anyone still on XP?

[buchtis]

1. You must be lucky. Either that or you ARE lying. Everybody I speak to outside the forums has found the same difficulties in getting XP 64 bit working with everything. Some stuff works, yeh great, but most things don't. Give the majority of people in the world XP 64 bit to use with their computer they will struggle to get it working fully.

2. You seem to be getting confused. I am NOT saying that XP is a waste of time. I dual boot my 7 x64 installation with the 32 bit version of XP as some things just run better on XP (older programs/games mostly). I AM saying the 64 bit version is a waste of time however. Getting a lot of hardware and software to work with it is needlessly difficult, whilst the 64 bit versions of Vista and 7 just work. They are better supported.

I also think that the 32 bit Vista and 7 are a waste of time, as they lack the 64 bit support and are unnecessary as long as 32 bit XP is around, but that is just opinion I'll admit.

Everybody I speak to...

See that's the problem! Have you ever tried XP 64? You're going by word of mouth and it's the equivalent of me saying Win7 is a piece of ****, nothing works, it's slow etc. etc.. The primary reason i'm still on XP 64 is because the stability of the OS. It never crashes or laggs, everything just works on it.

Example, I have an ATi 5850. Go and take a look at the Graphics Cards section of the OCUK forums, there's no end of threads regarding ATi's 'poor' drivers and driver related crashes. Funny how i'm running the 'least supported' OS according to some people on this forum yet i've still got to experience one crash with ATi drivers on XP 64. When I had my BFG 295 that ran fine as well, both companies release XP 64 bit drivers as clearly I can't be the only person in the world running this amazing OS. Please feel free to check yourself, there's drivers for everything and they are still updated regularly.

The only reason i've not yet upgraded to Win7, though I will sometime in the future is that it doesn't offer any benefits to me apart from DX11. Sure it looks prettier and more modern but does it work as well as the OS i'm running now?

 

[Sleepery]

No 'up' button in explorer. This is a basic piece of functionality which has been inexplicably removed. No, the breadcrumb thing is not better or as intuitive.

I'm sorry, but what? The bar at the top of explorer lets you jump 'up' to any previous folder you've drilled down through. It's a single click to where you want to get back to, rather than hitting an Up icon repeatedly. If an Up button is your idea of better, you're welcome to it :

I've also spent the last 5 minutes zooming in and out of the image viewer in Win 7 and I have no idea what you're on about

In the interests of scientific experimentation I'll look at the same images on XP in work on Monday and see if I can figure out what you mean. But for the moment :

 

[linktoinsanity]

See that's the problem! Have you ever tried XP 64? You're going by word of mouth and it's the equivalent of me saying Win7 is a piece of ****, nothing works, it's slow etc. etc.. The primary reason i'm still on XP 64 is because the stability of the OS. It never crashes or laggs, everything just works on it.

Of course I've ****ing used it. You think I'd be sitting here wasting my time and saying how things didn't work if I hadn't? You honestly believe I go by hearsay when it comes to OSes? I have tried most available Operating Systems and have formed my opinions on what I've used. I used XP64 all the time in one job I had a year or so ago and found those software issues and driver issues, having to install XP 32 bit in dual boot just to get some programs working. I installed it once on my pc while at uni and played around with it and took it straight off. The fact that the majority apear to agree with me (and everyone that I know first hand) pretty much backs me up.

 

[dirtydog]

I've also spent the last 5 minutes zooming in and out of the image viewer in Win 7 and I have no idea what you're on about

In the interests of scientific experimentation I'll look at the same images on XP in work on Monday and see if I can figure out what you mean. But for the moment :

Do that, with the same image, and the difference will be clear.

Here is someone else talking about it, which I just googled.

I've posed this issue on here before with no solutions other than "have you tried this other program x?" when it's not a program-specific problem. There is no answer as to why pictures appear to be poorer quality on Win 7 as compared to XP (comparing the exact same two images), particularly in zooming. When I zoom on my images in Windows 7, it does absolutely no smoothing and provides jagged edges and terrible zoom quality, while XP smooths them.

From my attempts at fixing it, it's not codec issues, it's just Windows 7's way of rendering images with a different rendering engine as compared to XP and I have no clue how to change it.

Good luck in finding the answer on this one, because I sure haven't.

http://www.sevenforums.com/music-pi...ression-quality-windows-7-poorer-than-xp.html

I can give him the answer: Windows 7's picture viewer performs no quality smoothing algorithm whereas XP's picture viewer does.


And

Anybody found a update or a solution to this, still very annoying!
XP was better quality after resizing..

Using the same default windows photo viewer in both XP and Win 7, Win 7 shows a poorer and more pixelated image when zoomed as compared to xp when zoomed at the same level.

Click this link for a detailed photo comparison: http://www.sevenforums.com/743746-post32.html

 

[dirtydog]

Note it isn't just when you zoom, it is whenever Windows resizes the image. So if you view an image which doesn't fit your screen perfectly, and Windows either shrinks or enlarges it, it will look significantly worse to how it would look in Windows XP.

I noticed this as soon as I started using Windows Vista for the first time, I was appalled.

I realise the average person might not notice such things, as the average person maybe can't tell the difference between his cheap onboard sound and a decent sound card

 

[ChrisJSY]

XP 64 is notoriously poor. Good luck finding drivers for anything.

I've not had a problem with XP64, ever.
Actually, except final fantasy XIV.

Every 32bit app I've used works on it as well. :|
I'm not sure why people have had so many problems with it.

 

[Duke]

Windows 7 all the way.

 

[LeJosh]

XP was and still is a great OS.

I much prefer 7 now though. Don't use Aero though.

 

[FoxEye]

As mentioned previously, Windows Vista/W7 insist on regularly playing with the hard drive for no good reason which gets on my nerves. I don't want it to index anything, update anything, 'fix' anything, DO ANYTHING, until I tell it to.

I had that in XP. I never found out what was causing it. Disabled the indexing service and it still happened. The HDD light would blink regularly for hours on end.

This isn't a specific fault of Vista/7; as I sit here right now, there is no HDD activity for me here on 7.

 

[Echo]

The network activity system tray icon has been broken since Vista. I like it, I use it, in every version of Windows up to and including XP, it worked. If you are sending data, one of the little 'screens' in the icon lights up. If you are receiving the other 'screen' lights up. Etc. Broken in Vista and W7. Not important to you and others, fine, but I want it.

This was invaluable information in the dial-up days, but what could you possibly need it for on a router/broadband?

 

[dirtydog]

Microsoft should let me be the judge of what I find useful, what possible reason could they have for deliberately breaking this most basic of features.

Anyway regardless of whether people share or agree with my reasons for not liking Windows 7, those are some of my reasons and they aren't just disliking change or because I haven't given Windows 7 a chance etc. I love change when it's for the better but not when I feel it isn't.

 

[The Asgard]

Microsoft should let me be the judge of what I find useful, what possible reason could they have for deliberately breaking this most basic of features.

Anyway regardless of whether people share or agree with my reasons for not liking Windows 7, those are some of my reasons and they aren't just disliking change or because I haven't given Windows 7 a chance etc. I love change when it's for the better but not when I feel it isn't.

You obviously know best, enjoy.

 

[Paracelsus]

As mentioned previously, Windows Vista/W7 insist on regularly playing with the hard drive for no good reason which gets on my nerves. I don't want it to index anything, update anything, 'fix' anything, DO ANYTHING, until I tell it to.

My number one pet hate!

I would just use a unix OS for the control but I likes my games.

 

[Amnesia]

This was invaluable information in the dial-up days, but what could you possibly need it for on a router/broadband?

you can tell when you're being hacked

 

[Hairybudda]

Microsoft should let me be the judge of what I find useful, what possible reason could they have for deliberately breaking this most basic of features.

Anyway regardless of whether people share or agree with my reasons for not liking Windows 7, those are some of my reasons and they aren't just disliking change or because I haven't given Windows 7 a chance etc. I love change when it's for the better but not when I feel it isn't.

XP64 is a tragedy (the best part being microsofts own zune hardware isn't supported hah). XP was designed from the ground up as a 32 bit OS, hacked in 64 bit support doesn't cut it.


Microsoft writes the OS, they decide whats useful, not you, bitch and moan all you like.

And for the record, the Win7 image viewer zoom is a step in the right direction, why would I zoom into an image and want it filtered?

 

[dirtydog]

I use the OS, I decide what I find useful.

As for image viewing, I would have thought that when you view an image and it is resized to fit into your screen, you would prefer it not to have jagged edges. I expect you use antialiasing to avoid this in games too.

If anyone has Windows XP and wants to see this phenomenon for themselves directly, download Windows Live photo gallery and open an image in that - it behaves the same way as the Vista/W7 viewer - and also open it in the XP image viewer and compare the difference.

 

[dirtydog]

I've just done a comparison, using an image of this lovely lady

The full size image is here:

http://www.nowthatspimpin.com/wp-co...-Awards-London-www.nowthatspimpin.com-004.jpg

 

[boxman2000]

I was under the impression physical support still exists...but updates wont be continuing some time soon?

Well...i know they wont be shipping it out on systems anyway

Some HP business machines still come with XP Pre-installed............. I know as I've just ordered some!

They do come with Win7 64 Pro licences though

I personally always run two machines, my main workhorse (i7) and a torrent/ media-streaming PC. The latter is on XP32 and main machine on W7. Have to admit W7 is very good. Had one issue not long after I installed it and had to do a fresh install, other than that it's very stable and user friendly IMO.

 

[Swifty55]

Loads of things. Here's a few.

Mouse acceleration. In 7 it is markedly different to XP and it is similar to OSX which I hate. In 7 the distance the pointer moves depends how quickly you move the mouse. In Windows XP, it moves depending how FAR you move the mouse. In XP, I can move the pointer from one side of the screen to the other by moving the mouse halfway across my mouse pad. If I do it very slowly, or very quickly, it takes the same distance. In 7 it is completely different and there is no way of making it behave like XP.

The network activity system tray icon has been broken since Vista. I like it, I use it, in every version of Windows up to and including XP, it worked. If you are sending data, one of the little 'screens' in the icon lights up. If you are receiving the other 'screen' lights up. Etc. Broken in Vista and W7. Not important to you and others, fine, but I want it.

The image viewer is broken in Vista and W7. Broken how? When it resizes images or you zoom in, it doesn't resize using a Lanczos style algorithm like Windows XP does, so the image appears more pixellated than using the excellent Windows XP image viewer.

Creative sound cards sound worse in Vista/W7. They also have less functionality, ie. no EAX effects etc. I have a Creative sound card (a very good one) and this is a serious issue.

No 'up' button in explorer. This is a basic piece of functionality which has been inexplicably removed. No, the breadcrumb thing is not better or as intuitive.

As mentioned previously, Windows Vista/W7 insist on regularly playing with the hard drive for no good reason which gets on my nerves. I don't want it to index anything, update anything, 'fix' anything, DO ANYTHING, until I tell it to.

The start menu. I don't want it to scroll, I want it all to appear at once and then I can quickly select what I want. This is intuitive. I don't need to search. I know where stuff is. Modern monitors are large yet Vista/7 insist on squeezing everything into a little start menu in the bottom left corner, and you have to scroll up/down! No, I prefer XP's way of showing everything in one go thanks.

The problem isn't Windows 7! You're the problem.

Each to their own though.

 

[dirtydog]

The problem isn't Windows 7! You're the problem.

Right.