My windows 7 Pro Full retaild DVD has just been posted from Play.com.

Not everyones cup of tea or chosen upgrade I know 🙂 The RC1 was mighty stable (typing on it for the last 6 months) and worked pretty much out of the box – 64bit Vista mark II 🙂

you are officially a crash test dummy 😆

Well have you tried RC Win7 – No – well then your in for a suprise after using every windows release going this is the most stable OS I have used – regulary use XP and have had Vista up until Win 7 Beta and RC. Also used many Linux Distros and some macs and I have to say for usability and stability Win7 is great for those Microsoft bashers out there!

Yur loss rs 🙂

just messing with you, hope you enjoy it 🙂

I tried it at the weekend (download from my MSDN subsription)…totally underwhelmed..first impression was that it looks a LOT like Vista (which works just fine for me so no bad thing).Claims are a lot of work has been done 'under-the-hood' but it sounds like a lot of marketing gumph to sell to the people who are determined to not like Vista. (I like the application windows docking but still no virtual desktops!)

Fubar – why not download microsoft desktops:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx

get 4 desktops 🙂

I've been using the Windows 7 Ultimate tester happily for about 3 months now – the only downside being that I think I have to wipe it before installing the release version 🙁

Been using it for a few weeks now and must say it's very impressive, Vista was fine on mine but this seems smoother and more polished with a few added nice bits.

Fubar – why not download microsoft desktops:

Thankyou – I just tried that and it is just the thing (I was thrown off the scent when searching as I found and tried the XP power toy Virtual Desktop Manager and wasn't impressed – and it was XP only!)…perhaps we'll see something similar in Windows 8 !

..totally underwhelmed..first impression was that it looks a LOT like Vista (which works just fine for me so no bad thing).Claims are a lot of work has been done 'under-the-hood' but it sounds like a lot of marketing gumph to sell to the people who are determined to not like Vista. (I like the application windows docking but still no virtual desktops!)

Why totally underwhelmed? Because superficially it looked like Vista? Or something else?

I'm impressed with it, didn't get on hugely with Vista, had a few faults with it that I disliked. 7 has been really good…worked straight off with a lot of my hardware and some powerful bits and bobs hidden away in it, still don't like doing dev work on it though.

So what am I missing…what does Windows 7 offer the happy Vista user (one whose laptop runs it fine and it doesn't crash)

what I've noticed…

– the app window docking (nice start but think it could be better)
– the new application / taskbar (at the bottom f the screen not sure what they call it)…not sure on this…bit subtle seeing which applications are active
– Paint improved a bit
– Wordpad…ribbon added but nothing else (?)
– Defrag…still no UI
– Task manager..still need to download another version to see process trees
– Start Menu…Classic option has gone (think?)…not a fan of this version
– Control Panel…where is everything (okay I'd get used to it soon enough…again I still like 'classic' view)
– Calendar gone !
– Photo gallery gone (okay can be downloaded)

I know it is supposed to be less resource hungry…but then that's not causing me a problem

I'll move to windows 7 when I get my next machine….actually I won't because I'm probably about to buy a netbook and having checked it out I'm happy to go with XP on that (tests showing XP still having longer battery life)

So what am I missing…what does Windows 7 offer the happy Vista user

Primarily, significantly faster computing!

I know it is supposed to be less resource hungry…but then that's not causing me a problem

Vista is FULL to brimming of crap you don't need, slowing it down massively. Vista minimum requirements are a joke, and even then, if you have a machine that just about meets these, it will be VERY slow. My work 2Ghz Core2Duo laptop with 4GB of RAM is hopelessly slow with Vista, and it's only a 6 month old machine, and not a bad spec one at that!

Basically, Microsoft made a mistake in expecting the pace of progression of computer hardware to carry on at an alarming rate, hence they thought they could really go to town when creating Vista, and not worry about it needing much higher spec machinery to run than XP. The pace of progress of computer hardware has slowed quite a bit though in relative terms. Even now many new machines aren't up to much cop running Vista!

Almost all the important stuff in Windows 7 is hidden. So for your average Vista user, that doesn't regularly explore the limits of their computing power, but does notice the superficial things, they will be completely underwhelmed. For the power user, who cares little for fripperies that mean sod all, but care a lot about the efficiency of their OS and the ability it affords them to run very resource hungry applications to a higher capacity, it will mean a hell of a lot!

installed x64 ultimate on my home PC at the weekend and it seems very nice. also got the x86 version on my netbook but i keep booting into XP…musy try harder to give it a blast on the little falla.

Defrag…still no UI

yeah weird that. I don't miss the coloured lines that much but at least a progress bar would be nice.

My work 2Ghz Core2Duo laptop with 4GB of RAM is hopelessly slow with Vista…Even now many new machines aren't up to much cop running Vista!

Runs faster than XP ever did on my three year old dual-core AMD with 4GB.

Primarily, significantly faster computing!

see my graphs on the Windows 7 thread the other day that show Win7 is slower at opening Office and Photoshop than Vista, and is about the same at most other tasks.

Edit.

Sod it. Not in the mood to annoy people tonight.

– Defrag…still no UI

Download Defraggler, it provides you with a very nice UI and all sorts of smart options over and above the built in Degfrag tools in Windows.

I've found the Win 7 RC pretty similar in terms of speed to a "GUI'd up" Server 2008 – quick for gaming. Seems more stable too – can scrape a good 40% overclock with Windows 7, Vista and Server 2008 struggle to cope with 20%. Saying that, anyone who would appreciate knowing that probably already knows it.

Primarily, significantly faster computing!

lol so not stealing all your resources to make it look shiney

Or put another way: they've significantly reduced the amount of file caching, thus making it slower, because people apparently don't like it when an OS tries to make best use of all their memory. 🙄

Well I turned off my file caching as got 64bit and 4Gb memory and my computer never maxes out on memory usage for what I want it for so I dont care about file caching really!

How did you turn off your file caching??

(And also.. why??)

OMG My launch party is only 2 days away…..I might actually phsyically wet myself 😛 😯 😳 8)

I'm holding my launch party at midnight tomorrow night.

Mine is due for posting Thrsday………as the posties strike.

Great.

Are you going for a US style launch party with balloons and a nauseating green tinge:

Or a Euro style party, with normal colour people and no balloons:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/08/missing_microsoft_balloons/

How did you turn off your file caching??

(And also.. why??)

File caching on a std HDD slows the computer when saving the cached files in the swap file. If you have enough memory its best to switch off the HDD swap file and there no slow read/writes 8)

Now I'm confused.

Did you disable your swap file, disable write caching on the HDD, or disable SuperFetch?

(I'm also running running Vista 64 on 4GB so I'm interested, if a bit confuddled)

The Yanks made this software, so by Jiminy I'm gonna party like them. I've got tons of balloons!

Excellent. I hope you have a suitable ethnically diverse and easily amused set of friends to invite?

What

rubbish.

as stated at the end of the beeb guide around all the "mildy useful, i suppose if your really looking hard to find benefits" features
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8315298.stm

"weve had a few teething problems, but its early days"

NO ITS NOT, MICROSOFT HAVE BEEN RELEASING SHIT OSs SINCE WINDOWS 3.1!!!
theyve had FOREVER to sort it out.

one thing it is NOT
is early days.

test the ferking thing properly THEN release it.

you wouldnt accept a bike that "pretty much worked"
why accept it from software.

OK – your entitled your opinion Olly 🙂 and me mine 🙂

(I'm also running running Vista 64 on 4GB so I'm interested, if a bit confuddled)

Nah just turned off my swap file with no adverse effects – I do have the power gadget top right to see mem usages and CPU usage just to keep an eye one it so it doesn't max out 🙂

Has anyone said snow leopard yet? 😆

Nope but that seems to be thwat with problems? 🙂

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/31/snow-leopard-whats-broken-for-you/

Foxy®ider: Ahh right. I've heard pretty mixed reports about whether switching off the swap file makes any real speed difference or causes any instability. (See that link for instance).

Did you notice any difference?

(BTW I was talking earlier about the SuperFetch file caching, not the swap file, which is why I was confused. SuperFetch is one of the reasons people think that Vista is using a lot of resources)

No probs Graham – I think I noticed was sl faster on tasks and startup but not a lot I guess but I have had no issues. I think if you are using very memory hungry programs i.e. usage over the 4Gb then prob best not as it might lock but I have had no issues to date and I do a bit of video and photography on it with no probs 🙂

OH BTW I am using windows 7 64bit RC not Vista – however 64bit OS can obviously use the full 4GB so probably comparable 🙂

So I guess we are talking about physical write file caching and not memory file caching to be specifi 😉

Nah just turned off my swap file with no adverse effects – I do have the power gadget top right to see mem usages and CPU usage just to keep an eye one it so it doesn't max out

A swap file is beneficial for performance, even if you do have enough free RAM to fit all your programs into.
It allows the OS to move unused pages from memory onto disk, meaning that more files can be cached from disk speeding up access to them in the future.

What about the file caching that can be done in memory but the HDD caching is used instead – tis probably why no one really seems to notice a difference 🙂

That was my thoughts too retro83, but as I've not actually tried it I wasn't going to argue with someone that has 😀

What about the file caching that can be done in memory but the HDD caching is used instead

I don't really get what you mean by this.

If you mean that the file cache in memory might get swapped out to the page file on disk, then I don't think the OS would allow that to happen as it would largely defeat the point.