Windows 7

rebelt · Worker Joined: May 07, 2006 Posts: 147

Has anyone upgraded to the new wondows os yet?

What do you think of it?

I haven't made the change yet.

montego · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 8:29 am

Windows? What's that? Laughing

I'll let everyone else go through the pain and suffering while I seamlessly upgrade my Ubuntu 9.04 PC to 9.10. Wink

djmaze · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:12 pm

Sorry i don't want to downgrade my Fedora 11 + KDE!

However, i do have it in a virtual machine crashing every 30 minutes. Does that count as "upgrade" (cough)?

jakec · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:32 pm

Not upgraded myself, but rumour has it Windows 7 is 10 times better than Vista and just as fast as XP.

kd8hho · Worker Joined: Mar 30, 2009 Posts: 111

montego wrote:

Windows? What's that? Laughing

I'll let everyone else go through the pain and suffering while I seamlessly upgrade my Ubuntu 9.04 PC to 9.10. Wink

i just took my laptop from 9.10 to 10.04 Cool

bring on the breakage!

seriously... windows fast/better? i lol

jakec · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:54 pm

kd8hho wrote:

seriously... windows fast/better? i lol

I never said it was faster and better than Unbuntu, or whatever flavour you are into. Wink

unicornio · Involved Joined: Aug 13, 2009 Posts: 432

I suggest Debian. Amazing distro.

fkelly · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 9:01 am

I have upgraded two machines to Windows 7. One was Windows XP. You have to do a fresh install with XP ... which was okay with me but I had partitioned the main drive into C: (where I put windows) and D: where I had intended to put other programs and E: where I was going to put data. That was the original intent because I stupidly thought I could make Windows work MY way. All programs want to go on C:\program files though and you are constantly fighting it and eventually I gave up. That led the C: partition to being overcrowded. Now theoretically I should have been able to install Windows 7 to E or D but of course the installation program wouldn't do that. So I wound up having to reinstall XP and repartition C to be the whole drive. Now I could install Windows 7 in that larger drive. Oh NO: you needed to be a Service Pack 2 first. So after a day of downloading and installing that I got to the point where I could do Windows 7. Then of course my display adapter was only recognized as VGA so it was off to Best Buy to get a new one.

One cool thing: I had a backup of my Gallery files (jpgs) on my hard drive and I was able to have media center import them all and run slide shows. So I can look at over 1000 jpgs without being connected to the Internet. And I'm running Internet TV and preparing to hook the computer up to a Plasma TV and explore the options there. I like to watch movies without commercials and Road Runner movie on demand kind of ... ummmm ... vulgar negative word ending with u c k s.

The Vista machine was more straightforward. Windows 7 will install over it. You just have to be very patient. It got to 18 percent expanding files and hung but I had to go away for another matter and the next day I came back and it had installed.

I'm not dogmatic about operating systems: it's all code. The people who write Windows are computer scientists and competent just like the people who write Linux code. When I used to work for a living I ran database servers on Linux, it works and was efficient. It just all depends. There have been times during the last week, like when I was crawling on the floor with a flashlight in my teeth trying to read the 20 character (or whatever) product key off my desktop computer so I could type it in to get the XP installer to let me reinstall so I could turn around and install Windows 7 -- there have been times like that where I swore to go to Linux or a Mac. But overall Windows 7 seems fine.

Palbin · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 3:50 pm

I have had zero complaints about Windows 7. It installed fine as a fresh installation.

fkelly · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2009 4:17 pm

Just to follow up on what I said about Gallery. If you have a download of a backup of your site, you'll have all your Gallery jpg files in an albums directory. Have Media Center import them and you can run slideshows. I was just checking and Microsoft does it the smart way ... that is it builds links to the files on your hard drives and operates with the ONE copy that's there. I was thinking it would copy the files to some media center directory internally. So another good point for MS.

And, as fast as our Internet connections may be these days, if you want to run a slideshow in the background of a meeting with like 1000 photos you don't want to be downloading them from a web site in real time.

testy1 · Involved Joined: Apr 06, 2008 Posts: 483

definitely better.I've done multiple vista upgrades and fresh installs for customers, and have not had a problem yet.Still like to come home to ubuntu karmic though Smile

djmaze · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 3:14 pm

fkelly wrote:

I was just checking and Microsoft does it the smart way ... that is it builds links to the files on your hard drives and operates with the ONE copy that's there. I was thinking it would copy the files to some media center directory internally. So another good point for MS.

I do that for years with digiKam on GNU/Linux, so MS has learned from them?

digiKam makes thumbnales though because loading one of my 5+MB RAW/JPEG files could take a while if you have 50 in view.
Does MS Media Center do that as well?

Does Windows 7 Media Center allow me to stream the images to my Playstation 3 so i can view my images on the TV in the livingroom to my friends?

Does Windows 7 Media Center allow me to stream music to my Playstation 3 so i can listen to music with my friends in the livingroom from my stereo?

If so, i might turn over one of my computers from GNU/Linux to Windows 7 to see if it can cope Very Happy

[edit]
Here's a screenshot

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fkelly · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 6:18 pm

Quote:

Does Windows 7 Media Center allow me to ...

I think the answer to both those questions is yes DJ but I'm trying to figure out all the gazinto's (goes intos) for myself right now. I'd love to be able to "stream" movies from the Internet as well as shows as well as PC content -- music, pictures, to a HD TV and control them from an armchair across the room. I've read that you can do what you propose but until I see the actual connections working I have some skepticism.

Re-reading your post, if Media Center worked right you wouldn't need the Playstation intermediary. You'd either have some kind of direct connection from your PC to the TV or else (and this would be even better IMHO) there would be an Ethernet Jack on the TV and an ethernet wire between the PC and TV. I've read of wireless solutions that would replace the ethernet wire, usually with some kind of Playstation or XBOX or other proprietary box in between but I'm skeptical that wireless really has the bandwidth for high definition type shows.

999 · Regular Joined: Sep 12, 2006 Posts: 58 Location: Dsm, IA

fkelly wrote:

That was the original intent because I stupidly thought I could make Windows work MY way. All programs want to go on C:\program files though and you are constantly fighting it and eventually I gave up.

There's a couple registry settings you can change to make it default to where ever you want. Usually one of the first things I do after a fresh install as I like my data nicely partitioned (makes for easier backup to nas as well).

7 may not actually be faster, but it's UI makes it feels that way, and startup is significantly faster, although that's not really an issue for me either way. There are some big improvements in things like file transfers and networking issues Vista had, but otherwise it's fairly similar. I'm still running the RC however, so there may be other things. There are some annoyances with it, but I have yet to find an OS where there weren't several annoyances.

Guardian2003 · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 5:48 am

Tried Windyblows 7 on my wifes older (4 years old) laptop

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Wasn't impressed.
Just wish I could persuade her to switch to Ubuntu but she does love to use my Moovida media center Smile

nuken · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 6:29 am

I wish I could get my wife to switch to Ubuntu too. I just now got her to try Firefox. We bought her a new Dell laptop a few months ago to replace her XP lappy. All and all Vista was not that bad, but she hated it because it was different. We upgrade it to 7 and I upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu 9.10. No big difference in function or performance that I noticed from her upgrade. While my Ubuntu had quite a few new and very useful features. My opinion on Windows is this. IE6 would load faster than Firefox would. IE7 was about the same and now IE8 is much slower than Firefox. They have lost major ground in the browser war. That was how I got the wife to try FF. Plus she could change themes on FF which was all she needed to love it. Windows takes several hours to install after you wait for all the updates and download all the Dell drivers. Ubuntu takes about 30 minutes. Ubuntu upgrades with the click of a button while Windows makes you sit there clicking away at their installer. Windows 7 works as expected but Ubuntu works better than expected.

jakec · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 6:53 am

The problem I have is that I just don't use it enough to get familiar with it. Obviously my work uses Windyblows and at home I use Windyblows because some of my favourite programs run on it.

May be I should just bite the bullet at home and change to Ubuntu.

nuken · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 7:18 am

The cool thing about Ubuntu is you can install it as a dual boot with windows. The installer makes it easy to keep your windows os and partition the hd for both. Ubuntu has done a really good job of including solid and useful software in its distro like gedit text editor, GIMP, Kompozer, etc. Synaptic Package Manager makes it a breeze to install other software and keep your system up to date. It's just a solid OS.

meotoo · Hangin' Around Joined: Aug 04, 2009 Posts: 36

fkelly wrote:

The people who write Windows are computer scientists and competent

You must be kidding!, seriously... you must be kidding.

The linux guys are far better and a lot more competent. It's well know Windows "developers" are taking ideas *and code* from other OSs to implement then under Windows, and for code they need to write himself it's plenty of bugs and vulnerabilities which the reason why we have such impressive amount of virus,malware,etc - is that something coming from "computer scientists"?

please don't take this as an offense to yourself, i always say the same when i heard things like that, it's only that you need to open your eyes Wink

Unfortunately, most of us are forced to use Windows. I ordered Windows 7 the last week, *and only* because it cost me 12 Euros..(laptop update) and i have to admit i had a little of fear if installing it under my current Vista could f*** up the whole machine... reading what some of you said i feel a little more calm now, however.. i think the Windows 7 package will get some dust popping around here before i try to install it when i'll receive it..

snype · Regular Joined: Aug 12, 2008 Posts: 58

Well i wasnt going to touch windows 7 but i forgot to tell my partner i didnt want it anymore and she had purchased me the ultimate version. At first i was just going to take it back and get our money back but i thought i would try it and to be honest i think its great i done a fresh install took no longer than 30minutes to install from there i installed all my programs and whats more my printer that wouldnt work with vista works with windows 7 lol,

Also i am loving the speed i am getting dont know about any one else but mine is more than noticable. Ok i am going to play with this more now

999 · Regular Joined: Sep 12, 2006 Posts: 58 Location: Dsm, IA

I think I would be one of the last people to defend windows, but the reason for the large amount of viruses, malware, etc, is because of market share. If I'm going to write a program to steal personal information from machines, I probably want to write it to attack the OS that has 90+% of the personal machines.

They're just 2 different philosophies if you will. Windows is fairly static but really easy to use, so for the most part it's gonna be used in homes and some server environments. The real key with *nix is how fluid it is, it can fill a ton of roles that windows could never hope to (network hardware, specialty uses, etc), as well as imo the best web server environment, I really don't like windows web servers personally.

As for *nix as a replacement for a windows machine in most peoples homes, it's not, and it's not likely to happen any time soon. It's greatest strength in some things makes it weak in others, too many distros and configurations. I may be able to understand it enough to use at home (nas server, web/rsync server), but if I one day decided to go over and install ubuntu on my parent's machine, they wouldn't be to happy with me, and yes I know from experience. Razz

Guardian2003 · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 12:55 pm

999 wrote:

As for *nix as a replacement for a windows machine in most peoples homes, it's not, and it's not likely to happen any time soon. Razz

Some of the leading retailers and PC manufacturers are now shipping their gear with Ubuntu, including the likes of Dell, Toshiba and Acer.

nuken · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 1:29 pm

The learning curve is not a big as it used to be. Ubuntu has really put together a solid OS. In the last few years, it has become very user friendly IMO.

djmaze · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:16 pm

Some are talking about Ubuntu but in my opinion Ubuntu sucks just as hard in real live then Windows.
My work uses Ubuntu servers and they fail a few times per week.
The system maintainer decided that because he uses Ubuntu on his laptop.
Does that mean Ubuntu sucks just as hard as Windows?
I use Fedora at work although the system engineer wants me on Ubuntu. Isn't is freedom of choice?

In my opinion you should use an OS for it's purpose, not if you like it.
Ubuntu is fine for your laptop and windows for a home computer and CentOS or Debian for your server and Gentoo for the die-hard pinguin.

meotoo · Hangin' Around Joined: Aug 04, 2009 Posts: 36

I/We have been hear everywhere Windows 7 is faster than Vista, i hope that is regarding general usage because boot times looks like to sux too much...

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What do you guys think? specifically those of you using w7 already...