Yeah I understand 7 ultimate is up, but sharp said it was the RC version (which mine says too) and not the RTM. The 32 vs 64 isn't a problem since dell offers both sets of drivers for vista for my laptop so im sure they will work out no problem (crosses fingers). The part I was concerned with was a speed standpoint. The 64 allows me to utilize the extra gig of ram I have... but I remember hearing that the process are larger in size in 64 bit version to which that extra gig of memory wouldn't make a difference anyway. Either way, I just picked up a 500gb harddrive for the laptop so ill be putting that in at some point.

 

Been running it for awhile now and it is a great OS.. the best off all of them by far.. smooth fast and very easy top navigate threw.

 

Microsoft really did something good for a change with the release of windows 7. Since they came out with Vista, it was nothing but a waste of precious hardware resources!

At the company where I work, we tested windows 7 on our computer systems that is older than 4-5 years old. It ran just find if not better on some old systems. These old systems have the old P4 2 ghz with 1 gig ram and 40 gig IDE drive. these old systems can barely run Vista if at all. The only caveat on windows 7 is that it will not support some of the legacy equipment anymore so you may still be required to buy some hardware upgrades to get it in compliance to windows 7.

Judging from our testing at work on Vista and Windows 7. The upper management have already confirmed a planned migration from XP professional to windows 7 professional as some of our home grown software applications running in XP will not work in Vista, but will run in windows 7 with (XP mode).

I am using Vista Ultimate 32 bit at home. Luckily I got this software free with MS training that our company has with MS. Heard that MS burned alot of V-Ultimate users as MS did not deliver the ultimate experience that they promised. The V-Ultimate owners hope that MS will give the owners some fairly reasonable discount when they release 7-Ultimate. I would be very hesitate to buy their flagship ultimate version if they still do not promise to deliver all the stuff ultimate offers. Their 7-professional is more than enough for pricing.

Also, if any of you are currently enrolled in school, MS is offering a very cheap price for windows 7 (home/pro only) for $30.

 

Thanks for that info. I'm on a P4 2ghz with 2gb ram, wasn't sure how well 7 would work or really 'how much' of an upgrade it would be over XP as far as performance goes, if at all. I guess for 30 bucks it's worth a shot especially if it'll work quite well from what you're saying, I can always go back to XP if I'd like, too.

 

From what im finding using 7 ultimate on my older p4 2.88 tower, for easy web browsing and IMing it does great, but once you get into playing musid and watching video; forget it. It does decent if you plan on just listening to music and doing other things non computer related, but if you want to multitask on it it will slow down to a snails pace. Just something to think about.
Im not too concerned on my end about it as the dt i have now is nothing more than a test rig. It never has anything on it that I cant afford to lose. Personally, Im thinking about throwing XP Pro back on it when i get home and see if that makes it run better.

 

Hmm, alright then. I might just stick with the XP Pro then. I'm curious though, can the 'code' I get for 30 dollars (for the current student offer) be used AFTER the January date if I pay for the code before the date? IE What if I don't want to use windows 7 on this computer that I'm using, but I'd like to download the OS and save it to a disk so that let's say I build a new computer in March I can install it, essentially only paying 30 dollars for the OS instead of 150 or whatever it might cost the day I actually build the computer. Does that make sense?

 

im pretty sure it would still work, i mean you still bought the system and have the disc, you just need to get the serial for it before the promotion ends

 

For video, the video card will be the problem child. Our PC at work is a 2.6 ghz with 1 gig of ram and a old 5200 Geforce 128 meg card. It ran videos just fine in XP. But in windows 7, it did not support the 5200 geforce. But I was able to find a modified driver to make it work in windows 7 so playing videos is fine.

So far, whatever you can do when you had XP, it will run just fine in windows 7 for the most part. But as I stated in my first thread, there may be some underlying hardware that MUST be upgraded to work correctly in windows 7 such as my Nvidia Geforce 5200 not working initally under windows 7.

One thing for sure, it seems that my old pc has new life in it. At least some added borrowed time to use it as long as possible before going to pc heaven!

Oh, in case none of you know, microsoft has a tool you can download to convert your USB flash drive/hard drive to be able to install windows 7.

I compared two identical pcs at work to install windows 7. One pc, I used the windows 7 DVD, and the other, I used a Kingston 8 gig flash drive with windows 7 installation files installed. The DVD install, it took roughly about 30-45 minutes by the time it you were at the windows 7 desktop. With the USB flash drive, it almost took half that. About 15-20 minutes if you used a USB flash drive to install.

It's hell finding that tool from MS's website! Used to be there. Don't know why it is so difficult to get it now. But found another link you can download this tool.

http://download.cnet.com/Windows-7-U...-10972600.html

Do a google search for Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool and you'll find alot of good stuff about it.

 

Speak of the devil man. I just ran into that issue on my DT last night. I've got an ATI Radeon 9250 PCI card. Under 7 I can't install the drivers for it, so the overall graphics is kinda crappy. Not to mention, the MOBO has integrated Intel graphics, and 7 can't even start that one.

Luckily for me, my tower and MOBO is ATX Micro, so I'm thinking about $300 will give me a real nice HTPC. Then, between that and my laptop, I think I can suffer long enough to get funding for a real build.

 

Yeah, I ran into the same thing at home. I too have a ATI 9250 graphics card and will not work for windows 7. Windows 7 only support ATI cards starting at 9500 series and newer. But at least my old AMD sempron 2600 ran really great! I may simply find another agp graphics card from newegg. They still carry agp cards. I think ATI 3600 series is highest you can go with agp interface for ati. Cannot remember how high you can go for nvidia cards with agp interface.