Question on Windows 7

[MikeD]

Currently, I'm using Windows Vista. I'm told by many, get rid of Vista and get Windows 7.

My question is, if I were to download 7, how hard would it be to install and get going? Or, is this something I should leave to a shop that knows about all this. Would be cheaper to install here at home but, then again, computer "savy" is one thing I'm not.

Thanks for any help in advance.

[seank6]

It's very user friendly. You can do it at home it will find all of your drivers but I do recommend doing a clean install rather than a upgrade of vista that way the bugs of vista won't trail along . Hope it helps!

[Robert]

Sorry Mike, I don't do Windows.






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[Andrei]

Windows 7 has a very straightforward installation menu, and it's so much better than Vista from what I heard. I never used Vista myself; I switched from XP Pro straight to 7 Pro.

[SonSeeker]

Don't know if you've taken the plunge yet Mike, but if not, my suggestion is to simply go for it. I agree with what the others have said, go for the clean install, not the Vista upgrade. 7 is very user friendly, and the install is really easy, you don't need an advanced degree in 'Geek'! And you shouldn't need to take it to someone either, but before doing the install, I'd do a search for Forums on doing the install. Good luck, and after it's up and running, you'll wonder why you waited so long.

[mattfivefour]

My computer geek son in Baton Rouge says exactly the same thing: dump Vista install Windows 7. He keeps telling me to do that. He did it himself as soon as 7 was released and said it is the best Microsoft OS he has ever used.

[MikeD]

Thanks all. I do appreciate your help. Will wait a time but, till I have time, then looks like Windows 7 is what I'll be.

[Phillip B]

Hi Mike: Hope I got here in time to help. I too would highly recommend you to get rid of Vista and install Win7. Also highly recommend to do a clean install, rather than an Upgrade from Vista to Win 7. Basically a clean install starts from scratch, so no old problems are carried over from Vista.

Before you start, you should go to your computer makers home page, and look around for support/download drivers for your particular model computer and download all they have for Win7 drivers: Chipset, Audio, Graphic, NIC/LAN (network), and management engine if applicable. You should also have all the applications(programs) that you use on hand to install after Win 7 install.

Some computers are already set up to boot from a bootable CD if inserted. If yours don't you will need to enter the bios to select "first boot" to be the CD drive. To enter bios keep tapping on (usually the) F2 or delete key at computer startup till the bios opens. You should google around and search how to navigate the bios in advance for this.

BACKUP! all your data to a drive, maybe a USB drive or DVD -->off of the computer. And certainly get all data on drive C copied to Drive D on the computer. --Were going to delete everything on Drive C during the clean install.

OK, were ready. Locate your Win7 serial number and have it handy. Insert Win 7 32 CD (unless you have 4 gig of ram -then install Win 7 64 CD) and restart computer, computer should boot from CD, and load windows setup. Choose language -keyboard (first screen), and choose to "install now" (2nd screen) and on the 3rd screen when confronted with the options Upgrade, and Custom (advanced), choose Custom and follow the prompts, till eventually you have inserted the serial number chose a password or left the choose password boxes blank -(windows will open on boot without asking for a pw).

During setup this way you will run into one problem (especially if you've set bios to boot from CD as 1st priority). -->After Windows restarts the computer the first time, it will try to load windows set up again, because a bootable disk is in the CD drive. So watch and when Windows is ready to restart, eject the CD, and then when Windows thereafter boots from drive C for the first time, re-insert the CD so that Windows can still get needed info from it as it continues the setup. When windows is finished, eject the CD.

Install Drivers: It's best to install the Chipset drivers first, then audio, then graphic, then LAN card drivers. Just put them on your desktop and double click them one at a time and follow the instructions. After these are installed, it's now good to let Windows "auto install drivers" if not found on your computer. To do this I like to hit the Start button (bottom left) and right click "Computer" right side on popup screen. and click "show on desktop" Now go to the desktop and right click the computer icon and choose properties/advanced System Settings/Hardware/Device Installation Settings. I prefer to then choose "Install driver software from Windows Update If....."

OK, go to windows update and get SP1 and all the updates, then install all Applications (programs) you have and like, and all your data.

On a clean install Windows saves the "Old Windows" you previously had in a folder on drive C, named "Old Windows" In a few days when your sure your happy with Win 7, you can delete this folder and reclaim lots of Hard drive space.

Hope this helps, and doesn't scare you off!

[mattfivefour]

Phillip, you appear to be a computer guy. If I may jump in with a question? When I installed Vista 64, I had to do a dual boot configuration since many of my 32-bit programs would not run in a 64-bit OS. Has that issue been resolved with Win7? In other words, can I run 32-bit apps in Win7-64? Or would I still need a dual boot config?

Thanks,

Matt

[Phillip B]

Phillip, you appear to be a computer guy. If I may jump in with a question? When I installed Vista 64, I had to do a dual boot configuration since many of my 32-bit programs would not run in a 64-bit OS. Has that issue been resolved with Win7? In other words, can I run 32-bit apps in Win7-64? Or would I still need a dual boot config?

Thanks,

Matt

Matt: "Under Windows 7 / Vista 64, 32-bit applications run on top of an emulation of a 32 bit operating system that is called Windows on Windows 64, or WOW64 for short. WOW64 intercepts all operating system calls made by a 32 bit application".

I find that all the 32 bit applications I've ever tried have worked just fine. The only exceptions being a few AntiVirus type programs that require the 64 bit version. I even have an old 16bit game that works.

I'm curious what programs did not work for you?

[YeuEmMaiMai]

If you are using vista home premium, there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to pay to upgrade to Windows 7. I have both OS and from a day to day use point of view there is hardly any difference outside of UAC. in Vista UAC is a little overbearing and in 7 not so much. If you are a corporate user running Vista Professional, there are some very compelling reasons to upgrade to Win 7 pro if you are running sever 2008 release 2

I did the comparison on a dell vostro 1400

1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo
4GB ram
Nvidia GS-M 128MB video
WDC 7200 RPM 500GB HDD
Wireless G
Bluetooth

and found that

overall ram usage was 1.7GB for Vista vs 1..4GB for Win 7 result on a 4GB machine? imperceptable
Applications ran the same
Yahoo Messenger
Power DVD
MS Office Ultimate
Plants vs Zombies
IE Explorer 7 and 8
DVD Fab

Never had an issue with any of my hardware that was attached including

HP 1006 personal printer
Creative Web Cam Ultra (the ORIGINAL one)
2X Firewire ports (one via Texas Instruments OCHI controller)
2x IOMEGA icy docs drives

Boot time as about 4 seconds faster with the Windows 7 machine

The change from Windows 2000 to XP was far more noticable than the change from Vista to 7. MS just for the most part fixed all of the quirks with vista with 7 and to some extent retroactively applied them to vista for the home versions.

btw 16bit code will not run on x64 os so your application is actually a 32bit one or your OS is. A lot of older 32bit programs use a 16bit installer and therefore will not install on a 64bit os. If you really need the application to run you can install it onto a virtual machine and then copy it over to your \program files(x86) folder from your virtual machine.

16bit DOS applications will most likely run on your x64 installation via DOSbox