Buy Windows 7 Now!

[CameronBornAndBred]

Vista is very stable, but it is a resource hog, which is the primary benefit to the upgrade. Your computer will perform much better. I don't think there would be much benefit to upgrading from XP, since you would have owned your computer for a few years. XP is not as demanding on resources, and if you upgraded you might actually see a performance drop, unless you increased RAM.

Really? My understanding from other friends in the biz is that XP, by the time you get to Service Pack 3, is a pretty ginormous resource hog, and that it's recommended you have over a Gig of RAM just to run it.

RAM will always help, regardless of the OS, but even with SP3, XP uses less than Vista.
Side note, you have 4 days left to take advantage of the discount if you are going to upgrade.

[bjornolf]

Vista is very stable, but it is a resource hog, which is the primary benefit to the upgrade. Your computer will perform much better. I don't think there would be much benefit to upgrading from XP, since you would have owned your computer for a few years. XP is not as demanding on resources, and if you upgraded you might actually see a performance drop, unless you increased RAM.

Really? My understanding from other friends in the biz is that XP, by the time you get to Service Pack 3, is a pretty ginormous resource hog, and that it's recommended you have over a Gig of RAM just to run it.

RAM will always help, regardless of the OS, but even with SP3, XP uses less than Vista.
Side note, you have 4 days left to take advantage of the discount if you are going to upgrade.

No, I understand that. However, you had said that I might see a downgrade in performance with Windows 7 over XP. I was just saying that I thought that SP3 was a pretty bad resource hog and that maybe Windows 7 would help. Unfortunately, my laptop is getting kind of old and its maximum RAM it'll take is 1 Gig, and I've already upgraded it to that.

[Lavabe]

I'll have to wait for Windows 7. In the meantime, I'll just continue with Vista. Then again, I enjoy having half of my programs "not respond." Vista is giving me worse performance than Windows ME ... and ME was a very bad thing.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I'll have to wait for Windows 7. In the meantime, I'll just continue with Vista. Then again, I enjoy having half of my programs "not respond." Vista is giving me worse performance than Windows ME ... and ME was a very bad thing.

Windows ME was the absolute worst version of Windows ever released, and I bought two different computers with it . I was so glad when I upgraded my previous desktop (the one that finally died back in March or April) from ME to XP. And I had a Sony Vaio laptop that could only have 256 meg of RAM and couldn't be upgraded to XP. That Sony was a huge disappointment for years.

I am very pleased with the Vista I installed on this (new) computer. I have 3 Meg of RAM and a 2.3 GHz processor.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Ordered my copy of professional tonight @ bestbuy.com. It's the last day of the promotion I think.

[YmoBeThere]

I am very pleased with the Vista I installed on this (new) computer. I have 3 Meg of RAM and a 2.3 GHz processor.

I remember the days when 3 Megs was a lot of memory

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I am very pleased with the Vista I installed on this (new) computer. I have 3 Meg of RAM and a 2.3 GHz processor.

I remember the days when 3 Megs was a lot of memory

I remember upgrading a Wang computer from 1 to 2 MB (circa 1993 or 94) and being amazed at the improved performance for "only" $100.

Of course, I meant I now have 3 GB of RAM. Thanks for catching my error.

[YmoBeThere]

Thanks for catching my error.

:lol: That's what we're here for!

[colchar]

The bad thing is the nanny popups when it asks me if I want to do something right after I click on something asking it to do something. I understand the motivation for the popups, but it still drives me nuts.

You can turn those off.

[CameronBornAndBred]

The bad thing is the nanny popups when it asks me if I want to do something right after I click on something asking it to do something. I understand the motivation for the popups, but it still drives me nuts.

You can turn those off.

Yup, turn off user account control in the user's porttion of the control panel.

[YmoBeThere]

BTW, how is it only Windows 7?

I remember 2.0, 3.1, and 3.11 Windows for Workgroups. Then they changed and we got 95,98 and ME(boo). Followed by XP, Vista, and now 7. That would make Vista 6 and XP 5. So are 95, 98 and the forgettable ME 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 respectively? I've obviously left off Service Packs, but then in my mind they are merely .1s, etc.

[CameronBornAndBred]

BTW, how is it only Windows 7?

I remember 2.0, 3.1, and 3.11 Windows for Workgroups. Then they changed and we got 95,98 and ME(boo). Followed by XP, Vista, and now 7. That would make Vista 6 and XP 5. So are 95, 98 and the forgettable ME 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 respectively? I've obviously left off Service Packs, but then in my mind they are merely .1s, etc.

That's a good question. Removing service packs and minor releases, here's what I come up with. They should at least be on 10.
1. Windows
2. Windows 3.1
3. Windows 95
4. WIndows 98
5. WIndows NT
6. Windows ME
7. Windows 2000
8. Windows XP
9. WIndows Vista

[YmoBeThere]

Ahh, I forgot NT.

[craziecat]

I haven't had any stability issues with Vista. And it is very pretty, if you have the power to have the whiz-bang graphical interface stuff. The bad thing is the nanny popups when it asks me if I want to do something right after I click on something asking it to do something. I understand the motivation for the popups, but it still drives me nuts.

Plus they moved everything.

Those popups drive me freaking insane. Other than that, I have had no issues with Vista either.

[DevilAlumna]

BTW, how is it only Windows 7?

I remember 2.0, 3.1, and 3.11 Windows for Workgroups. Then they changed and we got 95,98 and ME(boo). Followed by XP, Vista, and now 7. That would make Vista 6 and XP 5. So are 95, 98 and the forgettable ME 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2 respectively? I've obviously left off Service Packs, but then in my mind they are merely .1s, etc.

That's a good question. Removing service packs and minor releases, here's what I come up with. They should at least be on 10.
1. Windows
2. Windows 3.1
3. Windows 95
4. WIndows 98
5. WIndows NT
6. Windows ME
7. Windows 2000
8. Windows XP
9. WIndows Vista

Yeah, it's pretty questionable, but here's the 'official' line of thinking:

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/window ... why-7.aspx

[colchar]

Here is a question about the Windows 7 upgrade:

I have been told that my year old laptop doesn't qualify me for the upgrade but I am wondering about my desktop. I bought it 2-3 years ago with Vista and everything worked fine until my anti-virus program deleted a couple of critical files (entirely my fault as I didn't check what it was deleting). I tried to repair Vista using the discs provided when I bought the machine but, as everyone knows, those never hold full version of the OS and the repair didn't work. I then installed XP as I have a copy of it but soon decided that I didn't like it as much as I used to as I am much more familiar with Vista now. Since I didn't have a full copy of Vista I took my machine to a computer store and asked them to reinstall Vista. They will have had to do a clean install so, as far as I know, I'll have a brand new copy/version of Vista when I pick it up this week (I'm assuming I will also have an entirely new licence# for it). Since that version of Vista is brand new, will I qualify for the upgrade?

[CameronBornAndBred]

I doubt very much you will have a new license, your computer probably has a COA sticker on the side of it with the license #. That's what the shop will have used to reinstall. (Or at least that's what they should have used.) The free upgrade only comes with new computers, so either way you would not qualify.

[Ben63]

I just found out I get Win7 free from Pitt, I just have to wait an extra month. But a month is nothing for getting it free.

[colchar]

I just found out I get Win7 free from Pitt, I just have to wait an extra month. But a month is nothing for getting it free.

I used to get software free from my undergrad institution but we don't from my PhD school. Shitty.

[colchar]

I doubt very much you will have a new license, your computer probably has a COA sticker on the side of it with the license #. That's what the shop will have used to reinstall. (Or at least that's what they should have used.) The free upgrade only comes with new computers, so either way you would not qualify.

That sucks. I was kind of hoping they would be using a new license which would enable me to get Windows 7 if I wanted to.