Thread: Vista, XP & Windows 7

Going off topic in another thread, I was discussing how Vista works fine for me, and that I actually like it.
Apparantly, I'm in the minority, as XP is much faster.
So I've had a gander at Windows 7 due out end of October, and it looks a little too Apple-ey for me


I don't want to go 'backwards' with XP, and to me now it looks far inferior cosmetically.

Think I'll wait for Windows 7.

What's your feedback on it so far China?

Originally Posted by swipezster

I don't want to go 'backwards' with XP, and to me now it looks far inferior cosmetically.

You can get a vista skin for XP, my mate has one

Originally Posted by swipezster

it looks a little too Apple-ey for me

and what's wrong with that?

what's with that bizarre round menu bar thing?

Another reason why I hate vista X(

As swipezster already knows I've just purchased a new usb mixer, the software that comes with it is a bit basic & the sound quality when using it is a bit dodgy! So, I decide to use traktor 3 with it instead. But can only control my master output on the mixer with traktor, nothing else is working (although the sound quality is better). Anway to cut a long story short in order to get my mixer fully functioning with traktor I first need to install two programmes, midi yoke & midi rules. & guess what? midi yoke isn't compatible with bloody vista

Originally Posted by Rogue_D

midi yoke isn't compatible with bloody vista

Let me have a look at that mate

I love Vista as well Swipezster. I beta tested it and bought ultimate on the day of release. I've never had a problem and it runs like a dream on my PC, although I have got a 5.9 score.

Windows 7 is beautiful. Very slick, very easy to use and very fast as well. Check out the features here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

Also, for those interested in trying it, you can still get the release candidate for free and legal from Microsoft to test it out yourself. Details of that are in the link above.

I can't wait for it to come out. I thought Vista was great, this just blows it out of the water.

One other thing. If you pre-order windows 7, you can get premium for only £49.99 and Pro for only £99.99 bargain

Originally Posted by China-Rising

I love Vista as well Swipezster. I beta tested it and bought ultimate on the day of release. I've never had a problem and it runs like a dream on my PC, although I have got a 5.9 score.

Windows 7 is beautiful. Very slick, very easy to use and very fast as well. Check out the features here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

Also, for those interested in trying it, you can still get the release candidate for free and legal from Microsoft to test it out yourself. Details of that are in the link above.

I can't wait for it to come out. I thought Vista was great, this just blows it out of the water.

Excllent post China. Had a look at what I need to do to download the RC, and, although I know how to go through the procedures,

a) I can't be @rsed

b) My laptop isn't the most powerful in the world, and it's score is only 2.0

c) Might be easier for me just to get a decent tower, due to the amount of tunes I've got, plus I need a good system to run all the PC games I've found on the Rapindfind forum (my lappy won't play any of them, it's just so i-) ). Obviously, this means dollar, so I'll have to wait, as I've got other priorites at the moment (like my Cuba hol :ymparty: )

I always hated vista it was too memory hungry for my liking and had lots of compatibliliy problems with it so always stuck to xp even though i have a good spec pc. I now have Windows 7 x64 and have to say it is simply amazing everything just works with it and it runs lightning fast compared to vista on the same machine. Microsoft listned to what ppl had to say and what they disliked about vista so have produced an amazing os, it looks virtualy the same as vista but under the hood its a lot better.

Been using the final release Windows 7 on me laptop for a couple of week and its great ! Its like a mix of vista and xp using the best bits of both.

Originally Posted by steellam

Been using the final release Windows 7 on me laptop for a couple of week and its great ! Its like a mix of vista and xp using the best bits of both.

Yeah I'm still on the RC of 7 but I have both 64bit and 32bit installed and seems to work just fine for everything this computer does. I had to install 32bit version because the tascam us-144 usb soundcard drivers don't work on 64bit even though they say they do ;-(

Well i've installed the official release and put all my software back on (a chore, let me tell you)

I've installed the 64bit version and everything works perfectly. No driver problems, no software crashes, no problems with software not working.

Everything is great and very very fast as well.

Damn good operating system. Having played around with the beta for a while, I was glad to finally get my hands on it.

Originally Posted by China-Rising

Having played around with the beta for a while

Whats the difference between the rest and 7?

I've seen Vista on my Mrs laptop and don't like that too much.

Vista just uses up too much of your memory & CPU. I've had two different laptops now that both came with Vista, & both of them ran so much faster after "down grading" to XP it was un-believable! The only problem was I could never get the bluetooth working again on one of them as there simply wasn't any XP drivers available anywhere! So it's always best to find out if you can get the relevant drivers for all your components before changing your OS. IMO XP is far superior to Vista, & I'm really jubious about switching to 7

Originally Posted by Wigs

Whats the difference between the rest and 7?

I've seen Vista on my Mrs laptop and don't like that too much.

Much fast and easier to use. Loads on nice little features that make working on your PC and pleasure.

It's what Vista (although I loved Vista) should have been.

Originally Posted by Rogue_D

Vista just uses up too much of your memory & CPU. I've had two different laptops now that both came with Vista, & both of them ran so much faster after "down grading" to XP it was un-believable! The only problem was I could never get the bluetooth working again on one of them as there simply wasn't any XP drivers available anywhere! So it's always best to find out if you can get the relevant drivers for all your components before changing your OS. IMO XP is far superior to Vista, & I'm really jubious about switching to 7

I was on XP the other day and I have to say it's so basic it was making me scream. It really does show it's age now. Vista I loved and never had a problem with it. I got it on release day and i've never looked back.

7 is really like an upgrade of Vista but without the bulk. It has some really nice features like snap to which enables you to work on 2 different pages on your screen at once (a godsend believe me) plus loads of other snazzy features but doesn't bog down your PC. You don't need a high spec machine to run it and it's fast, really, really fast.

I'm really loving it.

All I know is at work (Head Office for a larger retailer) we have older PCs with low end specs and they want to change everything over to Windows 7 from XP. Apparently it runs better and is coded more efficiently.
I used a due boot XP system at home until my Hard Drive crashed, Windows XP Black edition which looks just like Vista & Windows XP 64 Bit.
Does anyone use the 64Bit version of Windows 7? This is the version I want to get, only thing that is putting me off is I know from experience the XP 64Bit isn't compatible with alot of software and drivers etc...

I'm now using windows 7 & so far I have to say I'm impressed. As China said it has the best bits of XP & Vista combined & it's what Vista should have been. Unlike Vista it doesn't eat up lots of Ram. I've only got 1 programme that doesn't seem to work - Wavlab which I'm not too fussed about as I prefer Sound Forge for wav editing anyway.

I'm running the 32 bit version though so I'm afraid I can't offer any advice on the 64 bit version. China's probably the man to ask on here...

Had to get another pc the other day as my older one kept crashing, was going really slow & lots of other problems - and since I was in the middle of trying to get an album ready to sell, couldn't have it suddenly not working at all.
So, got a barebones system from Novatech with a 1TB internal drive, dvd writer, 4gig ram & a 620 Athlon Quadcore processor (all for £303).
Plugged in my old soundcard (M-Audio 2496) & PCIE graphics card from the older pc & installed this new Windows 7 (64bit) care of a link on either projectw.org or rapidfind.org.
It did take a while to install - infact I thought it crashed as it just sat there for over 5 mins at one stage doing absolutely nothing, but afterwards it all booted up fine.
Gotta say, so far I'm really liking it
I didn't like vista when I've had to use it (missus laptop), but this is a fair bit better.
So far all my hardware is working fine - even found sound drivers for my soundcard which aren't supposed to exist for Windows 7, so quite chuffed I didn't have to fork out for another soundcard.
Graphics card worked without any external drivers needed.

Haven't installed all my programs yet, but the main music & dvd 'backup' ones all installed fine.
It's also nice & quick - no idea what those speed numbers mean, but it said something like 4.7 - not sure how good that is though....

Only problem I've had so far is trying to get my rapidshare downloadstudio program to work - it installs, but everylink I paste in just downloads a html file of the RS page rather than the link that's on it.

Originally Posted by Rogue_D

I've only got 1 programme that doesn't seem to work - Wavlab which I'm not too fussed about as I prefer Sound Forge for wav editing anyway.

I'm just worried about games, I have loads of older PC games, I know it's meant to be backward compatible but so was XP64 with 32bit windows, in reality it wasn't. I think I will wait until I know somebody who has a copy and have a fiddle with the OS myself.

Cheers for the advice though very much appreciated.

I've just bought a new laptop with windows 7 and ive gotta say i love it, have had no problems with software and it runs brilliantly! Glad i waited till it came out, my old pc was XP which is still going strong. My old housemate had vista and had untold amounts of problems with it and to be honeat i never got on with it myself either. Windows 7 is what vista should of been

Someone asked about the 64bit version of 7? 4mega??

Anyway, it's all i've had on since getting the official version and it runs like a dream. My PC is fast anyway (built it myself) but having 64bit Windows 7 really does make a difference.

I've had no issues with software so far and all my main stuff has 64bit drivers out there. Older programmes I have which don't have the drivers also seem to work without any problems. They are all installed as x86 versions on my C drive.

If you get the retail version, both 32bit and 64bit discs are in the box, so if you do have problems, you can just go back to 32bit

Question on Windows 7 (hopefully China can shed some light):

For some reason I can't save stuff direct or unzip / unrar stuff onto the main root of C: - says I don't have permission.
Any ideas?? I'm logged in as my username rather than anything else, so guessing it's something to do with Admin privileges.

Originally Posted by China-Rising

Someone asked about the 64bit version of 7? 4mega??

Anyway, it's all i've had on since getting the official version and it runs like a dream. My PC is fast anyway (built it myself) but having 64bit Windows 7 really does make a difference.

I've had no issues with software so far and all my main stuff has 64bit drivers out there. Older programmes I have which don't have the drivers also seem to work without any problems. They are all installed as x86 versions on my C drive.

If you get the retail version, both 32bit and 64bit discs are in the box, so if you do have problems, you can just go back to 32bit

Cheers China,

I've already decided not to purchase Windows 7, instead I have convinced the misses she needs it for her laptop, I'm going to pinch her copy and install it.

Thanks for the info.