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Navagon: Interesting. I'm still in two minds about this one. But ultimately I think that it will require a Windows 7 to its Vista. Or maybe just a service pack. But even after Win 7 I'm not expecting them to get this one right first time.
The Developer Preview, although a mess of Aero andMetro, is quite stable, no crashes here yet.

The Consumer Preview should be even better, it most likely be available for everybody, so you could try it out if you want. There's quite a lot of optimization done in the backbone of the OS, it uses less memory than Windows 7 (although that would be irrelevant to people with 4+GB of RAM), and it runs faster (at least, in a VM, compared to 7, in a VM).

EDIT: If 7 runs perfectly for you, I don't see a reason why you should upgrade, since it is not an old OS, not even three years old, but once it gets 5-6 years old, you should consider upgrading, assuming many security holes are opened up (which is the case with XP and its age).
Post edited February 09, 2012 by kavazovangel
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jamyskis: Any pretense that Win7 is somehow more stable than XP is outright wrong.
Are you getting a lot of crashes that you weren't getting under XP? It's been rock solid for me.

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jamyskis: I hate the way that it uses up system resources unnecessarily
If you're talking about the memory consumption, then it's intentional. Unused memory is wasted memory.
I'm always surprised how people prefer getting buried in cascading screens vs using a single list and dynamic search bar.

My mind is blown when people re-enable the run cmmand in the start menu adding pointless redundancy and time wasted. Those people are just strange.
Post edited February 09, 2012 by Kabuto
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Kabuto: I'm always surprised how people prefer getting buried in cascading screens vs using a single list and dynamic search bar.

My mind is blown when people re-enable the run cmmand in the start menu adding pointless redundancy and time wasted. Those people are just strange.
I actually stopped using the start "bar" altogether and simply type the first letters of what I want and *bam* there it is. Awesome.
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Kabuto: I'm always surprised how people prefer getting buried in cascading screens vs using a single list and dynamic search bar.

My mind is blown when people re-enable the run cmmand in the start menu adding pointless redundancy and time wasted. Those people are just strange.
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SimonG: I actually stopped using the start "bar" altogether and simply type the first letters of what I want and *bam* there it is. Awesome.
Exactly. That's what makes the Vista/7 bar blow XP start away.
I am using a six year old Laptop - and it was already technically outdated at the time I got it. It is XP level technology, and hence, that's the OS I'll continue to use (dual booting into Linux). It still does what it has to do just fine, and I am not really willing to buy new hardware on my limited funds until it really doesn't do it's thing anymore.
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jamyskis: I made the shift from WinXP to Win7 some time ago, and to be perfectly frank I regret it. Any pretense that Win7 is somehow more stable than XP is outright wrong. I hate the Vista/7 start menu. I hate the way that it uses up system resources unnecessarily and tries to nanny me through everything I do. I've shut down UAC because, quite frankly, it was pissing me off no end. I hate the absolutely useless file search function and the needlessly convoluted control panel.

Anything good? Well, I can play Just Cause 2 now. That's about it.
Yeah I disliked most of the interface changes in Vista Seven. There were a few that were neat but most were bad. I will adapt to them when I have to, but what bugs me is that the trend to interface changes in Windows from XP and onwards seem to be to make changes, that makes it easier for the novice user, that makes it more time consuming for the experienced user. Maybe not a bad move to compete against Apple but it is annoying for me.
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Sargon: Yeah I disliked most of the interface changes in Vista Seven. There were a few that were neat but most were bad. I will adapt to them when I have to, but what bugs me is that the trend to interface changes in Windows from XP and onwards seem to be to make changes, that makes it easier for the novice user, that makes it more time consuming for the experienced user. Maybe not a bad move to compete against Apple but it is annoying for me.
Well I'm apparently a novice user then because I find windows 7 incredibly convenient in all the ways windows XP wasn't. The run command was replaced by something far more useful, pinning apps to taskbar is fantastic and makes all running windows very easy and intuitive to navigate.
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kavazovangel: EDIT: If 7 runs perfectly for you, I don't see a reason why you should upgrade, since it is not an old OS, not even three years old, but once it gets 5-6 years old, you should consider upgrading, assuming many security holes are opened up (which is the case with XP and its age).
Certainly not if it needs UEFI. Might as well hold out until my next rig if that's required as it's not something my current motherboard supports.
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Navagon: Certainly not if it needs UEFI. Might as well hold out until my next rig if that's required as it's not something my current motherboard supports.
UEFI is not required, it can very well boot off of the regular BIOS.
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wodmarach: I think the people who you've been talking to have been taking something to cause those psychedelic colours (actually it's usually just you have too many colours all you do is set the palate to 256/high colour in compatability options)
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Sargon: ?
256 is not high colour. I'm pretty sure changing the amount of colours was one of the first things I've tried. It is a common problem for many popular older games like Starcraft and Age of Empires II on Windows Seven\Vista. The solution for Age of Empires II was to make a shortcut with some commands in it, but it took me some time to find out which type of commands to use, since they have changed from the earlier versions of Windows.

Starcraft was easier but I probably used a hour or two to fix it.
you see that / it means OR so you switch to 256 or high colour.
Theres 2 other ways to stop it happening on any version of windows xp or above (yes the same bug exists in xp but it takes a while longer to start showing up.
1:
1. Right click on your desktop and click on customize
2. Go to monitor settings (or whatever it's called)
3. Don't touch anything
4. Start game
5. See what happens

2:start game then kill explorer using taskmanager

99% of the time this stops it.
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SimonG: Windows 7 is superior in every aspect.

Especially if you have a 64 bit system. I was very reluctant at first, but once I made the move, I haven't regretted in for a second.
Except for the games that don't work on it.

Just like games that only work on 9x but don't work on XP. The same goes for XP and 7.
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Sargon: I'm so far not very impressed with how older games work with Windows 7.
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wodmarach: you mean almost perfectly? very very few XP games don't work with 7
XP games are now "old"?

I feel old now. :(

Put up or STFU. List the "very very few" games. oh you only qualify "XP" games. :rolleyes:
Post edited February 09, 2012 by DosFreak
I'm still on XP but looking to upgrade to use more of my RAM and be able to play DX10 games. This reads like I should have both copies of Windows installed, right? How easy is that to get set up?
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Phoboshobo: I'm still on XP but looking to upgrade to use more of my RAM and be able to play DX10 games. This reads like I should have both copies of Windows installed, right? How easy is that to get set up?
Windows 7 will install to dual boot with XP easily. Details here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html
See the section "When XP is Installed First".

You will never be able to use more than 3GB of userland memory in Windows XP. In 64-bit Windows 7, even 32-bit programs that can make use of it will get up to 4GB.

You will never be able to use DirectX 10 on Windows XP. DirectX 10 and 11 require Windows 7 (or Vista, but who does new installs of Vista anymore).
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Phoboshobo: How easy is that to get set up?
Check to see if XP drivers are available for your new hardware before committing. If the drivers are available you will need to make a Slipstream Disk (random tut example) to add the drivers to the install. I had to add SATA and MB drivers when I dual booted XP as the newer drivers are not available on the XP disk and most (all??) new boxes don't have a floppy drive to point the install to the drivers.

There are two free programs to make the slipstream disks, which I believe is used in the tut linked above and [url=http://winfuture.de/XPIsoBuilder_en]XP-ISO-Builder. I prefer the XP-ISO-Builder software only because it seemed more intuitive IMHO. Either will work just as well I would think. . . =)