Making the leap( XP to 7? Help me decide!)

Shade

So I have once again managed to contract internet syphilis.

It walked right past avg and malware bytes hasn't found shit. I'm sure with enough effort I could devise a cure, but instead I see this as an opportunity format and try out windows 7. I've considered linux but I think I'll hold off on that.

I'm indecisive, so I'm asking for opinions.

Good?
Bad?
Meh?

Are there many incompatibility issues?

Which version shall I procure?

Khavall

Win7 was developed by a Wizard to be a magical OS.

if you can handle it(non-netbook), do it. Win7 is everything any OS needs. It's the UI of Apple products with the functionality and not-evil-moustache-twirlingly-evil-comic-book-villain that apple products lack.

Win7 is beautiful. any version, but get the mid-tier, Business, I believe.

Fizban140

I am currently using Windows 7 on my Asus EEE PC 1005ha, it runs perfect.

Thegreatcow

Aye echoing this. Get at least Pro or Ultimate if you have lots of stuff from windows xp that you still use (ie proprietary software/old games etc) these two versions have the more robust windows xp compatibility mode that home premium lacks. Also, if you're a security nut, Ultimate allows you to back up your computer to a remote drive/network drive, and also allows you to independently encrypt individual drives and sections of your drive if you need to.

TychoCelchuuu

I upgraded to Windows 7 from XP less than a week ago. It's pretty sweet but frankly XP did everything I needed just as well. It was only $30 for me but if you're paying any significant amount of money I can't really see the point. You're better off just keeping Windows XP updated, using a firewall, and practicing safe Internet browsing habits (especially because if you don't do #3, Windows 7 will be a mess pretty soon too). Sure, it's shiny, but there's no reason to spend money on something unless there are tangible features you need from it. Heck it's only going to get cheaper someday.

mugginns

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

I upgraded to Windows 7 from XP less than a week ago. It's pretty sweet but frankly XP did everything I needed just as well. It was only $30 for me but if you're paying any significant amount of money I can't really see the point. You're better off just keeping Windows XP updated, using a firewall, and practicing safe Internet browsing habits (especially because if you don't do #3, Windows 7 will be a mess pretty soon too). Sure, it's shiny, but there's no reason to spend money on something unless there are tangible features you need from it. Heck it's only going to get cheaper someday.

I'd echo this. I got it when it was $49 and I was happy with that price. It is does things like networking a little more obtuse IMO, and there are a lot of things I don't need (wtf is a homegroup? why can't I remove it from desktop?) I had to 'XP-ize' my desktop - put in quick launch, put in a shell app that fixes the start menu to be usable. After that, I've loved it just as much as I loved XP. It is faster than XP and looks better, even though GUI looks don't really matter that much to me.

Trus

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

I upgraded to Windows 7 from XP less than a week ago. It's pretty sweet but frankly XP did everything I needed just as well. It was only $30 for me but if you're paying any significant amount of money I can't really see the point. You're better off just keeping Windows XP updated, using a firewall, and practicing safe Internet browsing habits (especially because if you don't do #3, Windows 7 will be a mess pretty soon too). Sure, it's shiny, but there's no reason to spend money on something unless there are tangible features you need from it. Heck it's only going to get cheaper someday.

I upgraded from XP to 7 Pro last night and this is pretty much spot on. Windows 7 is all kinds of pretty, and it has some features that are amazing and was well worth the $30 I spent on it but if you have to pay the full price I would just format and re-install/stick with xp

Esh

Khavall wrote: »

Win7 was developed by a Wizard to be a magical OS.

if you can handle it(non-netbook), do it. Win7 is everything any OS needs. It's the UI of Apple products with the functionality and not-evil-moustache-twirlingly-evil-comic-book-villain that apple products lack.

Win7 is beautiful. any version, but get the mid-tier, Business, I believe.

Windows 7 was designed to run to very well on Netbooks.

Khavall

Esh wrote: »

Khavall wrote: »

Win7 was developed by a Wizard to be a magical OS.

if you can handle it(non-netbook), do it. Win7 is everything any OS needs. It's the UI of Apple products with the functionality and not-evil-moustache-twirlingly-evil-comic-book-villain that apple products lack.

Win7 is beautiful. any version, but get the mid-tier, Business, I believe.

Windows 7 was designed to run to very well on Netbooks.

Wizards!

Bionic Monkey

Khavall wrote: »

Win7 was developed by a Wizard to be a magical OS.

if you can handle it(non-netbook), do it. Win7 is everything any OS needs. It's the UI of Apple products with the functionality and not-evil-moustache-twirlingly-evil-comic-book-villain that apple products lack.

Win7 is beautiful. any version, but get the mid-tier, Business, I believe.

Even netbooks can handle it, just not perfectly. My wife's Dell 10v with 1 GB of RAM is running with little issue.

Kewop Decam

If you're not going 4GB+ of ram route, it's probably not worth it. Windows 7 task bar is far better in my opinion, but other than that it's the same as Vista which wasn't far beyond XP.

joshofalltrades

If you're going to upgrade from XP, it's a bit silly to go to Vista at this point

Windows 7 is basically a fixed Vista with a prettier and more useful interface

matt has a problem

Kewop Decam wrote: »

If you're not going 4GB+ of ram route, it's probably not worth it. Windows 7 task bar is far better in my opinion, but other than that it's the same as Vista which wasn't far beyond XP.

I currently have 2 gigs of ram and a 5 year old processor, and Win7 runs just fine on my PC.

TychoCelchuuu

matthasaproblem wrote: »

Kewop Decam wrote: »

If you're not going 4GB+ of ram route, it's probably not worth it. Windows 7 task bar is far better in my opinion, but other than that it's the same as Vista which wasn't far beyond XP.

I currently have 2 gigs of ram and a 5 year old processor, and Win7 runs just fine on my PC.

Yes but it's not worth it.

Kewop Decam

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

matthasaproblem wrote: »

Kewop Decam wrote: »

If you're not going 4GB+ of ram route, it's probably not worth it. Windows 7 task bar is far better in my opinion, but other than that it's the same as Vista which wasn't far beyond XP.

I currently have 2 gigs of ram and a 5 year old processor, and Win7 runs just fine on my PC.

Yes but it's not worth it.

exactly. It's about it being worth it and they're being a need.

Djeet

If you see yoursef using 4 gb or more of ram in the near future I'd go ahead and get 7 64bit; setting up a win7 system that's relatively safe from exploits takes a fraction of the time it takes to setup the same in XP.

I do have 1 software compatibility issue (been using 7 since the RC). I run XP in a virtual PC session in my 7 system so I can use the Canon file viewer utility application which won't install in my host operating system. The XP VPC image is available from MS for windows 7 users.

Shade

I already have 4gb of ram. I got my copy. Decided to go for it.

I'll see you on the other side!

Shade

Its so shiny!!!

This solves this so a lock please!

fightinfilipino

i see the op already went through with it, but i'm giving my thumbs up to Win7 over WinXP, on the basis of (relatively) better security alone.

i'm currently working in my school's IT department, and we still run XP on all the machines. even the most secure and updated XP machines here seem to regularly fall prey to malware of some sort.

i installed Win7 on my home machine and have been messing around with it for a while now. Microsoft fixed a lot of the problems of Vista and added a good deal of under-the-hood tweaks and surface GUI improvements that are really growing on me fast. the superbar is damn nice. UAC is no longer all that annoying either!

joshofalltrades

Congrats on your Win7 PC

It really is pretty nice

Throw one of those bizarre backgrounds on there

blakfeld

I love Windows 7. I actually like it a lot better then XP, the homegroup networking is pretty sweet, if you have an xbox or ps3, its now considerably easier to stream media, to share files on a network, or anything like that. The new task bar is pretty sweet, and I do like the snap. Plus it's pretty slick. That being said, the only REAL change was to the networking. It's essentially a much more efficient Vista, which I'm cool with, if you could run Vista properly, after turning off some of the security it wasn't a BAD OS for the most part.

Dog

Windows 7 is awesome on both my netbook and my main PC.

Enos316

I made the jump from XP to Win7 64-bit and I haven't looked back yet. Works great.

ashridah

[Disclaimer: I work at microsoft, just not on windows.]
I'm using Win7 on pretty much all of my systems at home, and it runs great.

Homegroup is a handy feature, but only if everything else in your house runs windows 7 (or you use one of the 3rd party tools to get your NASs to show up in homegroup, etc). It's basically much quicker to browse than network neighbourhood and is a bit easier to manage in some ways, but a bit weirder in others. Took a little getting used to, and i'm not a fan of the whole 'security code' thing it requires, since that seems a little bit too overcomplicated.

I have a lot of systems that have >4GB of ram (my gaming system has 6gb. my laptop has 8gb, another dev system has 6gb). I want to use 64bit to get at that ram, and if you're using 64bit, XP is a waste of time and energy. About the only system i use Win7 32bit on is my media center (win7's media center is pretty when it goes into screensaver mode, mind you) since that has 2gb of ram (it's looking for an upgrade soon though )

Personally, if you're getting a new system, i absolutely recommend win7. If you've got a relatively recent system, there are enough improvements that i'd recommend it there too, for the longevity of security updates and troubleshooters/driver models. I really like the fact that video can't take out the system (which is fortunate, since nvidia had stability problems, and ati still has stability problems), and the fact that the IE holes that occurred recently have virtually no chance of being exploitable in Win7. And since, even if you use firefox, lots of things still embed IE's renderer (steam, for instance), having the extra protection is worth the cost.

Older systems, it's up to you. I find the benefits worthwhile, but i also found the benefits of vista to be worthwhile. I never was a fan of XP, the interface is horrible looking, and running it on newer hardware is way too much of a pain. And i'd kiss goodbye half of the ram in my house if i used it now

Of course, i can get retail, non-upgrade Win7's relatively cheaply, so it's easier for me to justify the migration. I don't really recommend actually upgrading a long-running system, and if you do get upgrade media, find one of the guides that shows you how to do a clean install using upgrade media. It'll be worth it.

xThanatoSx

I just upgraded my system from Vista Home Premium 64 bit to Win7 of the same flavor last night.

Quickest and easiest clean upgrade ever.

Seriously.

It took all of about 50 minutes from the time I put the win7 DVD into the drive and when the system was fully back up and running with all appropriate drivers.

I'd been putting it off for the last couple months since I got my upgrade disk because I'm used to how much of a time consuming process reinstalling XP always was. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. The longest process of the upgrade was actually finding my Office 07 disk before starting to reformat