Windows 7

[Bioshox]

Tom, it all depends on your hardware as well as the Operating System, if your running a Dual Core and Windows 7, sorry you aint guna get blazing performance, but with a Quad Core i7 it would be extremely fast, although I dont have problems with Vista, Windows 7 is alot faster on my Quad Core Machine!

Depends on Hardware as well as Operating System. Another advantage of Windows, Hardware Upgrading is widely available.

I dont want to spend £2'000 on a Quad Core Mac when I can spend £500 on a Quad Core Windows/Linux.

[Theo Dibbits]

Thank you Tom

I came dangerously close to putting my hand in my pocket. That could have turned out very, very nasty. Pheeeeew.
I will now go back to being smug in the knowledge that I have 60 quid to spend on something else. Now lets see: beer, wine, football?

However I will change the broadband because it is seriously p...ing me off.


Ooooh there is one thing. Whilst the rest of us, running XP and photoshop 7, are not missing anything how come you are running windows 7 with CS4? Just wondering.

Theo

[Tom Gerrard]

Hi Jacob,

I entirely agree with you and think most of us, or some of us, are aware of the hardware/speed issue. The message I was trying to convey was that to get Win 7 and expect, as you say a “blazing performance” on Dual Core or less isn’t going happen. With all the hype about 7 I thought some might be tempted. For some, what seems like a relatively inexpensive upgrade, may end up as a fairly expensive (you quote about another £500) exercise to achieve any worthwhile result. That was the information I trying to express. Thanks for your comments.

Regards, Tom.

[Tom Gerrard]

Hi Theo,

I'm a bit out of sync' with these replies. I've had no problems with running CS 4 and Elements 7. In fact I've had no prob's with any of my prog's. I have not connected up my scanner and printer to the PC yet, so I can't make any observations about these. I'll tell you more tomorrow.See you have saved £60. Spend a bit on beer and football, the rest you can just fritter away!

Best Regards,

Tom.

[Mike]

I don't know if this has been answered fully from a previous post so here goes!

If you are upgrading from Windows XP you will be required to back up all your programmes data, user data (photographs / films & what not) on an external drive using their migration tool (if you trust it). You then totally wipe your existing computer and do a 'clean install'.

If you are upgrading from Vista then it is really only a big service pack update and you can upgrade your existing installation. That said I personally would recommend that you get a full back up of all your computer before you start. Just in case.

Interestingly BBC recommend doing a clean install for both to make sure that you don't have problems with settings and what not. See this article for more details.

I dont want to spend £2'000 on a Quad Core Mac when I can spend £500 on a Quad Core Windows/Linux.

Fair enough. Cost wise Windows computers are always going to be cheaper. The £1600 quid for a 27" quad core Mac is quite expensive although I do want one of those new 178 degree viewing HD screens!

I have been very impressed with Apple Mac's since I started using them in 2005. My personal computer is two years old and despite several upgrades to the OS and programmes it still seems to be as quick as new on its lowly Dual Core processor. When I upgrade the laptop (sometime never) it will probably be a white macbook (if they are still being made!).

[Andrew Shepherd]

Just got back from holiday and catching up - this has been an interesting debate and I really appreciate the comments. I'm running Vista and was very tempted to upgrade to version 7 but, having read this, I'm going to hold back (which is really hard for me to do as I'm a sucker for things like this!!). I was going to get the family package to upgrade both the laptop and desktop, but I'll hang onto the £130 (for now )

Cheers

[Mike]

Slashdot suggests users wait till service pack 1 before you update due to Microsoft previous reputation in the OS updating world!

[sunsworth]

When I upgrade the laptop (sometime never) it will probably be a white macbook (if they are still being made!).

Hah! You've outed yourself. You're really called Sharon and are from Essex!

I was speaking to someone the other day and he was saying that the screen on the new iMac 27" isn't much taller than the 24" that I have. Apparently they are now in a proper 16:9 format so the extra inches are due to the increased width.

[Mike]

Hah! You've outed yourself. You're really called Sharon and are from Essex!

It was only a matter of time. . . .

I was speaking to someone the other day and he was saying that the screen on the new iMac 27" isn't much taller than the 24" that I have. Apparently they are now in a proper 16:9 format so the extra inches are due to the increased width.

The 27" imac is basically a reasonable sized TV with a computer inside, it has a full HD quality 16:9 screen and a viewing angle of 178 degrees (ie TV spec). It appears on the rumour mill that Apple are now looking into a TV distribution model making HD TV content available through iTunes. The other intersting thing is you are able to take information from iTunes to your existing TV using Apple TV. I expect to see a big Apple TV update in 2010.

[hogiebogie]

Have just installed windows 7 still trying to get used to this new operating system might go back to XP yet.
Bernie

[Brian]

I think windows 7 is the dogs .. I can;t understand why any one would have issues with it .. it you dig in the back then yeah its completely different to xp so supporting its gonna be fun but the general usage of it is no different to xp ... I like a lot of the new features too

[Andrew Shepherd]

I took the plunge before Christmas - with the family package upgrading my laptop and the daughter's computer. I agree it is such a step forward from Vista - the networking functions actually work this time and sharing data between computers and USB drives is brilliant, especially with the library functions. Drivers for things like Printers, Scanners work much better too.

[Mike]

Glad to hear that people are actually getting good opinions of Windows this time round!

[oakeycoke]

Hi,

Well my new 15" Dell Laptop arrived yesterday with Windows 7 (64bit)thereon, I've had a Dell 17" Inspiron for nearly 3 yrs with Vista.

The new one is a Core i7 with 4Gb(1333Hz) ram and ATi graphics, the old one is a Pentium dual core 2Gb(667Hz) ram and Nvidia graphics - though both have seperate graphics cards the older one is the better spec.

So with both running firefox and 2 tabs open the new one is using 2% processor and 36% memory the old one is 2% processor and 54% memory average-ish. Opening Word 2007 simultaneously on both computers and the old one is about a second or so quicker to load the screen and the cursor flash ready to type. The old one is actually powering its own 17"screen at 1440x900 pixels and a 23" monitor at 1680x1050 pixels. The new one's screen resolution is 1366x768 pixels.

So the old one on Vista is quicker than the new one on Windows7!!!! Well its not that simple, the old one's 2 core processor is running at 2.0Ghz more or less all the time the new one is at 1.6GHz but its 4 dual cores can speed up if necessary, in other words its got 8 processors beavering away but only if needed, so in task manager sometimes some of them are literally asleep. The new one certainly starts and shuts down quicker than Vista, and I've reinstalled the operating system on the old one to clear out the crap, 133GB of its 160GB where in use previously. They both now have more or less the same programs installed.

So if your only running office type programs you aren't going to see much difference, if you are into games/hd video etc then the graphics card is the main item that will show improvement. Now if you've loads of stuff running at once especially stuff that uses the processor and lots of memory such as vidoe editing or photoshop rendering then Windows7 and the newer quad core processors will certainly show an improvement, though I've yet to test it.

Phil

[Theo Dibbits]

I have also been busy.
First I have moved to Virgin cable which involved changing email addresses. Still finding logons that use the old address.
With a faulty telephone connection and a faulty router the first week was not funny but now I am pleased with the service.

Next I moved my daughters new Dell from Vista to W7 which was time consuming but straight forward and we only had to reset the screen resolution.
Then I decided to move my XP machine over which has been a little more problematic. There is an amazing amount of data to backup. The main problem was that the new video driver I needed to install was corrupted (which I obviously did not know) so when I tried to set up my dual monitors they were reversed and refused to move. It is a crazy sight when the mouse runs off the left edge of your left monitor to reappear on the right edge of the right monitor. Luckily the media centre finally fell over stating the driver as the culprit. Lessons: do not install drivers online. Download them then install.

On the negative side:
Without hacking in to the registry you can not modify the fonts or picture sizes of the log on screen. It looks really naf.
I do not belief the machine runs any faster then it would have been on a clean installed XP.
I have lost the games.

Oh and I forgot to backup my Favorites and wished I could stop IE from dropping the new favorites in to the favorites bar.

On the positive side:
Before moving I migrated the mail system from Outlook Express to Live mail . Live mail pulled all the mails, contacts etc. over without any problems and the export and import functions work beautifully. It took only minutes to get it all working again. Well worth it even if you stay on XP.
I like the new interface although the icons of some of the older programmes look a little dated.
If the homehub network works as well as Andrew's I will finally be able to kick my daughter of my machine completely.
The rotating pictures of the screen saver. I wonder if I could select a number of my own shots and build a set.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the outcome.


Theo