothered with that.

I've had no compatibility problems with any games I've tried, but then again I have only tried Fallout 3 and both Modern Warfare games.  I can't imagine there would be problems with Mass Effect 2 considering Windows 7 is officially supported.  I wouldn't worry about that Windows XP mode thing too much.  I've never seen the need to use it for anything.

Windows 7 is pretty slick.  In terms of its interface, it does share more in common with Vista than it does with XP.  The taskbar is basically Microsoft's take on the Mac OS X Dock, but with a pretty cool window preview feature that I find pretty significantly increases productivity with the OS if you consistently have a lot of open windows.  Also I agree with ren about the Start menu search.  That's a pretty nice feature you miss if you leave Windows 7 or Vista and go back to XP.  And even the side-by-side stuff they added in Vista and further expanded with the snap feature in Windows 7 is sorely missed when using XP after using one of the other two.

I use 4 GB of RAM, but then again I have for years.  It runs on 4 GB just fine.  4 GB is a lot, but not overkill.  With RAM being as cheap as it is now I would just go for 8 GB just so I wouldn't have to worry about it down the road.

As far as what version to get, all I can suggest is that you check out the version comparisons and see if there is a feature in one of the higher-end SKUs you care about.  Personally I want stuff like domain join capability and the high end home user stuff and got Ultimate, but I have a contact at Microsoft and got it cheaply.

In the end, all I can say is that it should work fine with pretty much any modern software.  I haven't seen any compatibility issues with older software, but even if you have it you can get around it by using the XP Mode (or by using something like VMware Workstation or Sun VirtualBox).  The Media Center is pretty nice to if you ever decide to hook it up to a TV or combine it with an Xbox 360.

[Pugnate]

Just remember to go for 64-bit... and 4GB should be the min. amount of RAM you go for.

My siblings are running Win 7 and don't seem to have any issues with gaming. From what I have seen of it, it is basically Windows 7 service pack 5 or something.

[gpw11]

Yeah, I've been running some older games and haven't had an issue at all. I liked XP just fine and didn't really have a problem with Vista on my laptop, but 7 brings a whole bunch of little features to the table that really make it much more user friendly.  Fuck, I love snapping windows to the side in order to split the screen between two.  Of course, you could do it before, but no where near as intuitive.

[Xessive]

Windows 7 was definitely a step up for me, since I had been using Vista on that particular system. At the time I had 2GBs of RAM and the leap in performance was very noticeable when I switched to Win7. Later I added 2 more gigs of RAM, making the total 4GB, and I didn't notice a big difference immediately, it was only in games that I saw any major effects.

Anyway, Win7 is definitely the right choice. I've actually installed it on some older laptops (P4 1.2GHz, 1GB RAM) and it ran relatively well, just as well as XP anyway with all the perks of Win7 (without aero of course).

[TheOtherBelmont]

So I am typing this from Windows 7 Home Premium and my new computer which I am loving so far.  Thanks for the input everyone!

[gpw11]

You know what I did with windows 7?  I moved the taskbar to the right hand side of the screen.  TRY IT. I found it's maybe 100% more user friendly (on wide screen at least)

[ren]

You know what I did with windows 7?  I moved the taskbar to the right hand side of the screen.  TRY IT. I found it's maybe 100% more user friendly (on wide screen at least)

I moved it to the left side of the screen. It's like the right side of the screen but it actually makes sense. You get to take advantage of wide screen monitors but you can still throw your mouse to the top-right to close windows or to the right sode of the monitor to scroll. I pretty much never need to throw my mouse to the left side of the screen to do anything so it's the perfect place for the taskbar. The only thing that takes getting used to is the clock not being in the bottom right.