Windows 7: My Experience

A PC with these system requirements:

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1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
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1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
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16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
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DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

 

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Huh? What number system would do that? $6.695 is not nearly the same thing as $6,695.00.

 

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Germans.

 

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European.

Our 6.695,00 is your 6,695.00

 

I'm always interested in easily configured desktop firewalls for my more inexperienced users, so I checked out your Sphinx VFC. It appears at install, the application is designed to query the built in Vista Firewall for initial settings. Since the Vista firewall would indeed allow Microsoft Updates to continue unimpeded, Sphinx would inherit these settings as well.

 

I'm not too sure about Sphinx VFC anymore. I used to use ZAP before they got taken over by Checkpoint, and that firewall would work so well blocking everything little thing in sight which is perfect.

I personally don't use Windows Firewall. I prefer to allow a 3rd party firewall to do everything. Thus, as soon as I install Windows, I immediately turn off Windows Firewall, and disable it in Services. Samw with Defender. But I'm not even sure anymore if VFC can work independently with Windows Firewall turned off. I read somewhere that it simply adds controls to Windows Firewall. But I'm not sure about this. I know it blocks outgoing apps, but apparantly not as good as others. If I find another standalone firewall that is compatible with Windows 7, I'd probably replace VFC.

 

I sort of questioned it as well, but I saw the answer to your question in their FAQ, thought I'd share

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Personally, I'm a fan of a hardware firewall...

 

Here's what I found out from the people at Sphinx. The firewall does not rely on Windows Firewall whatsoever. It works as standalone firewall. Thus, if I turn off the Windows Firewall, and disable it in services, Sphinx Firewall will protect me fine. Windows Firewall integration just means that the user might have some control over Sphinx through the Windows Security Center. I personally find it best to shut off all Windows security, and disable it in services including Windows Firewall, Security Center, and Defender.

The free version of Sphinx will block all outgoing attempts, and prompt the user to set the permissions for the application. However, this does not include Windows system attempts. Thus, Windows system applications are never blocked in the free version, and the user will never be prompted when a system application makes an outgoing attempt. This includes Windows Update. This makes me a little paranoid in Windows 7 considering it's an evaluation copy so I have no way of knowing if it's sending usage information out. The paid version of Sphinx, however, can block every outgoing attempt including system attempts.

 

Kinda sorta doesn't exactly line up with their online FAQ, buuut whatever

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it's a Seven thread anyway.

 

Windows XP still the best

 

I have had Windows 7 since Microsoft released it on TechNet. We are Microsoft Partners, so that's how I got the copy. I think it is awesome. I first started using it on a VM and was most impressed at the sheer speed. I installed it on my home machine which is a quad core Q6600 with 4 GB RAM. It is very fast on it.

Most of today, I have been analyzing the firm requirements to upgrading it. This is my next HUGE project...to deploy Windows 7 and also make imaging a reality for the company. It's really exciting!

 

How's Windows 7 with software compatibility?

You know if there's a lot of x64 problems?

 

I like it. It boots up faster than my XP32 installation. Not a completely fair comparison, I have the XP installation on a slightly older WD drive that I bought last fall, Vs the new WD Black drive I bought a couple of weeks ago. But they can't be that different.

There is a minor glitch with my soundcard driver, but that should be resolved soon because the manufacturer announced they were releasing drivers for Win7 by the end of this month. Considering I'm actually using a Vista driver, it's working pretty well.

My trusty Artec scanner (I've had it since 2002) is going to have to be replaced. The only driver package available will not work, even in compatibility mode. It's a $50.00 or so scanner, I guess I can't complain. I should probably just attach it to another computer. Or just boot up to my XP installation when I want to use it since I've left it, and the drive it's on, intact (I just change the hard drive boot order in the CMOS settings).

Outlook Express is gone. You have to download a free package of options, and use Windows Live mail (assuming you don't use something else for your email). For years now I've been changing the store folder for Outlook with new Windows installations. That way all of my old emails are right there, and I can scan through email dating back to 2003 from OE. This new email client refused to change to that store folder since it wasn't empty. I'll now have to go and actually sort through all of that old email and save them properly. A minor issue, but still a bit of a bummer.

I'm now getting full use of my four gigabytes of memory, and I can add more if I want.

My old Adobe Photoshop 6 installed with no problems.

 

I went to Youtube to see the improvements and what not on 7. Sure, it has a nice interface but other than that, it still handles applications and takes me to the internet (which is browser dependent, not OS dependent)

So I don't really see why should I bother until I actually get a new computer with 7 on it....

We have one laptop with Vista and since it is used for browsing and some cardgames, there is no reason to mess with it...

 

The good: I don't have an actual television, but use a television card in my computer. When I bought it, the Newegg reviews said that the card worked well, but the software was junk. My experience confirmed this. The Media Center software (which is also available in XP Media center edition, and Vista) is excellent, and makes the card work far better that when used with the manufacturer's software.

The bad: My year and a half year old ATI X1950 video card doesn't work properly. I cannot get the video settings to where they should be for IL2 Sturmovik 1946. ATI did just release drivers for Windows7, but they didn't include support for such an "old" video card. Without a better driver from the manufacturer, I have to use the default driver provided by MS, which doesn't support all of the card's features. So I'll be buying a new video card soon.

 

I have a laptop that cost the company about $4000. It's 1 year old now. it runs Vista pro and it's soo SOOOOO SOOOOOOOOO fracking SLOW I just can't stand to use it at all hardly. I put a CD in to play some music. It took about 2 minutes to even bring up the software to run. I just want to try Win7 just to get the hell away from Vista.

 

That's sad. I've been getting the impression that Vista has been working well for most with the new updates. I'd sure think a machine that cost that much that recently would have more than enough RAM. Wonder what the problem is?

 

Michael, you might've already tried this, but run msconfig and see if there are any startup programs that don't need to be running. I check it after every software install (almost every one) to see if it made some BS background program to hog resources. McAfee products are particularly bad with this, and run a couple different background scanning, updating, firewalling doohickies that bog the computer to no end. Eventually I just trusted windows firewall and hid my computer behind a router and put a cleaner virus scanner on. Seems to work thus far...

 

Good Lord God. I am really, really good at this stuff, customize the hell out of my PC's with dual boots to Linux and Windows, extensive use of Star Dock stuff with a hot boot to gaming mode, etc. etc. This sounds like a nightmare, and nothing that I read seems an improvement over Vista Ultimate 64...

What, if anything, could be considered an advantage with Windows 7? Please understand, I am not the type of user that would like one more opportunity to tell Windows: Yes, I am sure that I am sure that I am sure that I would like to do what I just told you to do...

Anything at all that counts as a step up? Or just a lot of tweaking and configuring to get back from whence we came?

 

4GB RAM so not massive but enough to open and play a gawd damn cd!
I don't know, maybe when I have some free time I'll try and fix it.