Windows 7, Should We Bother?

[pdilley]

I hear Fat ******* slathering on in that thick fake Scottish accent about that new 27" iMac Apple released for nearly $600+ cheaper being just so "Dead Sexy!"


I know it it made the offices at work in the IT section full of buzz and drool and some just want to buy it just to get that new mouse with no buttons but fully touch sensitive all over with all sorts of click and slide possibilities.

I was tempted, but must refrain, have a Macbook Pro already and its supposed to last me at least 5 years before I get another!

That or I'll just go over to PeteOz77s house

On the same machine hardware that is 2 seconds to launch applications, runs hotter, and hard disk audible having a decent workout under Windows 7 even with 4 Gigs of RAM and 7200RPM hard drive, booted under OS X the time from Spotlight search typing saf... no need to finish typing brings up safari on the search list and in under a second of hitting Enter key i'm on the web up and running under cool laptop and no noise. Windows is only around now just for any new game, but those are getting harder to find then hens teeth now that they have pretty much all moved to game hardware consoles and I'm not likely to get one of those anytime soon.

I still will never do online banking under Windows, and extremely with emphasis recommend using an Ubuntu LIVE CD you download for free from http://www.ubuntu.com/ to boot your Windows PC to do banking and then when you power down, nothing is saved to hard disk and nothing can write to CDROM so you are fully protected from any Windows malware trying to steal bank account details. If you have a Mac then I still feel safe just using the Safari web browser. I do no financial online transactions under Windows of any version.

EDIT: If you wait a week or two the new version of the free Ubuntu LIVE CD should be out.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[hefevice]

Welcome to "The Dark Side"

I have 5 machines in my house running OSX. Wouldn't have it any other way!

+100

Although I only have 2. And before that I would have recommended Ubuntu, but now there's no going back!

 

[Jazman]

more looking forward to the end of October release of ubuntu karmic koala than win 7 since i tried vista it only sent more to ubuntu i only use win for games and the things i cant do in ubuntu

 

[mwd]

You can get a Win7 skin for Ubuntu.

Not really worth buying Windows 7 at the prices they are charging when you buy a new computer at half the price of your old one it will come with Win 7 anyway.

 

[komodo]

Hackintosh!

I wont buy a mac purely because of the $ factor.
Having said that I've been pricing up retail packages of M$ software lately (looking to upgrade the office) GESH no wonder I've always bought OEM software is all i can say!

I'm running win 7 and xp in dual boot on this PC and win 7 IS faster to boot. I'm struggling with the menus - but dad whos using vista loves it. Loading SOME apps is slower than XP but I'm finding over all the more I get used to it Win7 is very quick and responsive.

 

[OzMick]

Another very happy Linux user here. Rather than spending a whole bunch of money and being thrown into an unfamiliar environment where you have to learn everything over again, grab a copy of Ubuntu and at least save yourself a lot of money (though you'll still have to learn a little, consider it investing in yourself, you'll probably find yourself knowing Windows better as a result too). Unlike Windows, you can also try it out before installing to your hard drive, and if you don't like it you haven't lost anything.

Also VERY handy for recovering data if (when?) Windows decides to crash, so knowing your way around Linux can be really useful even if you don't use it every day. That was my introduction to Linux, and haven't looked back since.

As has been mentioned, a new release of Ubuntu (9.10) is due out in around a week.

 

[Franko]

Hackintosh!

I wont buy a mac purely because of the $ factor.
Having said that I've been pricing up retail packages of M$ software lately (looking to upgrade the office) GESH no wonder I've always bought OEM software is all i can say!

I'm running win 7 and xp in dual boot on this PC and win 7 IS faster to boot. I'm struggling with the menus - but dad whos using vista loves it. Loading SOME apps is slower than XP but I'm finding over all the more I get used to it Win7 is very quick and responsive.

Once you go to Mac you wont go back.

I have 5 macs and 2 PC's

Franko

 

[Airgead]

Ubuntu Karmic is coming out next week...

 

[Cocko]

:icon_offtopic:

This is a promo they are running in Japan for Windows 7 - Its goes for 7 days and cost 777 yen!

View attachment 32231






I refuse to enter in to any Mac v PC argument - Macs win.

 

[komodo]

Hey I have no doubt that macs are superiour machines in many aspects. But theres nothing a Mac can do that a PC cant and a PC does it so much cheaper and until recently was miles ahead in terms of support from both hardware and software manufacturers it wasnt funny. since they switched to intel chips and became so much more widely accepted as a home PC not just a PC for graphic artists support from hardware and software suppliers has increased phenominally.

But at the end of the day I can build a windows based (including OEM M$ OS and M$ office suite) PC with a 24" screen 2 gig of ram and decent graphics card for about $1300.

Put $1300 towards a mac and you dont get a great deal. Unfortunately thats the reality.

Mac have really clawed back and you can't say they havent got the portable music player industry by the short and curlies - and sure some of it is marketing hype - but at the end of the day the iPod and iPhone just work! and work BLOODY WELL! What ever happened to M$ answer to the iPod any way? The iMac was really the start of the wave and the wave has just built and built bigger and better.

Its a bit like a HSV Vs M5. Sure the M5 is more prestegious and more refined and way less brash. But the HSV will bring just as big of a smile to the average punters face for a lot less $ and the average Joes garage wont be too phased about popping the hood to have a look at the bent 8 where as the BMW badge scares some mechanics just to look under there.

 

[OzMick]

I refuse to enter in to any Mac v PC argument - Macs win.

That whole Apple campaign is just dumb. A Mac is a PC. You just have to pay more for the privelige of convincing yourself otherwise.

 

[pdilley]

PC Advisor in the UK published a few Microsoft behind the scene photos, one from a Steve Balmer (Microsoft's current CEO) presentation to business /graduates, the other a new Windows 7 Guide.



The cover of Microsoft's "Final Win7 Product Guide" shows a man sitting on his couch apparently using the new Windows 7 operating system on his laptop. His son - we presume this is his son and not a random child jumping on his head - is also excited by the new OS, so much so that he risks breaking his father's neck.

But canny-eyed Andrew Harrison, Reviews Editor of PC Advisor, noticed that the laptop in question appears to be not a recent PC portable but an old Apple PowerBook G4 Titanium - itself incapable of running Windows 7.

"I'm discounting Connextix/Microsoft VirtualPC as a solution, as it'd be too glacially slow to run any post-XP Microsoft OS," says Harrison, who once owned a couple of models of the Titanium PowerBook and is therefore intimately aware of what the back of one looks like - even with the metal port-defending flap raised.

See the suspicious picture below:



To make matters worse Microsoft appears to have tried to disguise the Mac laptop by crudely Photoshopping a Windows logo over the prominent Apple logo that was part of the PowerBook's lid design.

The Apple PowerBook G4 in question was current from 2001 until 2003. The first Mac laptop with an Intel CPU that could theoretically run Windows 7 was the 15in MacBook Pro from February 2006.

So either the man with the child on his head was using Windows 7 way ahead of time (in which case why, for heaven's sake, didn't he stop Microsoft releasing Windows Vista?) or he loves his PowerBook so much that he hasn't upgraded in around seven years.



Always a in good jest laugh.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[mwd]

:icon_offtopic: There is the Hackintosh cheap hardware and Apple software.

What all this has to do with Microsoft Windows 7 is anybody's guess.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Isnt it strange that a free OS performs better than the ones you pay $$$$ for

And as for the hardware compatability factor....its a bit like saying megaswill is the best beer going and anything else has no flavour

 

[Moray]

I've been running win 7 at home for a couple on months.

I really like it, much faster than vista.
it is all MS promised with vista, but failed to deliver.

I have upgrade my 5 year old althon 64 to win 7, checked in a tv tuner card.
and run media center. I can drive it all from my xbox360 using as a media center extender.

TV guide, hd pvr, movies, music, photos, etc.

from my experience it really does just work.

the inbuilt search is good. no longer do you have to browse the menu's trying to find your programs or settings, just hit the windows key and start typing.
It will quickly find what you want.

also aero has some nice features, windows peek, windows shake, etc.

if you want cheap legit versions of MS software have a look at the technet direct subscribtions.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/subscri...s/bb892756.aspx

full price $512, but you get 10 full copies of every flavour of office and windows.
from memory the 25% discount code for october is TNWIN7RTM

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

$512...HOLY SH!T...


Gimme my free Linux and all its features..

Why has M$ taken sooo looong to have some of the same desktop graphics features Jeez..wobbly windows , preview, cube has been a linux feature for years..

Anyway...I will never support the M$ machine

 

[WarmBeer]

All-grain brewing vs. Kit n Kilo
- Cheaper
- Greater level of control
- Higher quality end product
- Personally more satisfying
- More difficult to learn
- More time consuming

Linux vs. Windows
- Cheaper
- Greater level of control
- Higher quality end product
- Personally more satisfying
- More difficult to learn
- More time consuming

 

[MVZOOM]

We're actually running a media box on Windows 7 at the moment, using MediaPortal software, it runs pretty well!

Wow - was thinking today to do exactly that. My media ctr runs MediaPortal on XP, but I have an MSDN subscription and would think about chaning to 7.0 for the streaming / LAN / WAN / Sharing stuff.

I've been running a Win7 release candidate (ie... beta) as a production PC via VMWare wkstation 6.5 for a while now. It has a couple of quirks, but it's bloody quick and it's searching / indexing is awesome. I never used Vista, however I've only given this VM 1Gb RAM and 1 core of CPU on my notebook - and it's fast enough.

Upgrading is like saying, well - my BA Falcon is fine, why change to the next model? It gets me there and has aircon et al, but the new Falcon has more (nice) bells and whistles. Required - no, good - yes!

Cheers - Mike

 

[bum]

All-grain brewing vs. Kit n Kilo
- Cheaper
- Greater level of control
- Higher quality end product
- Personally more satisfying
- More difficult to learn
- More time consuming

Linux vs. Windows
- Cheaper
- Greater level of control
- Higher quality end product
- Personally more satisfying
- More difficult to learn
- More time consuming

At the end of the day some people just want to get pissed/watch porn.

 

[mwd]

Downloaded a legit copy of Professional from the Internet 2.5G runs for 30 days without needing a license/activation. Have a spare hardrive to play with it on.

Nice easy user interface and quite nice features sets itself up with existing hardware quite well without needing additional drivers. Still a bit buggy it wants to reformat my USB external hard drives. Of course it will not get the online updates as it is not activated.

Looks very much like Vista in standard form. Still don't think it is worth the money even in upgrade form if your existing windows machine is working reasonably well.

( Although the media centre applications seem to much better implemented in 7 from most reports but I cannot comment because I don't use my PC as a HTPC ).