New Windows 7 Professional I bought

I was unaware that a subjective value judgment based on personal experience could be "wrong". It was my understanding that same were either extant or no, but it is of no great importance. I will take it that you have had similar experience on both bases and have arrived at a differing value judgment.

Allow me to elaborate.

Once upon a time there were only Intel based pc's for personal use and they were all for the office and nothing else. Then other platforms were created - Apples (the very richest of commercial artists liked those because they could output printing in "PostScript" for better output) Atari (games only, but colour) and Amiga (weirdo's and scientists liked those, and they not only did colour, you could add on "cards" to boot your Amiga up as an Apple or a pc with the requisite OS's).

Later, the market thinned out and "pc clones" proliferated such that they swamped the other platforms. Adobe saw the handwriting on the wall and made their software compliant with platforms other than Mac so the artists, writers and their kin began to migrate beyond the Apple. Apple morphed to Macintosh and added a few office software offerings, but they remained the "la - tee - da" of desktop devices. (Mac owners will tell you that they still are)

I agree that now, most software is available in most formats so any machine can be used to do art or office or science to one extent or another. I must point out that now, the "pc clone" is just the "pc", and they are no longer married to Intel. While much of the office stuff is still rolling nicely on these machines, the aftermarket has expanded into the builders arena such that they can do pretty much anything that you want.

While the proprietary patents make the architecture of the competing chips slightly different, I agree that they do pretty much the same job. My personal "feel" however, is that my AMD machines just do a slightly better job with art, music, science and the like while my Intel based machines chug along nicely as office tools and do not do as good with games etc. This is my personal take however, your results may vary.

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As for Intel or AMD being "better".....I have used both cpu's and smoked both cpu,s, neither has proven to be more long lasting or reliable in my experience, though I must admit that this old AMD 64 is still chugging along quite nicely, despite some rough times in the past.

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This is partially why I went with the quad 64 for the new machine, a value judgment based on my personal experience with both types of chip. I like the AMD better than the Intel, personal opinion though.

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I used Win7 Beta & the Release Candidate on both an old system & a new system. I liked Win7 so much that I bought two copies of Ultimate When it became available.

One is installed on my old system (now used by my friend Gloria) & the other is running on the new system I assembled in December of last year.

We are both pleased with how Win7 runs. For us, it has been great at keeping drivers & software up to date. Neither of us have had any lockups, crashes, or other problems. Even the Beta & RC versions ran well on both systems.

So far, neither of us have had compatibility problems with software, although I expect some problems to occur on my 64Bit system when I install some old software.

Both computers are running multiple operating systems using Paragon Partiton Manager & its Boot Manager. The old system runs Win98SE, 32Bit XP Home Edition, & Win7 Ultimate. The new system is running 32Bit & 64Bit XP Pro, XP Home, & Win 7 Ultimate.

With only 1GB of memory the 6-year old system has had no problems running Win7.

BTW: I am running XP Home on my new system because I had almost 100 applications running under it on the old system. It will take a while to get all of them installed to run under Win7.

Acronis has an application called TrueImage, which makes images of partitions. I use it to make backups. It has an Add-on which migrates an OS (complete with installed applications) from one system to another, which is a bit of a tricky problem.

I used the Acronis software to migrate my XP Home from the old to the new system. There were a few problems, but the job was done much easier than in the past, when I did it on my own.

 

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Dino, at Walmart I can get a desktop for $300 with 7 and I bet it is 5 times faster than your 6 year old machine. So what is the point of buying Ultimate for $280, instead of buying a completely new system?

And why would you keep 98SE still around???

 

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Well, I'm still using Windows XP, and I have no desire to upgrade it with Windows 7.

 

I use Acronis for backup, didn't know I could use it to migrate the OS. :blush: I am happy with WIN 7, though I still like XP.

 

I'd just like it noted that I wish to retract my earlier criticisms of Win 7 (well some of them - I'm still not a fan of the hand-holding elements, it won't won't let me bloody set it the way I want it set!): the lock-ups were caused not by Win 7 but impending processor failure - hence my recent (enforced) 4 day absence while I got a new system put together.

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Syzygys: Considering only dollars & cents, a new system would be a reasonable decision.

However, the old system has three hard disks & runs three operating systems. The XP Partition has 100 or more installed applications & Gloria uses a lot of them.

For about a year, she has been switching between Win7 & XP, depending on the applications she wants to run. With a commercial version of Win7, she is going to start installing XP applications to run under Win7.

Buying a new system & getting all the applications running on it would be a lot of work. To allow her to continue as before, I would have to run at least 2 operating systems. I would also have to copy all the data files from the old system, unless I wanted to open the case & move two of the old disks to the new system. This of course voids the warranty.

BTW: I was running Win98 SE on the old computer system because the Boot Manager controlling multiple operating systems would not run in an NTFS partition.

With the aid of Acronis TrueImage, I was able to migrate the Win XP Home partition to my new system. It was a bit tricky & I was not sure it could be done.

On the new system, I am now using Paragon Partition Manager instead of Norton (PowerQuest) Partition Magic & will retire Win98 SE when I get a chance to install the more modern Boot Manager.

 

Stoniphi: To migrate an OS, you need the PlusPack add-on to Acronis TrueImage.

Prior to TrueImage & PlusPack, my success rate with migrations was about 60%.

The only TrueImage migration I tried worked. You must make sure you have matched versions of TrueImage & PlusPack.

 

I'm a die hard XP user, but I am really excited to buy Windows 7 at home. I got it at work a few months ago. Wow, such power compared to XP. The Kernel is nice and separated so I can joyously kill all the threads I want without losing stability. The interface is very nice. I can quickly get to the programs I want and I hardly ever use the start menu. Great product for people on XP. Vista users shouldn't see much of an upgrade.

Oh, and don't forget, you can run VMware like VMLite, so you don't have to leave XP at all. You can have XP and WIndows 7 run at the same time, which was a must for me because we have some XP or older software we support. I love having my XP taskbar stacked on top of the Window 7 taskbar in seamless mode. Very handy.

 

Thanks Dinosaur, I have made a note to check compatibility. I am still loading old programs onto the WIN 7 system, thus far no hitches with anything. It seems more nimble and less intrusive in several areas.

 

Dywyddyr: Your experience is so atypical that I wonder if the cause is related to some BIOS or other hardware-related problem. Maybe there is some device driver which needs to be installed. Did you use the Driver/utilities CD which came with your Motherboard after installing Win7?

I run multiple operating systems & ran Win7 Beta (Jan2009) & then the Release candidate (May 2009) on my old system (assembled in July 2004) along with Win98 SE & Win XP. In November 2009, I built a new system & installed the Release Candidate on it.

My life long friend Gloria started using my old system, although she had been happy with an ancient system. She loved Win7.

When the commerical version of Win7 became available, I bought two copies, one for her system & one for my new system.

Neither of us have had any problems with Win7. The 32Bit version runs great on her 6-year old system & the 64bit version runs great on my new system.

I still use XP on my new system due to having about 100 applications installed. I have not had time to install all of them to run under Win7 & might never install some of the ones I seldom use.

Gloria never uses XP on the old system, having installed all her favorite applications to run under Win7.

So far, neither of us have had or other glitches with Win7. Even the Beta version worked well on my old system.

 

You do have to be ready for strange issues to pop up though. The older system that I put together for my friends worked great. I had it connected to a wireless router that I had set up for them a few years ago. Both wireless and the wired network had been working fine with the old XP computer. But when I hooked up the Win7 machine, it would sometimes time out, and it generally wasn't having a good internet experience. With some searching, I found a firmware update (which was more of a problem than it should have been - it was over Thanksgiving, and the manufacturers links to the firmware download were all broken. I finally found a third party site that had it hosted), installed it, and it then worked correctly. Just goes to show you have to be ready for anything with computers.

 

Repo Man: You are right on the money with the following remark.

They are so complex that their behavior sometimes seems tempermental & capricious rather than deterministic.

 

hehe, then why the hell should we get it? If I don't get it, I don't have to leave XP at all and it costs NOTHING to leave everything as it is.

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The only advantage would be speed increase, but if one is statisfied with the current computing speed, there is no reason to upgrade. Maybe security as well, but again, if one is statisfied with XP's security...

You get my picture.

It is like upgrading to a car from a bicycle but still driving it by manpower. You just have a more expensive and shinier bicycle...on 4 wheels.

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Eventually we will get 7, when we get a newer computer. But for the average user I don't see the need. If one has a very expensive hardware, it might be worthy to do, but otherwise, well, as you said, you don't have to leave XP...

 

I got it because I had a 32/64 bit processor in my PC so I wanted to experience what the 64 bit processor would be like. I had Win XP 32 bit already so it was either get Win XP 64 or but the new Win 7. I choose to upgrade to the Win 7 and am happy I did. XP is still my back up on another HD and is slaved in with Win 7 when I turn on the PC so if I need it, it will be there.

I am wondering though just how long my processor will last since it is now 3 years old but shows no real signs of diminished capacity as yet.

 

CPU will last for a few hundred years with no signs of diminshed capacity. cpu never show signs of diminished capacity though.

 

of course a whole system needs to be 64bit compatible. i am not using windows right now, but there should be a way to see if an application is running in 64bit mode. i am assuming most of the os programs will show they are running in 64bit and most 3rd party apps will still be 32.

 

That's what I thought. It is either 100% or 0%.

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I wonder if under the right circumstances if a CPU can last indefinitely. there are no moving parts and the only way it fails is from heat or if it gets wet or from an impact.

 

Let's get back to the original topic, why an average user (email, picture files and webcruising) care about 7? If everything is working fine with XP, what is the incentive for upgrading? I see none....