Why should I upgrade to Win7 from XP?

[ricleo2]

I asked this same question about Vista, and the general consensus, at that time, was not to upgrade. I have the hardware for 7 but what would be the advantages? Thanks.

 

[yinan]

Better security out of the box. Aero, new taskbar are the things I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
I asked this same question about Vista, and the general consensus, at that time, was not to upgrade. I have the hardware for 7 but what would be the advantages? Thanks.

I was an XP die-hard as well ... was running XP Pro SP3 until last week when I tried dual-booting the Win7 RC. I liked it so much I ended up reformatting and installing Win7 x64 as my primary OS. It's hard to describe, but it just has an awesome feel to it. The user experience is very smooth, starting with the install which takes <20 min and finds all the drivers for you (pretty much). Aero is cool with the new taskbar. Little things like the ability to resize windows to 1/2 of your widescreen LCD with a flick of your wrist. Oh and did I mention I can actually use all 4Gb of my RAM now.

I suspect it's a YMMV thing ... so I would suggest dual-booting and just see what you think. I wouldn't pass up an opportunity to try it for free. And you can use it for free until March 2010 if you decide you like it.

 

[MBrown]

Originally posted by: yinan
Better security out of the box. Aero, new taskbar are the things I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[nordloewelabs]

i can only see one: eye candy.

however, if you are about to buy a new PC -- and you obviously need an OS to put in it -- go for Win7. if, on the other hand, you're talking about a PC that you already own and is currently running XP, spend your money in something else like a day out with GF (or buddies).... or buy a gadget you need. the way i see it, unless you're running Win98 or WinME, a Windows upgrade is a waste of money.

if you are bored and want to play around with a new OS, take a Linux LiveCD for a spin.
just my 2 cents....


/me happy user of Win2000 and WinXP.

 

[ricleo2]

Thanks for the response. How can I get a legal copy of Win7RC?

 

[Lepard]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
Thanks for the response. How can I get a legal copy of Win7RC?

http://www.microsoft.com/Windo...indows-7/download.aspx

Security and stability are more reasons besides "eye candy".

 

[nordloewelabs]

if you run WinXP as a limited user and enable DEP, you have great security.
mechbgon (a Moderator here) has a great guide on the subject.

stability has been a no issue since Win2000.

 

[Lepard]

Originally posted by: nordloewelabs
if you run WinXP as a limited user and enable DEP, you have great security.
mechbgon (a Moderator here) has a great guide on the subject.

stability has been a no issue since Win2000.

The user mode drivers are unable to crash the OS, unlike kernel mode drivers.

 

[ty1er]

I know that its just fluff/eye candy, but i really enjoy how you can have your desktop auto change backgrounds from a selected group of images.

I have been runing win7rc on my laptop for a little while. So far, I'm really enjoying it. The HD doesnt grind like a mofo - I hated vista for that. Win7 is fast very respondsive, like xp with a pretty interface.

 

[Somniferum]

Originally posted by: ricleo2
Thanks for the response. How can I get a legal copy of Win7RC?

If you want step-by-step instructions in addition to the MS link provided above, try the guide at Maximum PC.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: nordloewelabs
if you run WinXP as a limited user and enable DEP, you have great security.
mechbgon (a Moderator here) has a great guide on the subject.

stability has been a no issue since Win2000.

It's been less of an issue. Vista further expanded on XP by moving even more drivers out of kernel mode and rearchitecting network stack for performance moving forward.

There are a lot of behind the scene's improvements as well, Vista added self healing NTFS (if NTFS corruption is detected, the file system internally corrects it while the system runs greatly reducing the need to reboot and run chkdsk at system startup). Memory priority and io priority are also new to Vista+, etc.