Windows 7

[Erfolg]

I have bought a new computer with Windows 7. The really good news for me is that it has a spell checker, built in, located on the upper tool bar, if that is what it is called. Checks anything you type in it would appear. It  does  works!

 

Hopefully the grey stripe which I used to get with Windows 98, has gone

 

Erfolg

[Tim Mackey]

Grey stripe gone Erfolg - Yippee

[birdy]

Its supposed to be pretty good (says I who just got a vista computer!). Did you know that XP is 8 years old? I still think of it as new!

[Peter Miller]

Now all they have to do is wait for all the bugs to crawl out so they can fix them. Once they have done that they can introduce Windows 8

 

I still have a reserve with Windows ME. My main one has XP and this has Vista. Gets confusing.

[Myron Beaumont]

What's wrong with Vista ? Had it for a while now. Seems like some don't like it -Why ?

[Erfolg]

The main problem with Vista, is that is the system you now have, what you actually need is to deposit some money with Microsoft. Yes you must have Microsoft 17, yet to get there you need 7!

 

In support of Microsoft, it is very fast in opening up. Also the bugs appear to be fixed by automatic downloads (if authorised).

 

Is it better? does it really matter to most of us.

 

A perennial question I ask, for most aspects of modelling, what is better? can I measure better? do I really need it? will I really benefit? can I afford better?

 

The reason I bought it, is that my computer was over 10 years old, it could not accept current software, The operating system was Windows 98, it also was not supported, by Microsoft. The broadband modem fell over, copper cable could not cope with new router speed.

 

In many ways not much option, but now the keyboard works. On the downside, I can no longer go for coffee, whilst loading etc. Bang it is there.

 

I must say I am pretty impressed though, but I am no techie, just a user, that wants a simple intuitive system that is easy to use. I am not into, if you press five keys simultaneously, whist holding F14 ( the special user defined hidden key) it will tell your fortune, whilst sending a message to Tesco to purchase coffee.

 

Erfolg

 

[Ben Mullins]

I doubt there will be many bugs that need fixing . I've had Windows 7 since last year when the Release Candidate came out and never had a problem with it. On the occasion that I go back and a have a look at Vista there are many things that have been sorted on 7 compared. Also, 7 is a lot faster. I can tell this because the system with Vista on is better but slower (because of vista) where as the system with 7 on is much faster but worse, if you get what I mean!

 

Basically Microsoft have de-cluttered and made a generally nicer OS. Still not as nice as Leopard/Snow Leopard though!

[Bob Cotsford]

Ben, how does it perform on a minimum spec machine - 1.5 GHz Athlon, 1Gb memory, pata discs?

I avoid using XP, let alone Vista, as the behind the scenes resources eat up so much memory, processor and disk access time that the pc crawls along.  I've been using Ubuntu (Linux) and it's sooo much quicker and easier for most things that I rarely start up in Windows now.  The big drawback is the lack of good applications such as simulators, video convertors etc. so I could be tempted back if it really runs quicker on a low-end machine.

[Erfolg]

I do not know how good 7 is. I do know that it has undertaken two remote updates of 5 fixes. To what I have no idea.

 

Anything is better than DOS. Yes it is apparently a lot faster than my previous system. Then again it is a comparison with an Austin 7, with a Lotus 7. There appears to be some similarities, but the reality is very different.

 

Am I happy with the whole system? so far yes.

 

As i keep saying, as long as it works well, does what I want easily, I cannot get excited. A bit like a pencil, it is only a tool to help me do something.

 

Erfolg 

[Delta Whiskey]

I'm stil stcking with XP for now.....

[Ben Mullins]

Bob, you are going to be hard pushed to run any simulator or 'memory' hungry software on the machine that you have spec'd. Linux is a marvellous OS, especially as its free, but as you know, its not really compatible with the wider world. You should be able to run 7 on a machine that has previously run XP, in fact, I found that 7 was faster than XP on the system I am running. However, the system I am running has 1.5 RAM, and a pentium 4 2.8GHz processor overclocked to 3.2GHz.

 If you are confident, and only if you are very confident, you may wish to try overclocking your processor, It may sort your problems. BUT, and this is a very big but, if you overclock too much (and not provide adequate cooling) you WILL blow your computor, meaning you would have to buy a new computor. A little less drastic way of improving your computor might be to buy yourself another Gb of RAM and maybe a new, higher spec graphics card. You could do this without spending more than £30, I did!

 A new Graphics card would off-load some of the processes which are currently being run on the CPU onto the graphics card. A graphics card has its own mini CPU, which I like to call the secondary one. Acctually, the processing power of the graphics card of my Vista system out-specs the CPU!

 Having said all of that, an old system can only get so good. You may wish to think about a completely new system that'll last you a few years.

 

Any more questions and ill be happy to help. Ben.

[birdy]

Whats wrong with vista? It doesn't run half of the flight sims that my windows 98 did.

 

Also I am probably wrong, (having no practical experience), but if it is pre built computer then I thought you couldn't go into the overclocking stuff in bios.

 

Also I am confused abit with graphics cards; if you get one, would it mean that it was handling all the graphics stuff, or would it mean that it handles as much as it can then gives the rest to the processor? Ie. is that graphics copacity of the computer limited by the graphics card?

[Erfolg]

I suspect that Birdy is onto something.

 

Peter, suggested that there could be issues with 7 until debugged by the ordinary public (rather than alpha/beta testers).

 

So far the major issues seem to be that some of my software and the broad band systems have some compatibility issues, with 7. The broad band supplier were able to fix the issues,eventually.

 

I have been told that conceptually, 7, is the applications of Vista type files/applications, reconfigured within a new kernel. The concept is to implement access to core structures by opening windows to applications as requested, rather than all at start up. If this is true, 7 would appear to be an incremental development, drawing on the limitations of past systems, with some incremental improvements. But then again I am no techie.

 

So far 7, does not seem to be the issue, other than it is not totally downwardly compatible, with all applications, so it would seem.

 

If Microsoft have drawn on ideas from Apple, Linux, why not. After all most aspects of live draw on the ideas of others, including the George Stevenson, Whittle, Dyson and Apple. Although all would claim that there ideas are totally unique. I do recognise that IP is a very controversial area in this age.

 

Erfolg

[NigelH]

The 'ordinary public' did do the testing - through the beta and RC1 releases.  All reports suggest heavy downloads of these versions.

 

Not sure what Microsoft would want to draw from Linux

 

[Ben Mullins]

Birdy, maybe if you do a search on google someone might be able to help you get those games working. You can get into bios on any computer, or at least any that I have tried, and that includes laptops from HP. You've just gotta know how .

 If your current graphics card is too underpowered to take on all the graphic related processes then they get off loaded on the CPU. A more powerful graphics crad will take those processes off the CPU and back on the the graphics card, thus leaving your CPU to do its work.

 If you want to see how 'good' your computor is on Vista or 7, go to: Control Panel>System Maintenance>Check your computer's Windows Experience Index base score. There you will find the different parts of your computers performance 'score' and you can see what you need to improve, chances are, its the graphics card letting you down.

 Yup, I'd class myself as the 'ordinary public'. I did the beta testing and acctually found very little wrong. Erfolg, what you have been told means that boot up and the running of your computor is a lot faster than that of Vista. 

[Erfolg]

Nigel

 

I am pretty sure that the majority of users of Alpha and beta etc. versions, will have been computer literate.

 

The real tests for 7 is when my clones/facsimiles purchase the product, computer illiterate, only want the computer to do something, have no interest in clock speeds, parallel processing, believe a byte is something which I take out of my sandwich, and so forth.

 

Do not get me wrong, it seems a good product so far, as someone else suggested, the main issues are possibly current software, relative to 7.

 

A few references are made to Apple products, Snow Leopard? In my opinion Apple product design, is second to none, it has the cutting edge styling of B&O. Why Microsoft supplier products are so lacking in style (by European tastes, in my opinion) I cannot even guess.

 

As to if theses other products are better, I do not really care. All I care about, is can I do what I want to do easily, do not want any special training. As one who learnt FORTRAN, Basic, Pascal, Vis/bas, structured programming etc. all totally irrelevant in this age. It needs to be totally intuitive, help me to achieve my objectives without any training.

 

So far, it seems very friendly, but time will tell!

 

Erfolg