Windows 7

**MobilePCPhysician** · January 14th, 2009, 07:41 AM

Limited product keys to the first 2-1/2 million....

**BOB IROC** · January 14th, 2009, 09:51 AM

Hagar,

Just an FYI, it appears McAfee Enterprise 8.7i installs and works on Windows 7. McAfee sebt me the software and I believe it is still in beta because the Release Notes that were in the ZIP file still say beta. But it looks and operates just like 8.5i.

**geoscomp** · January 14th, 2009, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by MobilePCPhysician

Limited product keys to the first 2-1/2 million....

They seem to have backed off the limit at least until Jan 24th:

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/win...-we-stand.aspx

**sunrise** · January 17th, 2009, 09:06 PM

I just install it this afternoon as a duel boot on my 2year old system (AMD 4600, 2gigs Ram) It is definitely a faster boot than Vista was, ( I originality installed Vista but went back to XP) and seems more responsive. I laughed when someone earlier called it Vista SP2. But I think Microsoft should call it "Vista Second Edition" or Vista SE for short. That would probably be the most accurate. So far it feels pretty good, it didn't recognize all my partitions at first but I fix that fairly quickly, and it took an update to recognize my old HP LaserJet 4 Plus printer. My first look at Windows Explorer had me floored. "What have they done with my file system hierarchy?" I wanted to know. The familiar file tree that's been in the left pane since, I can remember, was nowhere to be seen. You can get it back if you want apparently. I'm going to play with it for a few more days before I give it a thumbs up or down.

**NooNoo** · January 18th, 2009, 04:34 AM

That's the library sunrise, once you get your head round it, it's quite nifty, but I can see alot of people struggling to get used to it.

**slgrieb** · January 30th, 2009, 12:05 AM

Currently, I have a test machine running Build 7000 and IE 8.0.7000.0 and I just can't get very excited. Other than a problem with my Audigy 2 ZS not delivering sound to my rear speakers, and a minor glitch getting the GeForce 7200 in the test system recognized and working correctly, anything that works for me in Vista is also good in W7.

Yes, memory usage is down a bit, but a drop of 100 MB or so in a 3 Gb system isn't significant. Besides, memory is cheap, cheap, cheap now. W7 is faster, but again, not by a big amount.My test machine has an identical performance score under Vista and W7.

I like the redesigned Taskbar and Notification Areas, and I'm pleased that Gadgets are no longer confined to the annoying Sidebar. On the other hand I wish MS would quit F'ing with the Control Panel! Vista replaced Add/Remove Programs with Programs and Features (annoying if you've run Windows since Day 1, but logical at least) now Printers has been replaced with Devices and Printers. When you locate your printer and right-click it, the context menu includes Printer Preferences, Printer Properties, and Properties. Nothing confusing there, right?

Still, W7 seems like it should be Vista SP2. Except that there's a Vista SP2 Beta out and it isn't W7. Overall, I really like W7, but I like Vista. For now, I'd say W7 gets my vote for Most Over-Hyped Product of the Near Future Award.

**BOB IROC** · January 30th, 2009, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by slgrieb

...Still, W7 seems like it should be Vista SP2. Except that there's a Vista SP2 Beta out and it isn't W7. Overall, I really like W7, but I like Vista. For now, I'd say W7 gets my vote for Most Over-Hyped Product of the Near Future Award.

I agree with your last statement for the most part. W7 is so much like Vista they probably could made this a service pack somehow. I think the "hype" comes from all the negative information about Vista which most of that I think is not warranted. I have been using Vista since Beta2 and when I got my new laptop in January 2007 when Vista was first available my experience has been positive. IMO the problems people said they had with Vista were not fault of the OS but of that of the user or the other software that OEMs/End Users had on their machines. Every computer I have done a clean install of Vista and made sure no crapware was installed worked fine as long as the machine was equipped with decent hardware and a good amount of Ram. Of course those were either dual core or single core processors 2Ghz and above with 1GB - 2GB+ of Ram. I had clients install it on machines that were built in 2003/4 that were celeron class processors with 256- 512MB of Ram that complained and how they expected it to run on a computer that was the lowest end 3 - 4 years before Vista was released is beyond me.

**geoscomp** · January 30th, 2009, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by BOB IROC

Of course those were either dual core or single core processors 2Ghz and above with 1GB - 2GB+ of Ram. I had clients install it on machines that were built in 2003/4 that were celeron class processors with 256- 512MB of Ram that complained and how they expected it to run on a computer that was the lowest end 3 - 4 years before Vista was released is beyond me.

I'm thinking that Microsoft is it's own worst enemy in a lot of these areas..unrealistic minimum system requirements in order to sell more copies, etc. as well as forcing upgrades
by making other previous operating systems unavailable all combine to make end users a bit upset. Microsoft still lists minimum system requirements for Vista basic as 512 of memory, 1 ghz processor, and 32 mb of graphics..even XP doesn't like those numbers much. I've had win98 machines with more power than that.

**BOB IROC** · January 30th, 2009, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by geoscomp

I'm thinking that Microsoft is it's own worst enemy in a lot of these areas..unrealistic minimum system requirements in order to sell more copies, etc. as well as forcing upgrades
by making other previous operating systems unavailable all combine to make end users a bit upset. Microsoft still lists minimum system requirements for Vista basic as 512 of memory, 1 ghz processor, and 32 mb of graphics..even XP doesn't like those numbers much. I've had win98 machines with more power than that.

Exactly. Same went for XP and people that installed it on 333Mhz Pentium 2 class processors with 128MB - 256MB of ram. Minimum specs were 266Mhz Processor with 64MB ram I believe but it ran like crap unless your processor was 800Mhz + and had 512MB of ram and even then was pushing it. When people usually ask me about upgrading windows I usually tell them if their current version works stick with it until you get a new computer. Many end users do not need to upgrade for what they do.

**travistee** · February 18th, 2009, 05:53 PM

I installed win 7 32bit as a dual boot with my vista 64.

I install programs with xp sp2 compatibility mode and run as administrator.
Then I run them with XP compatibility.
No problem so far with that. Doing this solves alot of compatibilty issues in vista 64 too. Even my old nero 6 works like this.

AVG 8 antivirus works ok with it. This has to be installed without the xp2 compatibility.

It sees the 4GB of memory I have.
Does anyone know how much memory it can handle.

I don't care about the bells and whistles one way or the other. As long as my apps work that all I need.

**BOB IROC** · February 18th, 2009, 06:05 PM

Originally Posted by travistee

...It sees the 4GB of memory I have.
Does anyone know how much memory it can handle...

If you are using 32bit OS then 4GB is the max and just like Vista SP1 it will report 4GB but some of it is reserved and not available to the OS. In most cases you loose 250MB - 750MB of Ram depending on the Motherboard Hardware. For Example my Dell laptop only shows 3.25GB of Ram even though there are two 2GB chips, but I have a Server running 32bit Server 2003 and that reports 3.75GB available to the OS. At any rate it is less than 4GB with 32bit OS. 64bit can accept much higher than that.

**Ferrit** · February 18th, 2009, 06:12 PM

Basically anything 64 bit can break the 4 gig barrier. Although somewhere i saw a chart that showed Vista Ultimate 64 hitting 128 gigs so I assume that Win7 is the same.
XP 64 was limited to 8 gigs though I think.

**travistee** · April 15th, 2009, 02:48 PM

I was using Vista64 and testing windows 7, because the Gateway I had came with vista64. I finally got Gateway to take it back and refund my money ( thats another story).
I was starting to convince myself that vista wasn't so bad and I did get almost everything to install and run properly. I was getting used to having to guess if I really had to install under xp compatiblitly mode and run as administrator.
Now I have a an ASUS P6T with an i7 920 and I'm back to XP pro on that one.
Of course its way faster than the Q9300 was on the Gateway.
I also finally got a replacement mobo from ASUS, a P5K-E with a Pentium D820 with XP Home. This one seems to run just a bit slower than the Q9300 on the Gateway.
Definitly glad to be back to XP.
I thought I heard there may have been some advantages to vista for HDMI, but I'm using palit video cards with HDMI and they work just fine for HDMI with XP
I can't see any reason to use vista or windows 7 which I think is really vista anyway.

**slgrieb** · April 15th, 2009, 03:24 PM

Travistee, I'm sorry, but I just find myself mystified that some people are so attached to XP. Vista does offer some really significant improvements over XP. Native DVD burning, greatly improved multitasking and memory management, an Event Viewer on steroids, much better security, better desktop search, and improved program management, are just a few of the changes.

Just what are you running in Compatibility Mode? Almost any software that conforms to Microsoft's programming guidelines for XP runs fine under Vista. My Vista and W7 machines run pretty much any game that XP runs just fine. Much the same story for business software.

Win7 is mostly Vista, but it does offers some nice improvements. I still think it tends to be over-hyped, but my Win7 Beta still runs better than Vista SP1, and I can't imagine going back to XP anymore than I'd want to revert to Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 98.

Googling the topic shows that there are 425,000 hits for Vista Sucks versus 3,360,000 hits for XP Sucks. If you take a few minutes to look at the links, I think the pattern is pretty obvious. Many people just can't handle change. My advice; get used to it. Change is certain and inevitable.

**Kodiak** · June 24th, 2009, 01:11 AM

I thought windows 7 was ok (vista SE to me) but I had one issue that I couldn't figure out and that was I give remote assistance and when doing so it took anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes to react to commands. This was either way also. Me using it from win7 or coming into win7.

Honest opinion is if you didn't like Vista you won't like Win 7 either.

I didn't see any improvement in the games I play like BF 2142 or COD WAW.
Not sure I will switch when it come's out. Just my opinion.