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Will Windows 7 Pro work okay on a Netbook?

B

belfert

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 30, 2004
Messages
215
I just bought an Atom based netbook from Newegg. It has Windows XP Home. I might upgrade to Windows 7.

Is there anything special about Windows 7 Starter edition that makes it run better on Netbooks, or is it merely a way for Microsoft to sell a cheaper OS for Netbooks? Will Windows 7 Pro work fine if I choose to go to Windows 7? (I have a legal copy of Windows 7 Pro.)
 
Many of us, myself included, run Windows 7 wonderfully on out Atom netbooks. Wouldn't think of running anything else.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Is there something special about Windows 7 starter edition that makes it take less CPU and memory than Windows 7 Premium or Pro?
 
belfert said:
Is there something special about Windows 7 starter edition that makes it take less CPU and memory than Windows 7 Premium or Pro?
Click to expand...

I believe it has less background services like indexing might be off, etc.
Not sure though but I'd assume there is
 
belfert said:
Is there something special about Windows 7 starter edition that makes it take less CPU and memory than Windows 7 Premium or Pro?
Click to expand...

Cannot run more than 3 different programs/apps concurrently
No Aero Glass theme..you're stuck with Windows Basic...period, no customizing your own theme
You lose fast user switching..only 1x concurrently logged in user at a time
No multi monitor support..usually not an issue for lappy users anyways
You lose some media center stuff and some DVD features
No 64 bit version
 
Every single version of Windows 7 is 100% identical performance wise.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
They are not identical performance-wise. When you shut off a bunch of things, as below, you do see a bit of a difference....
YeOldeStonecat said:
Cannot run more than 3 different programs/apps concurrently
No Aero Glass theme..you're stuck with Windows Basic...period, no customizing your own theme
You lose fast user switching..only 1x concurrently logged in user at a time
No multi monitor support..usually not an issue for lappy users anyways
You lose some media center stuff and some DVD features
No 64 bit version
Click to expand...
The item about multi-monitor support is quite uninformed, however. Many laptop users hook them up to projectors for presentations, so this would be a significant loss.

I am running Win7Ult (eval) on my Dell 10v. It runs fine. I plan on dropping to Win7Pro soon (have a legit copy).
 
Down8 said:
They are not identical performance-wise. When you shut off a bunch of things, as below, you do see a bit of a difference...
Click to expand...
I completely disagree.

OP, you probably only want to run the Basic UI on a laptop anyways because AERO uses the GPU which eats up battery life. Starter is just that, a starter/basic OS that lets you browse the web and run a program or two. There is also very little customization to it. If you don't need to do anything special then there's no reason to upgrade it. Those who do need more know exactly what they have to do to get more.
 
bigdogchris said:
I completely disagree.

OP, you probably only want to run the Basic UI on a laptop anyways because AERO uses the GPU which eats up battery life. Starter is just that, a starter/basic OS that lets you browse the web and run a program or two. There is also very little customization to it. If you don't need to do anything special then there's no reason to upgrade it. Those who do need more know exactly what they have to do to get more.
Click to expand...

My netbook that is on the way comes with Windows XP Home. I don't have a copy of Windows 7 Starter, but I do have a copy of Windows 7 Professional.

I'm leaning towards just leaving Windows XP Home on there since it will do everything I want. I will be using it in a motorhome with an external box to monitor the engine computer in the motorhome. This program will supposedly work fine on an old laptop running even Windows 95,
 
I have noticed no different in battery performance going from win xp home to win7 pro, it may have gone down but i can still hit about 5hr on normal usage (if i tone things down it is supposed to hit 9 hours)
 
Down8 said:
The item about multi-monitor support is quite uninformed, however. Many laptop users hook them up to projectors for presentations, so this would be a significant loss..
Click to expand...

I don't believe I've seen a single netbook in the corporate world, it's usually real laptops like Latitudes and Thinkpads. Often a vendor driver like Presentation Director which does the VGA out options. In addition to this, for doing presentations, you'll be using beefier applications like Office 2K7 stuff that you'd not want to wait for that Atom for a 1/2 hour to launch a slide show while in a room full of people.
 
I don't think the Atom processor is as bad as people make it out to be. It as probably around the same power as many notebooks three or four years ago and they didn't take 1/2 hour to start Powerpoint.

My primary desktop at home is a Pentium 4 3.2Ghz running Windows XP Pro. It does everything I need to do just fine. I thought about upgrading, but realized it would not be money well spent at this time. I don't do any gaming. I mostly do web browsing, some remote access, and Office applications occasionally.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Cannot run more than 3 different programs/apps concurrently
No Aero Glass theme..you're stuck with Windows Basic...period, no customizing your own theme
You lose fast user switching..only 1x concurrently logged in user at a time
No multi monitor support..usually not an issue for lappy users anyways
You lose some media center stuff and some DVD features
No 64 bit version
Click to expand...

Let's correct some stuff here. There's no 3 program limit. That was eliminated/removed due to customer feedback.

There is multimonitor support, however, there is only single-source support. Basically, it means you can clone but not extend your desktop.

Desktop wallpaper and visual style is also non-changeable.
 
Why are we even talking about Starter edition? The OP has Pro and will use Pro. You can't even buy Starter unless you buy it pre-installed, and even then if you are a member of this site you will just end up wiping it.

So again, why even bother discussing it?
 
Tawnos said:
Let's correct some stuff here. There's no 3 program limit. That was eliminated/removed due to customer feedback..
Click to expand...

Good to hear they removed that one..it was the one feature I raised an eyebrow at..like "why do that".
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I don't believe I've seen a single netbook in the corporate world, it's usually real laptops like Latitudes and Thinkpads. Often a vendor driver like Presentation Director which does the VGA out options. In addition to this, for doing presentations, you'll be using beefier applications like Office 2K7 stuff that you'd not want to wait for that Atom for a 1/2 hour to launch a slide show while in a room full of people.
Click to expand...

I have run numerous power point presentations off of my MSI Wind with 1GB of ram and Win7 Ultimate. And yes I am using a fully updated copy of Power Point 2007. It doesn't take nearly a half an hour to open powerpoint, even with 200-300 slides, full of pictures, graphics, and on a couple of them, a beginning and ending video.

And i use the standard driver for on the netbook for the video (the default win7 one) with VGA out to a projector. I have NO problems running those videos full speed. (I do have aero-glass turned off though)
 
I have Dell Inspirion 11z. It is not "netbook" but it is Celeron 1.3ghz CPU and I think even the CPU/RAM card from Dell Mini 10 will swap with it (from no other indication other than they look similar)

I just installed Windows 7 on it today. It runs really well. It seems to actually be a bit quicker than Windows Vista. This machine has 2gb ram that is not upgradable just like the Dell mini 10. It is the reason I returned my Dell mini 10 (besides the fact it was DOA saving me the restock fee) since 1gb of RAM might be OK to run Windows XP but who wants that sort of limitation on a brand new machine?
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I don't believe I've seen a single netbook in the corporate world, it's usually real laptops like Latitudes and Thinkpads. Often a vendor driver like Presentation Director which does the VGA out options. In addition to this, for doing presentations, you'll be using beefier applications like Office 2K7 stuff that you'd not want to wait for that Atom for a 1/2 hour to launch a slide show while in a room full of people.
Click to expand...

Our CEO has an Asus 9.1, also our affiliates manager has one as well, i have one but it is my personal one but i use it for work, and 2 other people in the company want one, they use it every day at work and love the size since they are often out and around.
 
These netbooks are fairly powerful, especially if you put in to context what the average pc user does(web browsing, email). I actually installed an ran Visual Studio 2008, WoW, Photoshop among other things and it seemed to run just fine.
 
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