[Archived] Windows 7 Installation

[Paul]

Finished this earlier today and have a couple of tips for people. If you have Sype or iTunes installed they have to be completely removed or the install fails, and you won't find out till the end!!

Secondly it seems W 7 does not delete all files and folders at install, though the instructions suggest otherwise.

[Majiball]

Paul,

Whats it like windows 7? I've never bothered to upgrade to Vista as most say its shocking is it worth upgrading?

Cheers

[brfcshabba]

I have windows 7 and it is a vast improvement over xp. After getting at the cheaper price it has been well worth it.

It takes a bit to get used to if you have previously used xp and not Vista but I would recommend it.

[Majiball]

Nice one Cookiemonster, I'll check it out tomorrow.

Curiously Does it need a lot of memory? I have 4GB.

[brfcshabba]

I have 4gb as well, runs perfectly well. Seems to also speed up my games such as GTA IV.

[Paul]

Paul,

Whats it like windows 7? I've never bothered to upgrade to Vista as most say its shocking is it worth upgrading?

Cheers

My lad bought himself a Sony laptop which came with the upgrade from Vista to W7. From what I saw Vista was terrible. he seems very pleased with W7 so far, I've only seen glimpses of it but it looks fast and to have some good features, may well go for it on my own laptop and the work machines.

[Majiball]

If its quicker then I'm there, I'm going to have to see how it will work on my machine.

Cheers

Lads

[Biddy]

The added quickness is all in the actualy GUI (which is what people wanted out of Vista). They have basically given apps the abilty to access the rendering engine at the same time whereas in Vista all screen updates were queued. There were real world test in PC Pro last month that shows the screen updates are quicker however apps/games/video etc all run at about the same speeds as Vista (it is essentially Vista behind the scenes after all).

Anyway, so far I like it. I have put it on 2 machines and installed 64-bit Home Premimum on both. If you install the official (free)DivX drivers then it adds the ability straight in for Media player and Center to play mkv files (and stream to xbox)linky

Also, I was a bit peeved that after years of using Vista Ultimate I no longer had the ability of using Remote Desktop as Microsoft think home users don't deserve or need it. Well, founf a hack for that as well. Get the Installer from HERE and it gives you not only RDC service but also the option of connecting multiple times so different people can RDC on to different sessions (if you are geeky enough to need that).

Found some flakey things with the 64-bit version like its quite tricky to get a decent 64-bit video player that doesn't crash and actually has 64-bit filters. I am currently using Media Player Classic Home Cinema My link but that has started having issues with a couple of episodes of Heroes that media player with Divx seems to play fine!

Oh, and my last tip, if you install Windows Live messenger then it annoyingly defaults to sitting in the main bar rather than the notification area when closed. You can default it back to the "old" behaviour by locating the icon in the start menu, right clicking and selecting properties. Choose the compatibility tab and tick the run as option and choose Windows Vista.

[Sandiway Blue]

Paul,

Whats it like windows 7? I've never bothered to upgrade to Vista as most say its shocking is it worth upgrading?

Cheers

Avoid vista like the plague,its terrible.I have even considered installing my xp off my desktop onto my lappy as vista is really that bad!

unfortunately when i bought my laptop a couple of months ago,it had vista basic installed which renders it inelligible for free upgrade to windows 7.