The Mother Board

[syrianrue]

Hi guys,

i'm planningon building a new computer, but was wondering if anyone has any reviews on windows 7. Being an xp user for years, should i upgrade to windows 7?

obviously, xp would be a safe bet since it's something i've already used for years.. but is windows 7 really that good?

what are the improvements in 7 from xp? i would think with all those graphical interface (same with vista) that they might lag the system a bit compare to xp.

[Karlsweldt]

Windows XP is a stable OS platform. But unless it has SP3, its technical support will end this July, 2010. With SP3, you will have a few more years of service life.
May be worth upgrading to Windows 7, as it is less a memory hog than Vista was. Those "extra" features should not bog down a system, as long as you have sufficient memory installed. From the trends, having less than 2 GB of memory is a stumbling point. During the install, any features found will be associated with the desired drivers. If the features are not found, then no extra drivers will be installed.
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F@H.. to solve mankind's maladies.. in our lifetimes!

[fussnfeathers]

Windows 7 Ultimate on an oldie E6700 and an Asus P5B mobo, 4GB DDR2 667, 8800GTX. Honestly, faster than XP with all the patches and service packs.

Really, there's not much "extra" installed, as far as constantly running services, about the same as XP, and stable as heck. I've had exactly one BSoD since September, and that was only partially Window's fault......they included a new, 1394 driver, that works better and faster with digital cameras and the like. Didn't play nice with my firewire recording preamps, though, I had to swap back to the legacy driver. Took all of a minute.

Considering I've been using XP since it came out, I've had zero trouble adjusting, beyond some slight confusion in the Control Panel (hint.....the people who whine about stuff being hard to find apparently never clicked the title to each section........). I had to do some maintenance work on my mom's older XP machine last week, and it actually shocked me how clunky XP is compared to Win 7.

About the only reason I would suggest sticking with XP is if you have a bunch of critical legacy programs that never made the transition to Vista, or hardware with XP only drivers. Even older XP programs tend to work fine, about the only game I've had fail on me was Myst.......and yeah, Windows 98 game. Didn't shock me. My joystick also didn't install properly, as far as the macro and button programming, but Saitek discontinued this model four years ago, so again......no shock. Stock game controller drivers work just fine, if not better.

Good stuff. I could go on for a bit more, but ask away with any concerns or questions you might have.
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Mine go to 11

[Mr T]

XP is nearly 10 years... 10 years bloat of upgrades and service packs, bugfixes and all...

Win7 is new with a few months of bugfixes, patches etc......

Newer is better in the long run with hardware improving to the point of leaving XP behind (ie hard drives)....

Now if you have a spare XP licence, why bother with win7, save yourself some money... If you don't win7

However...

If you don't play games, why not give Linux a shot - its free....
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I have been programming on computers since the ZX81.
I am an apprentice trained Electronics Engineer with qualifications to back it up.
I have been repairing computers since 1996.
Yet to some people I still know nothing...

[camil]

I have install windows Vista on my computer all its features are very good but problem is that Lane card does not work on it. Can any one tell its solution.? Thanks

[evasive]

download the driver and install it. Not all LAN-cards are supported out of the box in windows Vista.
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We hate rut, but we fear change.



System error, strike any user to continue...

[Sasuke]

@OP : I suggest you stay away from Windows 7 if you are doing file sharing over a network, its a pain to get it all working as advertised.

If you own a license for XP use it until Win 7 SP2 (if it ever comes out)


@Camill - As evasive suggested, not all OS's support LAN cards out of the box. There's an even more disturbing question, how are you browsing the web? Wifi??

[evasive]

different computer or went to the neighbours. if everything was that simple in life
_________________
We hate rut, but we fear change.



System error, strike any user to continue...

[evasive]

for the record: after you install SP3 there are another 81 critical patches to install. so yes, XP beginning to show its age. Too bad there will be no SP4...
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We hate rut, but we fear change.



System error, strike any user to continue...

[fussnfeathers]

Win 7 network sharing isn't difficult at all, it's just a different setup now. Took me all of ten minutes to share a few folders over my network with both Vista and XP machines. Didn't bother trying with Win2K.
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Mine go to 11