Why should I upgrade to Win 7 from XP?

techguy

Hi,

Can somebody explain to me why I should upgrade to Windows 7 from XP Pro.

I've been using W7 on my laptop for a month or two and I really like it.

It's fine on my laptop becuase it's only my secondary computer so if something doesn't work thats ok. I can just do it on my desktop (XP x86)

Ever since I put W7 on my laptop i've been meaning to put it on my desktop too. Until this evening I just thought to myself..why?

Why should I upgrade my primary computer to Windows 7 when XP is working perfect for me and is rock solid. If something were to malfunction or not install correctly on my computer I would have a lot more confidence that it would be down to W7 and would have a much higher chance of success on XP.

I think i'll stick to XP for another while.

Am I wrong in my decision?

DarrenMSP

Question.

techguy wrote: »

Can somebody explain to me why I should upgrade to Windows 7 from XP Pro.

Answer.

techguy wrote: »

I've been using W7 on my laptop for a month or two and I really like it.

But to answer your question

techguy wrote: »

Why should I upgrade my primary computer to Windows 7 when XP is working perfect for me and is rock solid. If something were to malfunction or not install correctly on my computer I would have a lot more confidence that it would be down to W7 and would have a much higher chance of success on XP.

I've been using Windows 7 since the Beta. I can't say I've needed to go back to XP once. If you have App's you need, use XP mode. If your only have Home Premium you can try Virtual Box if you have your copy of XP still around.

Windows XP is also nearly 9 years old, less secure than Windows 7, have less features etc...

Windows 7 is faster and programs loads fast, overall I hate having to use XP now and everything I have to do with it feels like getting a like a dinosaur. I miss the features like the new taskbar, previews, Aero Snap etc. Home group is awesome, Bitlocker is class too.

Powershell is pretty bitching if your into that kinda thing too!

Check out 18 cool things Windows 7 does
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/18-cool-things-windows-7-does-that-vista-doesn-t-628892

Why Windows 7 is the best OS
http://www.slate.com/id/2233294/

techguy

Thanks or that..

Basically I was all ready to rock with 7. Then I tried to install HTC Sync for my new Hero on the laptop. It wouldn't work so I just though hey, wait a minute!

I wonder is there a way to convert my exisiting XP install into a Virtual Machine? Now that would be sweet!

_ZeeK_

As far as one can like Windows, XP is my 2nd favourite version after Windows 98 SE.

You'd be compromising hardware performance for some nice flashy graphics. Keep the XP I say!

judas1369

I'm looking at doing this myself in fact. For me a key consideration would be the issue of support. Microsoft have already extended their support shelf life for XP as a lot of people particularly businesses did not migrate to Vista but this won't continue as it won't be in their interest. By support I am referring to such things as Knowledge Base articles and updates and patches to the OS. I'm not sure what time frame is in place for this off the top of my head but if you check their website ,it will probably confirm this.
Besides which it appears to be a significant advance over Vista.

DarrenMSP

_ZeeK_ wrote: »

You'd be compromising hardware performance for some nice flashy graphics.

You can turn the eye candy off.

techguy wrote: »

I wonder is there a way to convert my exisiting XP install into a Virtual Machine? Now that would be sweet!

Its possible, but you need software (well duh!) to do it! Try the following!

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/8054/how-to-turn-a-physical-computer-into-a-virtual-machine-with-disk2vhd/

Let me know how it goes!

Capt'n Midnight

The Americans have a saying 'if it works it's obsolete' their space program has used many different boosters to launch humans into space, there have been long periods when there were no suitable launch vehicles and there will be another one when the shuttle is due for retirement.

The Russians still use a patched 1950's ICBM to send Humans into space.

If XP does everything you want and you are not having problems good Regarding security there are plenty of third party apps out there to protect it and others that replace components that can't be patched ,eg. you could block IE by setting a null proxy except for when you want to download patches, and uninstall depreciated stuff. TBH for a games machine you want it light and clean, but then again you may need the latest direct x.




A key point is that older hardware from when XP was first released would be pushed to run 7 while high-spec hardware from the final days of XP would fly along.



For those using many other OS's the decision to upgrade is far easier, most are free so a no-brainer if your PC is up to it ( latests version of Ubuntu means you need more than 256 MB ram ) and even the latest upgrade for OSX is less than €30.

With windows on the other hand the upgrade cost , espceially if you need to buy more ram etc. can sometimes make it worth considering selling an old laptop , and buying an entry level one of better spec with a preinstalled OS.

Lab_Mouse

Why dont you just dual boot the 2 OS's?Then if you have a problem with win 7 you can always reboot and us xp.

DarrenMSP

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

For those using many other OS's the decision to upgrade is far easier... ...even the latest upgrade for OSX is less than €30.

Sorry to go slightly off topic but this point is slightly misleading.

OSX Snow leopard costs €30 in an upgrade, no argument there, but its only €30 if you have Apple hardware and pardon my French, costs a Sh*tload.

The cheapest mac you can buy is €929 in the Irish Apple store and its spec's are nothing to shout about.

To get the same as my Windows based laptop which I bought for €800 in a Macbook form would cost me €2,149.00 and even at that I have Blu-ray and HDMI which that Mac lacks
My point is of course the upgrade is cheap, they screwed you on the hadware.

Lab_Mouse wrote: »

Why dont you just dual boot the 2 OS's?Then if you have a problem with win 7 you can always reboot and us xp.

Again I don't see the need to dual boot when XPmode or Virtual box can be used. I'm sure that the computer will be able to handle a VM easy.

Lab_Mouse

DarrenMSP wrote: »

Again I don't see the need to dual boot when XPmode or Virtual box can be used. I'm sure that the computer will be able to handle a VM easy.

My bad.Not too familar with win 7 and forgot about xpmode or vm ware

Capt'n Midnight

DarrenMSP wrote: »

My point is of course the upgrade is cheap, they screwed you on the hadware.

agree totally,

otherwise their license would allow you to run on PC's


The whole point was just to show that in the non-windows world upgrading isn't such a big decision financially, and that in some cases it might be better value to swap out the windows machine rather than the software.


As for a VM , windows 7 will run on some pretty low spec machines, so may depend on what you have , dual core / 2GB wouldn't hurt.

DarrenMSP

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The whole point was just to show that in the non-windows world upgrading isn't such a big decision financially, and that in some cases it might be better value to swap out the windows machine rather than the software

Ah I get you now. Indeed it can be cheaper and better in the long run to upgrade the hardware and get Windows included in the price.

forfcksake

Hey all,
I've recently installed windows 7 on an old XP PC I had sitting at home idle . . but for some reason it appears zoomed in . . like the taskbar at the bottom of the screen is huge and the icons on the desktop are huge too, even the browser . . i have checked everything in personalisation and i havent changed anything . . any ideas what i could do? cheers

partyatmygaff

forfcksake wrote: »

Hey all,
I've recently installed windows 7 on an old XP PC I had sitting at home idle . . but for some reason it appears zoomed in . . like the taskbar at the bottom of the screen is huge and the icons on the desktop are huge too, even the browser . . i have checked everything in personalisation and i havent changed anything . . any ideas what i could do? cheers

Increase the screen resolution. Right click on the desktop and it should be there somewhere in the context menu.

forfcksake

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Increase the screen resolution. Right click on the desktop and it should be there somewhere in the context menu.

yeah i thought that was it but when i go to change the resolution it wont let me and its stuck on 640x480

partyatmygaff

forfcksake wrote: »

yeah i thought that was it but when i go to change the resolution it wont let me and its stuck on 640x480

Then you need to install your video drivers.

forfcksake

ok . . how the hell do i do that? bearing in mind i had no problem with the resolution when XP was installed

partyatmygaff

forfcksake wrote: »

ok . . how the hell do i do that? bearing in mind i had no problem with the resolution when XP was installed

Well first things first we need to know what graphics card you've got installed. If you know great then all you need to do is put its name in to google with the word drivers at the end and you're half way there. If not then you're going to have to find out.

1. Open the start menu and type in devmgmt.msc and then hit enter.
2. The Device manager will open up, look for an unknown device with a yellow symbol.
3. Right click on it and try "Update Driver Software".

If that doesn't work then we're going to have to devise a way to find out what graphics card you've got running.

forfcksake

No sign of an unknown device and i havent a clue what graphics card is installed!
cheer for the help by the way!

partyatmygaff

Have you got Teamviewer or something? It'd be so much handier for something like this.

partyatmygaff

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Well first things first we need to know what graphics card you've got installed. If you know great then all you need to do is put its name in to google with the word drivers at the end and you're half way there. If not then you're going to have to find out.

1. Open the start menu and type in devmgmt.msc and then hit enter.
2. The Device manager will open up, look for an unknown device with a yellow symbol.
3. Right click on it and try "Update Driver Software".

If that doesn't work then we're going to have to devise a way to find out what graphics card you've got running.

Video cards don't show up as unknown devices in Windows 7 (and I think Server 2003 for that matter), you need to check the Display adapters category for a "Standard VGA Display Adapter."

forfcksake

ok i found out that the graphics card thats in the pc is a Intel 82865G - pretty old I know, i went to the intel website it just says that it doesnt support windows 7 . . any thoughts?

forfcksake

forfcksake wrote: »

ok i found out that the graphics card thats in the pc is a Intel 82865G - pretty old I know, i went to the intel website it just says that it doesnt support windows 7 . . any thoughts?

That's correct, Windows 7 need a minimum of an Intel 82945. You could try the XP driver but this most likely won't work. I'd say you'll need to upgrade the video card. An 865 would be AGP, if your motherboard has an AGP slot you could upgrade with that, otherwise you're stuck with PCI.

forfcksake

ok cheers for the info! I might look into upgrading over the christmas when i get some time!

partyatmygaff

forfcksake wrote: »

ok i found out that the graphics card thats in the pc is a Intel 82865G - pretty old I know, i went to the intel website it just says that it doesnt support windows 7 . . any thoughts?

I've an idea that may work then in that case. Do the following

1. Reboot in to BIOS. To do this you need to restart your computer and look for something like "Push F2 to enter setup" or "Push ESC to enter BIOS" or something to that effect. Restart the computer with that button held down until you get in to BIOS which is normally a few series of menus.

2. Once in BIOS you need to look for the section related to Video or Integrated Components.

3. Look through each relevant item until you find something along the lines of "Video Memory" or "Shared Memory" or "GPU Memory" or "Shared VRAM". It will be something along the lines of that. If my suspicions are correct the value will be set to 1mb. You need to change it to 8mb.

4. Once you have set the value to 8mb you then push F10 to save and restart.

5. Once in Windows, try and up your resolution.

partyatmygaff

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I've an idea that may work then in that case. Do the following

1. Reboot in to BIOS. To do this you need to restart your computer and look for something like "Push F2 to enter setup" or "Push ESC to enter BIOS" or something to that effect. Restart the computer with that button held down until you get in to BIOS which is normally a few series of menus.

2. Once in BIOS you need to look for the section related to Video or Integrated Components.

3. Look through each relevant item until you find something along the lines of "Video Memory" or "Shared Memory" or "GPU Memory" or "Shared VRAM". It will be something along the lines of that. If my suspicions are correct the value will be set to 1mb. You need to change it to 8mb.

4. Once you have set the value to 8mb you then push F10 to save and restart.

5. Once in Windows, try and up your resolution.

Intel just don't have a driver for the 865 under Windows 7 - it doesn't support Aero. In some cases the XP driver will work but it's not guaranteed.

partyatmygaff

I know they don't have anything past XP drivers for a chipset that old. That's not the point however, the point is that those chipsets (IIRC) normally had a miniscule amount of shared VRAM available. 1MB isn't enough for a Windows 7 desktop at a reasonable resolution. If he can change the shared video memory up to 8MB in the BIOS then he should be able to run at full resolution (Without Aero obviously).

Snap2010

7 has the window snap. Main reason I stayed with it, no joke. That and the new explorer windows

Snap2010

Snap2010 wrote: »

7 has the window snap. Main reason I stayed with it, no joke. That and the new explorer windows

I must be the only one who doesn't like that feature, I turned it off.

Overheal

I like snap, its great on widescreen. usually end up doing it when i want to pull up a page while watching a video.

But by far, the jumplists, the networking improvements, the networking, the networking, the networking, the networking, the networking. XP is archaic when it comes to modern internet and LAN technology. Working with Homegroup is an absolute joy. Adding printers can be done remotely in about 30 seconds.

forfcksake

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I know they don't have anything past XP drivers for a chipset that old. That's not the point however, the point is that those chipsets (IIRC) normally had a miniscule amount of shared VRAM available. 1MB isn't enough for a Windows 7 desktop at a reasonable resolution. If he can change the shared video memory up to 8MB in the BIOS then he should be able to run at full resolution (Without Aero obviously).

you are genius . . it worked!! THANKS!

partyatmygaff

stick-dan

Because I just did, straight from xp running to windows 7 didn't have to install one single driver. Impressed me immensely compared to the hassle of vista and xp. I still think xp is the best, but in time 7 may sway me.

Will_H

Techguy - something to be aware of if you're going W7 way. I tried the beta on my PC (and really liked it BTW!), however, it couldn't detect my SB Audigy 2 sound card nor my Dell A940 printer. And no drivers were available for them . I decided to rollback to XP as didn't fancy buying a new Sound Card & printer....

Will_H

Will_H wrote: »

Techguy - something to be aware of if you're going W7 way. I tried the beta on my PC (and really liked it BTW!), however, it couldn't detect my SB Audigy 2 sound card nor my Dell A940 printer. And no drivers were available for them . I decided to rollback to XP as didn't fancy buying a new Sound Card & printer....

Windows Update has drivers for the Audigy and X-Fi cards.