Thinking about getting Windows 7, suggestions?

[SS_Wehrwolf]

I currently have windows vista 64 bit, well, my just RMA'd computer does, fried the PSU and possibly the motherboard, but its under warranty and whatever is the problem it gets replaced free of charge. What im considering is buying windows 7 from them, and having them install it when they do the wipe and burn in on my RMA'd comp. I need a little information though, and i know this is the community to ask.

1) Is it even worth upgrading from Vista 64 to win 7 64?

2) hows the stability in comparison? Used to have infrequent lock ups on vista 64 in games, maybe couple times a month depending on the game. Big FPS and strategy fan.

3) How are the drivers for win 7 over vista 64?

In essence give me some pro's and cons here, especially if you have vista 64 and win 7 experience. thanks.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

2) hows the stability in comparison? Used to have infrequent lock ups on vista 64 in games, maybe couple times a month depending on the game. Big FPS and strategy fan.

Then there was something wrong with your system. Random lockups generally point to memory issues or some other hardware problem.

How are the drivers for win 7 over vista 64?

Pretty much the same. Vista had poor support for the first year or so but it's been great since then. 7 simply builds on Vista.

In essence give me some pro's and cons here, especially if you have vista 64 and win 7 experience. thanks.

7 has a new taskbar, various minor improvements to things like Media Center, boots/shuts down faster, and does a tad better on synthetic "productivity" benchmarks (essentially, the user interface should be a bit smoother, in reality I can't tell the difference).

When 7 launched my only serious griefs were that they removed the classic start menu and Windows Movie Maker. The classic start menu can now be easily modded back in, but Microsoft's new Live Movie Maker sucks. You can copy over Vista's Movie Maker but you lose the high-def output features. Its a minor thing, but a con nonetheless. I don't care for the new version of Media Player, but that's a personal taste thing.

Is it worth $76+ to upgrade? I suppose, especially if you use Media Center. Right now Vista and 7 are practically identical performance wise, but you can be sure that drivers and software are being designed to run well on 7. A year from now it will be marginally faster than Vista, just like Vista is now marginally faster than XP.

 

[Mithent]

Having recently gone from Vista 64 to 7 64, I'd say (personally):

1. It's certainly not a big upgrade, at least on a machine that's not low-end. There are some improvements which are worth having, but I don't think I'd have paid full price for them (I got it at the discounted preorder prices).

2. My Vista 64 machine wasn't unstable and nor is my system under 7, so no worse at least. There is a slight improvement under 7 in that Vista occasionally lost track of my Bluetooth dongle or my USB headset started crackling, which so far haven't happened (but they might start some time!).

3. The drivers for 7 and Vista are essentially the same, except for video drivers where 7 can use WDDM 1.1 (but still works with Vista's WDDM 1.0). It's the same core OS. Naturally there are more drivers available for 7 at launch than for Vista at launch, because it builds on Vista's driver base.

To me, 7 feels like Vista with relatively minor changes, the version 6.1 that its internal version number implies over Vista's NT 6. But I expect others will disagree.

 

[SS_Wehrwolf]

I pretty much play games, surf the net, download bootlegs, do some shopping, and generally read tech articles and update my ipod. So nothing really worth while wasting my money on here from what your experiences and opinions are thus far. Keep em coming, and thanks for the replies.

 

[polonyc2]

Windows 7 apparently contains much better multithreaded support...the reality is that if you are happy with Vista stick with it...Windows 7 is pretty much the same with a few GUI changes...only real reason to switch to W7 is for the SSD support...if you don't have an SSD then Vista will offer you the same performance (including DX11)

 

[DeaconFrost]

In essence give me some pro's and cons here, especially if you have vista 64 and win 7 experience. thanks.

You've been living under a rock if you have to ask these questions by now. Anyway, to make a long story short...no one will be able to answer these questions but you. You know your budget and needs, so no one else will be able to tell you if the upgrade is worth it or not. Most will just say yes, but still it is something only you should answer. As for stability and compatibility, it is on par or better than Vista...simple research would give you a more detailed answer based on your specific hardware and apps/games.

 

[bigdogchris]

1) Is it even worth upgrading from Vista 64 to win 7 64?

For the features, if you get the OS cheap, yes. Performance wise, no.

2) hows the stability in comparison? Used to have infrequent lock ups on vista 64 in games, maybe couple times a month depending on the game. Big FPS and strategy fan.

Vista is slightly more stable. Some apps still don't run right in 7 but it's not many.

3) How are the drivers for win 7 over vista 64?

About the same. You can use Vista x64 drivers in 7 if you need to.

In essence give me some pro's and cons here, especially if you have vista 64 and win 7 experience. thanks.

I was disappointed with the zero performance increase. Superfetch is a little less aggressive in 7 so applications don't load as fast, at least for me, but the tradeoff is if you have an older HDD it won't thrash the disk nearly as much/often as Vista. The libraries features is really nice.

Overall I got mine for free so it was worth that but I don't know if I would of paid $120 or more for it, at least not until my next built in a year or so.

 

[Stoly]

For the features, if you get the OS cheap, yes. Performance wise, no.

Vista is slightly more stable. Some apps still don't run right in 7 but it's not many.About the same. You can use Vista x64 drivers in 7 if you need to.I was disappointed with the zero performance increase. Superfetch is a little less aggressive in 7 so applications don't load as fast, at least for me, but the tradeoff is if you have an older HDD it won't thrash the disk nearly as much/often as Vista. The libraries features is really nice.

Overall I got mine for free so it was worth that but I don't know if I would of paid $120 or more for it, at least not until my next built in a year or so.

I'll assume you have plenty of ram otherwise you would not be dissapointed.

 

[SS_Wehrwolf]

You've been living under a rock if you have to ask these questions by now. Anyway, to make a long story short...no one will be able to answer these questions but you. You know your budget and needs, so no one else will be able to tell you if the upgrade is worth it or not. Most will just say yes, but still it is something only you should answer. As for stability and compatibility, it is on par or better than Vista...simple research would give you a more detailed answer based on your specific hardware and apps/games.

Its a big rock though. lol OS's never interested me much, but i could read tech articles about it, or listen to pod casts, both of which ive done, but i will always prefer hearing real world opinions of real users, not some trumped up jackass or someone looking to fill airtime. Call me old fashioned, but my rock does have a real door! lol