What do u like about Win7 over XP?

[Hungry Man]

There's a CPU performance hit with PAE - it's not an objectively good thing for every situation. Generally the tradeoffs make sense.

But if a machine has 4GB of RAM or more it's very likely it has a 64bit capable CPU in which case it should really be running a 64bit OS.

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by AaLF

How do you get around Win7's landscape resolutions with a relatively squarish XP_ monitor? Can one adjust to say 1024x768 or do u have to upgrade the monitor?

I'm think you're a bit confused. You can use Windows 7 with any monitor just like in XP. The resolutions available depend on what the connected monitor supports.

My friend & I had a big ceremony awhile back. He had picked up a pair of Kingston Hyper DD2 RAM 2x2gb 2nd hand & bargain priced. We gathered at the PC to lay the old 1gb sticks to rest & insert an XPer's dream - 4gb of RAM (or whatever the reduced capacity was). Afterall, word around town was that put 4gb into an XP & it'll be so full of 'VROOOM' you'll have to bolt the tower to the desk. Well, we plugged 'em in and to this day, we're still not sure if anything changed. Miniscule improvements here & there. But nothing to justify the hype. Is 4gb on 64 bit an easily seen & acknowledged improvement in performance??

Unless you were using most of your available RAM before upgrading, then the extra RAM will be of little benefit. For many XP users, just 1 gig of RAM will be plenty. Windows 7 uses more RAM than XP, so having 4 gigs of RAM does make sense for running Windows 7 64 bit.

[SirDrexl]

Originally Posted by AaLF

[list=1][*]How do you get around Win7's landscape resolutions with a relatively squarish XP_ monitor? Can one adjust to say 1024x768 or do u have to upgrade the monitor?

I'm not sure what you mean, but if you're referring to the taskbar being taller, you can make it shorter like in Vista or XP by selecting "use small icons" in the settings. I do that on my netbook, which only has 600 pixels of vertical resolution, and I'd probably do it with 1024x768 as well.

Regarding installation, I like how Windows 7 is easier to install with certain modern disk drives. It will automatically align the partition for a SSD, and it will install in AHCI mode. XP won't align the partition, and for AHCI, you have to press F6 and use a third-party driver, or install it in IDE mode and change it later.

[AaLF]

Maybe it was the monitor. Saw Win7 on a 'non-landscape' size monitor & it looked disdtorted and 1028x768 setting was not a choice. But it was a very quick tour I must admit. From what I could gather seemed liked an improved version of XP. I expected more. But that said, I like it.

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by AaLF

Maybe it was the monitor. Saw Win7 on a 'non-landscape' size monitor & it looked disdtorted and 1028x768 setting was not a choice.

Maybe the correct video driver was not loaded, this would seem to be the cause of that. If everything is working okay, then Windows 7 will identify all the resoultions that the monitor supports.

[pajenn]

The main improvement I notice is the look and feel of it. XP just looks so dated now.

Aero-snap feature is great.

Proper 64-bit support. I need 64-bit to take advantage of the hardware (e.g. 16 GB of RAM), yet 64-bit Windows XP (with SP2) wasn't properly supported, for example, Microsoft Office 2010 doesn't work on it.

[Critter2]

Win 7 is just another "bloatware" pretty face
just more bloat that needs to be striped out
I guess by the time we get to Win 12
it will be a 15,000,000GB program
XP has a lot of bloat too
the best Windows was Win 2000
but that sure not saying much

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by Critter2

Win 7 is just another "bloatware" pretty face
just more bloat that needs to be striped out

I disagree. In my opinion Windows 7 is a huge advancement of XP. I'm not sure what bloat you are talking about. Sure, Win 7 does use more disk space and RAM than XP, both are rediculously cheap these days it's not much of an issue, unless you have an old motherboard which severely limits the amount of RAM you can add.

At least with Windows 7 you don't need a more powerful CPU tu run it than XP.

[Hungry Man]

People have an issue understanding that code isn't free - every feature you add takes up disk space, any new running service takes up RAM. There are more features in Windows 7 therefor there is more disk space used and more RAM used.

Really very very little when you think about it. The minimum requirements for 7 are 1ghz single core CPU and 1GB of RAM. You need a good 128MB of RAM for XP so it's about 900MB of RAM more. 900MB is not a lot of data.

bool: 1 bytes
char: 1 bytes
wchar_t: 2 bytes
short: 2 bytes
int: 4 bytes
long: 4 bytes
float: 4 bytes
double: 8 bytes
long double: 8 bytes

A single program can have thousands of variables, structs, arrays, etc. So no, I don't think it's fair to call it 'bloat'.

[AaLF]

Originally Posted by roger_m

I disagree. In my opinion Windows 7 is a huge advancement of XP. I'm not sure what bloat you are talking about. Sure, Win 7 does use more disk space and RAM than XP, both are rediculously cheap these days it's not much of an issue, unless you have an old motherboard which severely limits the amount of RAM you can add.

At least with Windows 7 you don't need a more powerful CPU tu run it than XP.

I always set aside a cDrive partition for XP. My habit with XP is 50Gb Cdrive. Of course XP with xtras is only 10-15GB.

A question for Win7ers': How much space does Win7 plus extra programs take up & how much elbow room to leave? All will fit comfortably inside 50GB??

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by AaLF

I always set aside a cDrive partition for XP. My habit with XP is 50Gb Cdrive. Of course XP with xtras is only 10-15GB.

A question for Win7ers': How much space does Win7 plus extra programs take up & how much elbow room to leave? All will fit comfortably inside 50GB??

Why only a 50GB C:? Personally I never partition hard drives, I prefer to have everything on C.

[Critter2]

Space on the hard drive has not a thing to do with it as far as I am concerned
nor how much memory you need

It's the useless junk in the system in the first place

All you need is a Micro System to control the computer,
it's just a interface anyhow and then let the consumer decide
what extra's they want to install

My system is Windows XP and the size on the install CD is less than 100MB
this was created by using nlite and a few other tricks and I've lost count on how many tweaks

This also has the side effect of most mareware is stop in it's tracks because
what it is attacking or needs to run has been removed from the system
I will admit this does cause some programs not to be able to run on my system, but not that many and when I find one that won't you can usually find a substituent that will

[culla]

4.7gig xp pro running on 40gig hd all my programs are portable on external 300gig hd

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by Critter2

I will admit this does cause some programs not to be able to run on my system, but not that many and when I find one that won't you can usually find a substituent that will

I don't know why you'd want have a cut down Windows which does not run some software.

[Critter2]

""you can usually find a substituent that will""

SPEED

Security

easy, very usable system

no worrying about updates anymore "to the system that is"

when my friends and family see my system everyone of them
are chopping at the bits to get theirs setup the same way

Some have threw Win 7 to the wind because this system runs circles around it

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by Critter2

""you can usually find a substituent that will""

SPEED

Security

easy, very usable system

no worrying about updates anymore "to the system that is"

when my friends and family see my system everyone of them
are chopping at the bits to get theirs setup the same way

Some have threw Win 7 to the wind because this system runs circles around it

Each to their own. Personally I'd rather sacrafice a bit of speed to increase compatibility. But then again, I'm someone who is never content to leave their system as it is, and am continually installing new software.

[Critter2]

fair enough

[pajenn]

Originally Posted by AaLF

I always set aside a cDrive partition for XP. My habit with XP is 50Gb Cdrive. Of course XP with xtras is only 10-15GB.

A question for Win7ers': How much space does Win7 plus extra programs take up & how much elbow room to leave? All will fit comfortably inside 50GB??

80-120 GB should be fine.

My C: partition is 120 GB of which 40 GB is free. I only use a small page file (1GB pagefile.sys + 2GB for eBoostr), hibernation is off (no hiberfil.sys), and system restore is off (so System Volume Information folder is empty). Microsoft Office takes a lot of space (but I keep MSOCache off C: drive), and I place other large programs, like Adobe Master Collection, as well as videos, documents, downloads, etc. on a separate data partition. My Windows folder itself is about 37 GB.

You can certainly fit windows 7 on a smaller partition, even a 50 GB partition, but over time it balloons and you may be in trouble. Plus I think you should have plenty of free space on the system partition for smooth functioning and defragging if you do that.

[Critter2]

Here's my C: Drive with all programs installed
I keep all my data on USB Drives
My Windows folder is 1.01GB

[pajenn]

Originally Posted by Critter2

Here's my C: Drive with all programs installed
I keep all my data on USB Drives
My Windows folder is 1.01GB

Which windows do you use?

[Critter2]

I use Windows XP

"BUT" this is not a stock release
it has been extensively modified

ALL Windows systems in their stock form are bloatware

[Solarlynx]

Win7 is more stable, safe and beautiful. Though I don't mind working on XP.

[pajenn]

Originally Posted by Critter2

I use Windows XP

"BUT" this is not a stock release
it has been extensively modified

ALL Windows systems in their stock form are bloatware

Win XP is a lot smaller and therefore faster in many ways, but I still prefer Win7 on computers with better hardware (lots of RAM, SSD, quad-core CPU, ...).

I've seen and used "performance edition" or "mini" XP and 7 windows and they are small. I use them on USB sticks for portability or VMs testing, but there's lots of inconvenience involved with the smaller size. For my main system I really need about 40-60 GB for XP or 80-120 GB for Win7. That's what you need if you use Microsoft Office, .Net Frameworks, and all the other normal stuff.