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Author Topic: Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?  (Read 15143 times)

John.Murray

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #20 on: October 25, 2009, 01:05:38 am »

Quote from: digitaldog
Trust me..

Sorry, can’t resist:

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

hehe....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnOCUkbix0

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barryfitzgerald

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #21 on: October 25, 2009, 05:25:19 am »

Quote from: Raw shooter
Windows 7 will change everything.  It will be interesting to see how much by October 2010.
I am a big fan of Macs and Linux - as these two platforms created the push for Microsoft. The massive installed Windows base plus the existance of a great OS is all the market needs to dominate everybody - yet again.  
Hers's hoping development of other Operating Systems continue.  We all benefit from real competition.  Microsoft dominating, at over 90% of the market, has never helped the average computer user.


The problem with Windows, is the same as it always was. The registry..
Over time windows slows down, the situation gets even more obvious for users with a large number of programs installed (even worse heavy demo users etc, who do lots of installs). This is one reason some folks "clean install" every so often, whatever windows OS they run.
Having done a few Win 7 upgrades from Vista, I could not really say the computers were much faster, it's a little less of a burden on memory and HDD, but not much. Clean install obviously better, but clean install your Vista again, and that seems pretty fast too, every windows is! No software or bloated out registry etc.

I pretty much halved the boot up time of XP pro, simply be doing a clean install the other day.

Linux avoids this problem, also by not using NTFS, fragmentation isn't an issue either. MS might still dominate, but the tide can turn..if I can boot up loads of candy all over the show using less than half the memory of Win 7 using Mint..well that tells me one OS if a lot more efficient than the other. And that's the real problem with MS, they really need to look at efficiency, not rely on improved hardware to carry the can for them.

The reason XP is still popular, is that it's in modern terms a pretty lightweight OS, small footprint, and low memory use. I would not suggest users of less capable machines go near Win 7....XP will simply run better for them. I see Win 7 as being more useful for new pc's, less so for upgraders.

With Vista MS tried to do too much, and the OS was a burden on pc's..1Gb was not really good enough, it was 2Gb or don't bother. At the time of Vista's release, the system requirements were too high. A few years down the road 2gb pc's are par for the course, standard. MS did tweak some stuff, but Win 7 will do better, simply because the hardware is better, not because it's a hugely re-vamped ultra lean efficient OS. Not knocking it now, some nice bits there..but hmmm ,wake me up when they make the control panel "logical" and easy to use! lol  
« Last Edit: October 25, 2009, 05:28:47 am by barryfitzgerald »
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Dennishh

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #22 on: October 25, 2009, 10:56:36 am »

Windows 7 64 ROCKS!!!! This is the best OS ever. I tested it against vista 64, no comparison. So many great features you have to see to appreciate.
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mmurph

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #23 on: October 25, 2009, 03:31:45 pm »

Quote from: barryfitzgerald
I see Win 7 as being more useful for new pc's, less so for upgraders.

There are many levels and uses of "computers." My Intel SS4200 NAS, for example, runs a Celeron and 512meg of RAM standard. It uses Linux 2.6, which comes loaded on a 512 Meg flash disk to boot, very small footprint.  Rock solid and fast file serving with a Raid 10.  Fantastic machine for what it does - serve up data.

The Pentium D with 4GB of Ram that I loaded with Windows 7 64 is runing **great** as a media machine.  So far I have mostly been watching Netflix within Media Center via Wireless N, with a $35 video card and a $150 HD monitor.  Runs fast, smooth, stable, beautiful.

That is a 4 year old machine. I would think any modern Intel CPU would be more powerful.  4GB of DDR2 is about $40.  So Windows 7, even 64 bit, should run fairly well on a $300 new Dell Vostro or equivilent. Pretty decent match of OS capability and available hardware, finally.  

Ine Intel NAS has gotten me hacking different boxes, loading all the different OS's that I can just to play and learn.  Free VMWare, Linux, Hyper-V server from Microsoft, the 180 day trial of Windows Server 2008, etc.  

I am usually more balanced on my viewpoint on Macs than previously here - just stirring things up a bit I guess.     But my biggest "complaint" about the Mac OS is that it only runs on a really high-end and high-priced box.  So it represents one niche of "computers."

But if you go back 30 years, the Vax 11/780 with .5 MIP ran 30 users on terminals under Unix.  It was pretty similar to what is running on the NAS now, except that the NAS is about 3,000 times as powerful as that mulituser machine! The NAS really is a work of art - and rock solid stable in it's own right.  My previous multi-media machine, a Celeron with 2GB, a $250 box new years ago, ran as my main tv recorder/media server, stuffed full of HDD's, for 4 years without a hiccup and without me touching it, except for an occassional full disk.    

 
VAX-11/780  - .5 MIPS - 1977

Intel Pentium III - 1,354 MIPS - 1999

Intel Core i7 Extreme 965EE - 76,383 MIPS - 2008


Sort of like going back to making platinum prints from an 8x10. It is all good and interesting in it's own right.

Cheers,
Michael
« Last Edit: October 25, 2009, 03:38:23 pm by mmurph »
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barryfitzgerald

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #24 on: October 25, 2009, 07:07:02 pm »

Well you have to remember most home users wouldn't even know what RAM is, let alone take off the side cover to upgrade it!
Honestly, most folks are too scared to, for fear of busting things.

Sure you can beef up a PC with more ram, but my point remains, modern MS OS= Fairly bloated. like I said, thrown more power at it, and problem solved (well at least in part), myself I get more impressed when you can do more with less. I had hoped this talk of an ultra slim downed OS would turn up this time, but it was not meant to be.

I've never really liked the layout and GUI since vista, win 7 is better, but it's not a major overhaul. Maybe I expected too much.
I hope MS will be more radical next time around, but I suspect they learnt a lesson with Vista..don't do too much too soon, it kinda messed up for MS on that one.
« Last Edit: October 25, 2009, 07:08:24 pm by barryfitzgerald »
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Tim Gray

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #25 on: October 26, 2009, 09:44:03 am »

I'll get a new PC next year and will get Win 7 at that time.  

I haven't seen any comments regarding the Epson 4000 drivers and Windows 7 - any experience?

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Brad Proctor

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #26 on: November 08, 2009, 12:11:34 pm »

Quote from: barryfitzgerald
The problem with Windows, is the same as it always was. The registry..

...

Linux avoids this problem, also by not using NTFS, fragmentation isn't an issue either.

I would love to use Linux rather than Windows as I think it is a much better platform.  Everything from file systems to memory management is just done better in Linux. But the main problem of lack of software, particularly from Adobe is what is keeping Linux from being a reasonable solution for photography work.
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Brad Proctor

Phil Indeblanc

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #27 on: November 08, 2009, 06:02:02 pm »

Quote from: Kirk Gittings
BUT aside from cost considerations (PCs being MUCH cheaper) my experience over the years is that macs are a much more stable and reliable platform.


I can understand this approach, if you omit the fact that PC platforms are open to many MFR's, which are usually what goes wrong with PCs when you add or upgrade differnt components... compatibility.
if you are upgrading a MAC or adding something, you have a couple options and that is it, also helped "regulate" this is the OS, being limited to a degree(this was the case unless you ran Win for Mac or now Parallels). These things do make a MAC more stable in a apples to orange analogy. In a sense that is good for the masses. I cant get around the short comings of how my drives and software is structured on the MAC/gui, and that is the heart of the system for me to see where things are.  I use ACDSee3pro as a image organizer/"dam" and goto app for starting and ending a project. (they improved a great deal with this 3 Pro release).  Otherwise as long as I get the work done fast, I could care less what is running it.  Do I like the way the MAC looks, YES!, and thats why I have a G5 that gets used once in a blue moon for layout app, sometimes capture. there are 8 systems,7 PC's. Now 3 with Win7.

 If you know your way around the Windows Explorer, and are comfortable with it, and you can unistall and update a driver or 2, I can't see someone getting the MAC ...perhaps unless you have clients to please, or like to get the "artist" affirmation, because some AD doesnt know anything other then a MAC for design(sad and pitiful really). I have put together 90% of my systems with my chosen components. But many people dont care, and dont want to know...more power to you....get something prebuilt with a warranty...done.

For a studio world, a one system approach gets stretched right out the front desk. You need accounting, crm, you need FTp's to regularly manage , you need Data storage Sas, or SATA port multipliers, you need backup solutions automated for your TB's of off system data, you need  an email machine that is backed up with client lists, #'s, a Print server, an editing station, a concept design station perhaps for prepress, a capture system, calibration, spectro profiler, dual 30" screens, a prepress screen, a 30" screen for captures for 100% size detail focus crop... and things add up.  YOU WILL NEED TO UPGRADE  or buy a new system at somepoint....You might have 3 or 5 +people working, or maybe it is a solo gig, but know that 1 machine cannot do it all correctly....(any platform will start bloating when you have x-GB of emails etc).  and because you dont put all the eggs in one basket as Any and all systems can fail in a HDD(as over the years, that is all thats really ever fialed for me.

 If you are not familiar with a PC and the way it "thinks", get a MAC, and be happy. In all honesty, not wanting to know, is bliss! really!   If you know your way around a PC, yuou should have known that a CLEAN install is going to make all things work better as you installed a # of apps you never use, and with fresh install things will run faster/smoother....regardless if WIn7 could or could not upgrade. Win7 shipped with a sheet of paper warning for users that they will need to install a fresh clean copy. no upgrade from XP.  Even shipped with a compatibilty tool. Then you have 32bit users  switching to 64bit...fresh install.  ......oooh, enough pc/mac talk :-)
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If you buy a camera, you're a photographer...

Slough

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #28 on: November 17, 2009, 12:49:38 pm »

I loathe Vista. Can we be anything but cynical when we see Microsoft bringing out W7 which is really a service pack for Vista, and charging £100 a pop for the standard flavour?

Quote from: Raw shooter
Windows 7 will change everything.  It will be interesting to see how much by October 2010.
I am a big fan of Macs and Linux - as these two platforms created the push for Microsoft. The massive installed Windows base plus the existance of a great OS is all the market needs to dominate everybody - yet again.  
Hers's hoping development of other Operating Systems continue.  We all benefit from real competition.  Microsoft dominating, at over 90% of the market, has never helped the average computer user.

Given the very high price of Macs, I don't see them ever taking off big time. And Linux is too niche: very few mainstreams apps support it. For all that people knock Microsoft, much of their software is better than most alternatives.
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Theresa

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Windows 7 - worth the upgrade?
« Reply #29 on: December 11, 2009, 03:41:23 pm »

quote: "For someone on Vista 64bit, I dont know. I never ran or played with Vista, so for XP users, it is a leap of a difference.
I believe in the aint broke dont fix, but I hardly follow it. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes you wish you hadn't."

I've been using Windows 7 64 bit since spring when the RC free trial started.  I put this computer together and immediately installed Win 7.  Before that I was using OSX.  I had been using XP 64 bit before moving to the iMac but  stayed away from Vista since it was generally not well received and XP was stable as a rock.  Windows 7 is quite a change from XP but I often wonder if the change was necessary.  Migrating back from the Mac was a pain requiring reinstallation of everything even though I had a full backup, but of course Win 7 couldn't read the backup so I had to hunt down everything including data files that were copied from the XP hard drive and the firewire drive from the Mac.  I still have the 20" iMac but no longer use it.  It is several years old and because of the all-in-one form factor couldn't be upgraded except with slow USB drives and took only 3GB of memory.  The PC I put together cost less than a new 20" iMac and has a i7 processor, 6GB of memory and 2 1/2 TB of HD space.  I have yet to experience any need for more speed.  OSX is a superior operating system but the hardware is so closed that it makes the Mac system unappealing to me.  I could not afford a Mac Pro so I went back to Windows and have not regretted it.
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