Windows 7: Wow! [Archive]

Met-AL

02-01-2009, 12:03 AM

I finally got around to intalling the Windows 7 beta today. I installed it on my crippled Turion64 2Ghz with 1 GB of RAM laptop. I was quit amazed when I finally booted into Windows 7. People have said it feels faster and snappier, but that is an understatement. I installed it on possibly the worse machine and it runs great, it runs better than Windows XP did. I am sold, on release day, I will be purchasing a copy or two of Windows 7.

Side not about my laptop: This thing is a real POS crap machine. Acer brand. Practically new, hardly ever used it cause it sucked so bad. It has problems with the motherboard and it's USB controller that keeps it from posting when it's warmed up... as in no reboots. You shut it down and wait an hour. Also, no booting an OS that polls the USB ports during boot. That means the only OS I can boot is Vista and Win7. XP and Ubuntu both fail. Also, it will not post with two SIMMS installed, period. It used to post with two SIMMS and Vista with 2GB was bearible, but with the onset of it's motherboard problem, it can only post with one SIMM which leaves me with just 1GB of RAM. Windows 7 runs great with it.

TechieSooner

02-01-2009, 12:32 AM

it runs better than Windows XP did. I am sold, on release day, I will be purchasing a copy or two of Windows 7.

Seriously QFT. I think the majority of folks that have tried that would agree.

It breathes new, modern life into older hardware.

If I could just get my domain scripts and profiles working in Vista, I'd upgrade the whole domain to Windows 7 shortly after launch ;)

This is the most stable Beta product I have ever used.

rkatapt

02-01-2009, 12:41 AM

I installed it on a socket A XP1800, 1gb DDR, and a FX4600 and it runs really sluggish. So I stuck XP back on and it's snappy. I am sure if I had it on my current rig it would blaze.

I run vista on my main rig now and it runs damn fine. Still don't see why people bitch about it.

bigdogchris

02-01-2009, 12:44 AM

crawford60

02-01-2009, 12:45 AM

It runs good on my old Sony laptop.
Pentium M 1.7Ghz with 512MB ram and some weak integrated graphics. Of course, no Aero

Volume

02-01-2009, 12:54 AM

Jon55

02-01-2009, 12:58 AM

Aw God I know right? It's been nothing but awesome to me as well. Granted I'm running it on a beast of a notebook (early '08 MacBook Pro) but still, it's just works so damn well. Put me down for a copy on its release date.

heatlesssun

02-01-2009, 01:00 AM

SmokeRngs

02-01-2009, 01:08 AM

I bet it scales well. I put 7 on my same machine I have Vista on and I can't tell the difference in performance and memory usage is the same. But I've read here how it uses less memory when less is available. There's probably a point around the 1.5-2ghz and 1.5-2GB of memory range where you see less difference between 7/Vista, but anything less than that is completely noticeable.

I'm currently running Win7 64 on the rig in the sig and had Vista64 on it previously. I find Win7 to be much more responsive, quicker, snappier and uses a good bit less RAM for the OS itself.

I've also run Vista on an overclocked X2 with 1 gig of RAM and it didn't perform very well. Helped a friend install Win7 on a P4 3Ghz machine with 1 gig of RAM and it performed great. It's sad when the higher end system didn't perform as well with Vista as the lower end system with Win7.

http://www.hardfolding.com/fhtag.php/mem/207/1/2.png (http://www.hardfolding.com/fh_stats/?pz=102&tnum=33&id=207) http://www.hardfolding.com/w_tag.php/mem/67729/1/2.png (http://www.hardfolding.com/?p=2611&tid=33&id=67729)

Jon55

02-01-2009, 01:10 AM

So what are the specs of your MBP?

First I should clarify "beast" by saying for early 2008 standards on a laptop.

2.53 Ghz Core2Duo (penryn)
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
250GB HDD (5400rpm unfortunately, plan on switching it out to SSD)
Nvidia 8600M GT 512MB
15.4" LED backlit LCD (1440x900)
Leopard 10.5.6 and Windows 7 64-bit (used to be Vista64)

(decided to add it to my sig.)

heatlesssun

02-01-2009, 01:33 AM

First I should clarify "beast" by saying for early 2008 standards on a laptop.

2.53 Ghz Core2Duo (penryn)
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
250GB HDD (5400rpm unfortunately, plan on switching it out to SSD)
Nvidia 8600M GT 512MB
15.4" LED backlit LCD
Leopard 10.5.6 and Windows 7 64-bit (used to be Vista64)

(decided to add it to my sig.)

Not bad specs for a year ago but that's plenty of power to run just about anything well, even a fair amount of games.

MechGeek

02-01-2009, 05:49 AM

I have installed Win7 x64 Beta on 3 machines and been pleased with the performance and scalability of it.

A64 2.0GHz | 1GB DDR | 6800GT
Handles Office and browsing very well. Even plays older Source engine games with some initial swapping. Average idle memory use ~500MB

A64 X2 2.8GHz | 2GB DDR2 | 8800GTS
Runs everything but Crysis Warhead without swapping, but Crysis Warhead swapped on XP. Average idle memory use ~650MB

And it's the only OS on my main rig. (Average idle memory use ~800MB) To put anything else on it would be a downgrade :)

jellyhead

02-01-2009, 11:18 AM

And it's the only OS on my main rig. (Average idle memory use ~800MB) To put anything else on it would be a downgrade :)

And what a sweet rig that is - congrats :)

bigdogchris

02-01-2009, 11:23 AM

I installed my Win7 today and I'm blown away by it. 64-bit FTW. I'm actually not bashing Vista because I didn't have too many gripes about it, but his thing does more in Beta than my copy of Vista ever did, and it does it in an even more streamlined way. My games even perform better.On the system in your sig? That surprises me because I have a very similar setup and did not notice any difference what so ever. Some applications actually didn't run in 7 that do in Vista.

Sovereign

02-01-2009, 11:49 PM

I threw it on my laptop.

1.73GHz Core Duo (not Core2, there were "Core" CPUs out there!)
2GB DDR2-533
Radeon X1300 Mobility
60GB SATA 5.4k
Integrated Sound
1280x800 15.4"

Runs great! "Feels" (very subjectively) faster than Vista too.

Scotch77

02-02-2009, 01:23 AM

no offense but that laptop is pretty modern

heatlesssun

02-02-2009, 01:28 AM

no offense but that laptop is pretty modern

That laptop is around three years old if I've dated the parts correctly, so its not that new but I guess anything with a 2 cores in it is pretty modern.

Jon55

02-02-2009, 04:23 AM

no offense but that laptop is pretty modern

Why would he take offense to that?

JimmiG

02-02-2009, 05:45 AM

Boots quicker than Vista. Other than that it's like Vista SP2 with a new (and very annoying) taskbar.

Michaelius

02-02-2009, 07:03 AM

I'm afraid I don't see any diffrence beetween how fast W7 and Vista x64 works on the rig in signature.

Volume

02-02-2009, 07:34 AM

On the system in your sig? That surprises me because I have a very similar setup and did not notice any difference what so ever. Some applications actually didn't run in 7 that do in Vista.

No problem on this side.

Ziongates

02-02-2009, 10:02 AM

Server 2003 is the ultimate

Met-AL

02-02-2009, 11:04 AM

Boots quicker than Vista. Other than that it's like Vista SP2 with a new (and very annoying) taskbar.

I am liking that task bar.

Vista 64 runs great on my desktop machine, e8400 4GB of RAM, but on my laptop it struggles. Often simple things like opening another tab in IE take 30 seconds. Vista just doesn't seem to be able to cope well with single CPU /1GB of RAM. Win7 on the other hand runs great on it.

FoxhoundOp

02-02-2009, 12:22 PM

Boots quicker than Vista. Other than that it's like Vista SP2 with a new (and very annoying) taskbar.

I don't think it's annoying at all. In fact, I think it's superior to the taskbar in any previous versions of Windows.

Jon55

02-02-2009, 12:28 PM

I don't think it's annoying at all. In fact, I think it's superior to the taskbar in any previous versions of Windows.

It is superior, but some people don't like (positive) change. But that's ok, they can stick with XP/Vista if they want the old taskbar.

donnrfl

02-02-2009, 12:37 PM

heatlesssun

02-02-2009, 12:41 PM

i love this OS, only problem is it wont run my monitor at 100hz
i got so used to it on my 2070sb, 85hz kills me for games, oh well

otherwise no complaints, runs my new system in my sig so smooth, major upgrade coming off my old p4 :)

Sounds like a driver problem.. Did you try Vista drivers assuming that you got the correct refresh rate in them?

brucedeluxe169

02-02-2009, 12:53 PM

I'm afraid I don't see any diffrence beetween how fast W7 and Vista x64 works on the rig in signature.

same here...

once vista gets over it's initial superfetching and hard drive raping, it is very snappy....

just about all i could detect on 7 was that the inital setup for the prefetch, and post-boot loading of the prefetch are both much, much less aggressive....

jonniefive

02-02-2009, 04:24 PM

I just got Win 7, haven't installed it yet. I'm going from XP straight to Win 7, skipping Vista for now, it's good to see that the beta seems to be working so well for so many people. Hopefully I will have a chance to give it a try soon.

Sovereign

02-02-2009, 08:46 PM

Why would he take offense to that?

*fake outrage* How dare you! I totally win the "running Windows 7 on the crappiest hardware contest! */fake outrage*

lol.

brucedeluxe169

02-02-2009, 08:53 PM

*fake outrage* How dare you! I totally win the "running Windows 7 on the crappiest hardware contest! */fake outrage*

lol.

seriously, i wonder who is running 7 on the crappiest computer...

the crappiest i've installed vista on was the original EEE pc, the 900mhz celeron model, with 512mb of ram, and 4gb SSD (vlited to hell) (performance sucked)

edit: crappiest i've put 7 on is a 1.2ghz pentium M with 512mb of ram... performance is in the "meh" range

heatlesssun

02-02-2009, 09:06 PM

seriously, i wonder who is running 7 on the crappiest computer...

the crappiest i've installed vista on was the original EEE pc, the 900mhz celeron model, with 512mb of ram, and 4gb SSD (vlited to hell) (performance sucked)

edit: crappiest i've put 7 on is a 1.2ghz pentium M with 512mb of ram... performance is in the "meh" range

Yeah this got me thinking and I just started a thread. Great minds think alike!:D

andrerocha09

02-02-2009, 09:45 PM

hello. i installed windows 7 beta on my new i7 920 system. it was crap slow, but that may be because i upgraded it over windows vista 64bit!??

heatlesssun

02-02-2009, 09:51 PM

hello. i installed windows 7 beta on my new i7 920 system. it was crap slow, but that may be because i upgraded it over windows vista 64bit!??

That's got to be a bad install because that hardware can run anything. I would definitely recommend a clean install.

andrerocha09

02-02-2009, 10:03 PM

thanks.

Volume

02-02-2009, 10:07 PM

hello. i installed windows 7 beta on my new i7 920 system. it was crap slow, but that may be because i upgraded it over windows vista 64bit!??

I've found that if you have floppy disk support enabled in your BIOS and you don't have a floppy disk installed, the Vista and Windows 7 installers CHUG and go very slowly. I had to research this for a really long time when I first had the problem, but luckily I remembered this for my Windows 7 install. New hardware and everything, still had the same issue until I remembered to turn off anything FDD related in BIOS. Microsoft needs to fix this annoyance.

dnottis

02-02-2009, 10:25 PM

Running W7 on my Dell 5100, 2.4Ghz Intel, 1GB ram, 12GB HD, ATI 7500. Runs great, Vista made it puke.

Also running as only OS on my gaming PC, so much faster and more stable than Vista its crazy. Vista is dead!

Jon55

02-03-2009, 01:48 AM

I've found that if you have floppy disk support enabled in your BIOS and you don't have a floppy disk installed, the Vista and Windows 7 installers CHUG and go very slowly. I had to research this for a really long time when I first had the problem, but luckily I remembered this for my Windows 7 install. New hardware and everything, still had the same issue until I remembered to turn off anything FDD related in BIOS. Microsoft needs to fix this annoyance.

They do, but FDD needs to be removed from anything modern or being made today, whether it's hardware or software.

ShuttleLuv

02-03-2009, 02:19 AM

Floppies are soooo dead. Ridiculous. A 2 gig flash drive is next to nothing.

TheBlueChanell

02-03-2009, 06:12 AM

I installed it on my Girlfriends Dimension 2400 it's got a 2.0ghz Celeron, 1.5gb or RAM and an 845 chipset. I was able to get everything working and it seems to run smoother than XP did.

I installed it on my laptop and It's been great the only gripe I have is that sometimes programs randomly stop responding and I have a to wait a second or two for everything to go back to normal.

I will be installing it on the rig in my signature as soon as I get around to putting it together. :D

It's going to be a great OS, I can't wait to see how it shapes up for the final release. MS is off to a really good start.

The only thing I'd wish is that they would just have Windows 7 and Windows 7 Business. There's no need for Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate and all of the other versions. All it does is confuse the non-tech savvy consumers. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked about the different versions of Vista and which one to get.

jborglund

02-03-2009, 11:28 AM

Here is my gaming rig specs, I run a slim copy of XP Pro at about 530Mb or so installed. (windows folder size)
I dual booted my machine with "7"

Intel Core2Duo E6600(Conroe)2.4Ghz Zalman Cooler
2Gb OCZ DDR2 1066
Asus P5K Deluxe
Zotac Nvidia Geforce 8800GT 512MB Video Card
Zalman 600W Silent PSU
3 500GB HDD's

I was actually suprize by its gaming performance, and will definately upgrade to "7" when released.

Here is what I have to say from another thread:

So, being an IT, and a registered Partner, prior to the public release, we installed "7" on a small Dell Optiplex Gx620, SMFF. It has a single core Intel Penium D 2.8Ghz processor, 1Gb of RAM and Integrated Video. Some of you may bash the OS, but I was actually rather surprised by its performance. For one thing, with Vista's beta, I had absolutely no driver support, wheras "7" I didnt have to put my Dell Driver disc in at all, device manager showed zero bangs. We installed FF 3.0, Flash and MS Office 07 and it performed exceptionally well. In fact, I was suprised by the fact that "7" loaded Word and Excel faster than my workstation pc, sporting a quad core CPU and 4 GB of RAM. Photoshop elements 6 installed flawlessly, and also loads faster than my workstation.

From a developers perspective, I can see where there may be some complaints. However, from an ITs sight, I see it like this:

Vista had a bad reputation long before even Release Candidate 1. There was minimal at best Driver support. The 64 bit version had literally no support at all. Coders had to write their own drivers. So everyone who beta tested Vista had nothing but bad things to say, and once release, word of mouth had spread to the point nobody wanted to upgrade to Vista. I use Vista SP1 now on my workstation, and have little or no problems, though my gaming rig still runs XP pro. I have even heard people say they will never go to Vista, and when you ask them have they ever used it? They reply with "no". Goes to show that word of mouth can destroy something for someone even if they haven't seen or used it.

Granted, Vista is a resource hog. Terrible resource hog. "7" however, I am pleasantly surprised at its performance on such a low power box. My feeling of Vista is that it feels heavy when you use it. Those of you that dont nerd like I do, won't understand that, but it just feels heavy when using it compared to XP. Now "7" has the feel of XP with a Vista like interface. Seems like a 98 to ME feel. Catch the drift:
95=XP, 98=Vista, "7"=98ME

I have enjoyed the "7" experience. I have gamed on it, and it outperformed Vista in every aspect. It is a little on the Video laden side, but that can be changed. I just like the XP feeling with a Vista touch.

MorgothPl

02-05-2009, 05:04 PM

SmokeRngs

02-06-2009, 12:50 AM

Running it, and love it. Starts much faster then my Vista, I really like the new taskbar, and generally feels less sluggish then Vista.

Only problem I have is... sound. Can't force my X-Fi to play 5.1, Daniel_K drivers do not want to install (say that I don't have any creative hardware)... and there is no sound from my onboard codec if I'd want to switch for 5.1 in it. But I hope it's fixed before launch, as I'm going to change from Vista as soon as system hits the shelves.

If you haven't tried it yet, run the driver install program in Vista compatibility mode. There is no guarantee it will work but it seems to have fixed a lot of problems with some Vista drivers that won't install in 7.

tec805

02-12-2009, 08:49 AM

I installed it on my Girlfriends Dimension 2400 it's The only thing I'd wish is that they would just have Windows 7 and Windows 7 Business. There's no need for Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate and all of the other versions. All it does is confuse the non-tech savvy consumers. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked about the different versions of Vista and which one to get.

... the one labeled "XP"! :p

Gott

02-12-2009, 08:58 AM

Windows 7, you'll be saying wow every time.

tec805

02-12-2009, 09:01 AM

Those of you that dont nerd like I do, won't understand that, but it just feels heavy when using it compared to XP. Now "7" has the feel of XP with a Vista like interface. Seems like a 98 to ME feel. Catch the drift:
95=XP, 98=Vista, "7"=98ME

3.1=useable at the time, but DOS 5/6 for gaming
95=Good stuff! Loved it
98=Decent, but with a few issues
98SE=Good stuff again
ME=Why mess with a good thing? Back to 98
XP=Great stuff!
Vista=Why mess with a great thing?
W7=We'll see, but looking good so far

`danny

02-12-2009, 09:59 AM

Windows 7, you'll be saying wow every time.

http://www.dailyhaha.com/_pics/shamwow.jpg

Gott

02-12-2009, 10:52 AM

http://www.dailyhaha.com/_pics/shamwow.jpg
The Germans must have made Windows 7 because you know they always make good stuff.

MorgothPl

02-14-2009, 09:03 AM

Well, it was wow... but something got badly screwed. It downloaded the latest updates, and then everything went straight to hell. Games begun to freezing after 2 minutes of playing, (note: I did not change drivers)

System was freezing that badly, that it required a CMOS clearing to boot up after failure and uninstalling updates did not help.

I tried do all the stuff like changing gfx drivers, forcing cards fans to go on max spin, nada. Uninstalled Win 7, went for my ol'trusted vista 64bit, problems are gone.

Win 7 looks good, but as all betas, it needs some polish and good drivers...

Met-AL

02-14-2009, 11:13 PM

If you are reseting the CMOS to get your PC to boot, you have problems long before an OS even begins to load.

Good Luck with it.

tommyxv

02-14-2009, 11:18 PM

Running it, and love it. Starts much faster then my Vista, I really like the new taskbar, and generally feels less sluggish then Vista.

Only problem I have is... sound. Can't force my X-Fi to play 5.1, Daniel_K drivers do not want to install (say that I don't have any creative hardware)... and there is no sound from my onboard codec if I'd want to switch for 5.1 in it. But I hope it's fixed before launch, as I'm going to change from Vista as soon as system hits the shelves.

If your running Creative, there are beta drivers out. Mine is working.