Windows 7, anyone have an opinion yet.?

[smallblueplanet]

Should be enough for Vista, but its very memory hungry - here's the official MS line on it.

Get Windows Vista: System requirements

Also consider other 'parts' of the pc like graphics card, but if its a relatively new pc it should be okay. You can upgrade to W7 from Vista, did your machine come with that as an offer? Otherwise its relatively straightforward...if you know what you're doing,

W7's requirements -

Windows 7 System Requirements

Windows 7: Compare Windows 7 to Windows XP and Windows Vista - compare OS's

Windows 7 Upgrade Considerations - can you upgrade or 'clean' install?

[Brengirl]

Yes I can upgrade online to Windows 7. I havn't done it yet as I noticed it is not a freebee and decided to wait a while.

[Peter]

As an IT person the advice I'd give is "avoid the bleeding edge", which translates from all the non-IT business people wanting IT to be leading edge and how much it hurts to be there.

Perhaps I should put it in HeyWaynes phrases thread.

[braders]

Basically 32 bit operating systems can only use 4GB memory (theoretically), however something like XP could only use just over 3GB (you could use a startup switch in the boot ini file though to see a bit more) WIN 7 can see over 3.5GB but not over 4. A 64 bit O/S can see shed loads of RAM but if you are running apps that are designed for 32 bit on a 64 bit O/S you wont see much (if any) benefit.

Hope this helps

Hi All
TEB is right...just built myself a Quadcore with 4 gig of ram and a Geforce 8400 GS Graphics Card and it flies. Ive put a clean install of 64 bit Windows 7 and it runs fine..it also found every driver which does not happen very often. I still like XP but will stick with 7.

Regards to all Grapes...

[Brengirl]

are we saying 'if it anit broke don't mend it. Get a new one?

[Alison]

I'm on XP and have never had any probs with it. Have no idea at all what most of this thread is about but don't get any memory problems so will not be changing anything - always seems to cause problems and I'm not risking that until I have to!

[seasprout]

Hi All
TEB is right...just built myself a Quadcore with 4 gig of ram and a Geforce 8400 GS Graphics Card and it flies. Ive put a clean install of 64 bit Windows 7 and it runs fine..it also found every driver which does not happen very often. I still like XP but will stick with 7.

Regards to all Grapes...

You lost me right after "Hi All.!"

However, I've decided to go for Windows 7, I bought PC Advisor Mag the other day and have been flicking through the pages this very day.! I'm gonna get a disk from Software4students....for windows 7.

I'm going to also get a book from Amazon on how it works.

[pigletwillie]

I ma now upgraded and its working just fine. Very similar to vista to be fair.

[seasprout]

If its good enough for you..its good enough for me.!

[Hilary B]

My computer is... oldish. Only ˝Gb RAM, and the online things that tell you which extra to add can't find one to suit it. I don't want to lose all my settings, stored passwords etc.
Can any of the computer-knowledgeable people tell me whether it would work to buy a new computer, but put the existing hard drive in it? I've used much less than half the space on there.....

[braders]

My computer is... oldish. Only ˝Gb RAM, and the online things that tell you which extra to add can't find one to suit it. I don't want to lose all my settings, stored passwords etc.
Can any of the computer-knowledgeable people tell me whether it would work to buy a new computer, but put the existing hard drive in it? I've used much less than half the space on there.....

Hi Hilary
What size is your drive..?..512 of ram is not enough..pm me the spec of your pc and I will do what I can to help..

[sarraceniac]

My computer is... oldish. Only ˝Gb RAM, and the online things that tell you which extra to add can't find one to suit it. I don't want to lose all my settings, stored passwords etc.
Can any of the computer-knowledgeable people tell me whether it would work to buy a new computer, but put the existing hard drive in it? I've used much less than half the space on there.....

Had to ask my eldest about this. He's a senior exec with a large computer company based in Seattle WA which shall remain nameless.

If your current machine is a standard one then it should be easy to take out the mother-board, central processor and RAM and just replace the lot with more up to date. You can keep the same HDD as long as it is a standard IDE or SATA fitting. That way you can keep your existing monitor, case etc. if you so wish. If your monitor is the old bulky CRT type though and you would like a new flat LCD type then you are probably best just buying a new system and having your data transferred off your old HDD. If that is really old then it may collapse pretty soon anyway and you would lose everything.

He suggests trying to find a small computer shop in the area for advice but you should ask around locally for which one is best. I know that here we have three major small suppliers, one is good but expensive, one is good and not very expensive and one is cheap and will be going out of business shortly according to local rumours. So you really must get advice locally. Don't go to a major high street chain, they employ salespeople not engineers and will just try to sell you what they have in stock. Not always the best move because the whole point of the PC when it started was the ability to change parts to keep it up to date.

Whilst I am on this thread can I just say that I have just installed Windows 7 on one of my network machines and so far it is impressive, unlike Vista was. But I aren't changing all the network until I've run it for a few weeks.

[Hilary B]

Ta for advice. HDD is partitioned, one for XP, one for 98 (which I don't use any more, but I have some handy data on there).
XP partition is 42.7GB 21.6 unused
98 partition is 33.5GB 23.5 unused.
The machine is about 6 years old. I would love to update 'almost everything except HD', although I do have a nice LCD screen. Would like to replace one of the CD drives with a DVD drive while I'm at it.

[sarraceniac]

I'd replace the lot if I were you, except the screen. I would just buy a new system case from a small company and ask them to transfer data off the old HDD onto the new one, which will run a lot faster anyway. Your old 80 gbyte one will be an IDE running at 5,400 rpm. The new ones run at 7,200 rpm or even more nowadays. It is probably the most cost effective way of doing it. If you wanted to go overboard you could buy a new screen with digital, as well as analogue input. Not that you will really need that unless you (or kids in the family) want to play modern shoot-em up games.

[Hilary B]

There is a joke, about as old as home-computing "there are only 2 types of computer, prototypes and obsolete". I like my computer slightly obsolete, but would prefer it not QUITE as obsolete as at present.......<G>
Cost IS relevant. Can't afford the extra to get someone messing about moving my data, and while OH is capable of such things as fitting a CD drive, putting in 'cards' and such, I don't think he is up to anything fancy in data-shifting. I REALLy don't want to lose the things that are awkward to move (like stored passwords, records of achievement in the few games I use etc.....)
No kids, just me uses this one (OH has his own, a bit more RAM, a year or so newer, got a DVD RW, otherwise not so different. Uses it for business, mine is all my own!)