Why should I upgrade? xp64 -> 7 pr0

miceormen

miceormen

miceormen

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Hello all

Doubtless somewhere in some thread there is a wise man who has posted a paragraph that will answer my question, but what the hell.

I've been running xp64 since 939. Its been fantastic. Very reliable. No major driver issues. But its time for a change. I dual boot with ubuntu and I have Vista on my laptop.. For want of a better reason, xp just looks dated now.

So if you could give me some more pros, advantages, additions etc of Win7 over XP it would be appreciated. I'll be going for the MS student deal (Professional) so I can also afford a Samsung 2433 before Crimbo : )

Cheers
 
XP Does indeed look dated, but then, since I myself always run teh classic theme, it makes no bloody difference anyway.

The thing is, that XP64 runs everythign that Vista/64 and Win7/64 both do.

Win7 has a really neat XP mode that basically runs XP Apps in a Virtual PC, but to be totally honest with you, the one app that I have that fails to run in XP64 and Vista64, also fails to run on Win7 anyway, so for me, thats a dud arguement anyway.

If XP64 does what you need it to, then upgrading to Win7 will only really be for adding a few inches to your personal ego really.

There has been a lot of horror stories about Vista and a surprising number against Win7 too, but in my experience, they are both failing in the very same areas.

But, as you say you are going to go for the student deal and to be honest, you got to do it.

If you dont like it, go back to XP64, but there is no doubt in my mind that XP64 support will drop off very quickly now and I really dont see any company offering to support it for very much longer at all.

For what its worth, XP64 is still by far the fastest O/S that MicroSoft have done to date, but thats only my opinion based only on my own tests.
 
At £30 you can't say no! Even if you leave it on your shelf [so to speak, its a download :p] for 12 months you know you have a full OS waiting for that next build/project or for when it really is time to say goodbye to XP.

As for comparing speed, Windows 7 is much faster "out the box" than XP ever was. Yes you can make XP faster, but that usually means disabling 2/3rds of the services. Windows 7 is just plain fast with all its features intact.

From my own experiences, my brother's Athlon64 3700 ran dog slow with XP. Put Windows 7 on it and it feels like a brand new computer.
 
Win7 has better security,superior memory handling,longer life span and very good driver support(can also use Vista drivers in most cases),DX11 for gaming,looks miles better too.

That covers the basics.
 
SiriusB said:
From my own experiences, my brother's Athlon64 3700 ran dog slow with XP. Put Windows 7 on it and it feels like a brand new computer.
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That sounds awfully like a shiny shiny argument :p The immediate difference I see as I said is appearance, so you might be waiting even longer for your bro's athlon to boot up Win7 but because its shinier and visually more impressive it will seem 'better'.

I run Windows Blinds for a nice polished theme in xp64, and it still lacks the visual zeal that Windows has pinched from the likes of beryl and osx. This seems to be from current replies at least the only major advantage of an upgrade.

I'm also looking at upgrading to an ssd somewhen - will xp64 support it or is that going to be the justifiable reason for upgrading to 7?

Cheers for the replies thus far guys, appreciated.
 
Elevon said:
Win7 has better security,superior memory handling,longer life span and very good driver support(can also use Vista drivers in most cases),DX11 for gaming,looks miles better too.

That covers the basics.
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What does 'superior memory handling' entail? I'm running a v. nice mobo and stable as you like corsair dhx ram, no troubles with xp64 so far.. Is 'superiority' just another way of saying 'remarkably, despite win7 being more complex than Vista and therefore more prone to ****-ups, it doesnt'?

Also (and I realise the danger of turning this thread into noobs-101), what advantages does dx11 actually bring? I was told way back when longhorn was in beta that DX10 was the next big thing since sliced bread - only to find that 6 months after Vista went on sale, most of the games originally dedicated to the purpose of dx10 ran fine with dx9 - and Crysis certainly doesn't look too shabby on my setup.

I know I'm being picky of the advice given - it is appreciated - but being a student where there are bugger all jobs means I need to spend a little more wisely!
 
Basically it learns what programs you use over time so loads them into memory,Super fetch is on Vista/Win7,it basically learns your habbits ,so your main programs you use are virtually instant load,it can release ram when needed so its efficient in that way too.

7. Super Fetch: This is a new memory management technology, which pre-loads the most frequently used programs into memory, there by speeding up the program loading process. It is an entire new feature, which may not come to highlights on an average system.
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You can see the features Win7 has here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7#Other_features
 
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The windowing system in 7 is improved over Vista and uses less RAM, although on a system with 2GB or more you probably won't notice the difference. You may as well get it for this price if you are going to upgrade at some point in the future anyway.

Having said that, if money is a real issue then just stick with XP. And in regards to SSD support you'll probably have more problems with the firmware than Windows itself. If you're short on cash now is a bad time to buy an SSD.
 
theheyes said:
And in regards to SSD support you'll probably have more problems with the firmware than Windows itself. If you're short on cash now is a bad time to buy an SSD.
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Fair cop. I'll hold off for now. It would be nice to have Windows boot somewhere remotely close to the boot speed of ubuntu though..

Money isn't that bad. Just started to look at the amount spent on nights out and how easily i've whittled away £20 on a uni ****up about 4 months ago. Stopped, let a little mulaa build up and now i should be ok for crimbo - But it would be just as easy to come on ocuk and spend 300-400 on upgrades that don't actually make noticeable differences to my comp's performance.

As for 7, so long as I can continue to use Winamp, Avast and iMedian i'll be happy : )
 
SiriusB said:
As for comparing speed, Windows 7 is much faster "out the box" than XP ever was. Yes you can make XP faster, but that usually means disabling 2/3rds of the services. Windows 7 is just plain fast with all its features intact.
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Not at everything, Opening system32 is almost painful on my Windows 7 install, takes ages for the green status bar to go away and for the files/folders to arrange themselves, where's XP was instant.
 
miceormen said:
Fair cop. I'll hold off for now. It would be nice to have Windows boot somewhere remotely close to the boot speed of ubuntu though..
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I want an SSD as well but there is no way I'm paying the inflated prices at the moment on top of messing around with the firmware updates. I'm gonna wait 6 months.
 
miceormen said:
That sounds awfully like a shiny shiny argument :p The immediate difference I see as I said is appearance, so you might be waiting even longer for your bro's athlon to boot up Win7 but because its shinier and visually more impressive it will seem 'better'.
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I can tell the difference between 5 minute boot and 2 minute boot. I can also tell when applications load when I ask, not when they feel like it!

Besides, my brother's computer was the fourth Windows 7 install I have completed in the last 2 weeks and I have been running Win 7 on my own machine since BETA. The shiny, shiny has kinda worn off :p
 
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