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Windows 7: Thread for sale, two previous owners, apply within...

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Posts

  • BoredomBoredom Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Does anyone know if installing Win7 from an Upgrade disk changes the licensing terms? More specifically, I'm interested in knowing whether my current install of Vista OEM will stop being subject to OEM terms if I upgrade (i.e. if my motherboard dies, the money spent on Win7 won't go to waste).


    Oh, and Microsoft's site says that the upgrade path of Vista 32 -> Win7 64 is unsupported, but apparently some people were able to bypass this by booting from the Win7 Upgrade disk and doing a custom 64 bit install which activates just fine (and is a clean install). Does anyone have any experience with this? It sounds iffy to me and it's unclear if this is an intended feature.

    Boredom on
  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    An upgrade install isn't the same thing as a custom install. You're confusing two different things here.

    Upgrade install license media works on the assumption that you own a legitimate license to a prior version of windows. Using upgrade install media, you are able to either perform an upgrade install (which attempts to maintain as much of your prior install as possible, like installed programs). You can also do a custom install with upgrade install media, which blows away the current installation of windows (and copies some of it to a Windows.old folder), installing a completely fresh copy of windows in its place. Programs and stuff must be reinstalled there.

    You will have to do a custom install when moving from a 32-bit installation to a 64-bit installation, because the architecture is different enough that it would be extremely spotty with regard to maintaining currently installed programs. You can't do an upgrade install from vista x86 to 7 x64, you can do a custom install from vista x86 to 7 x64. Upgrade or full install licensed media both would be capable of performing this.

    Dehumanized on
  • BoredomBoredom Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    An upgrade install isn't the same thing as a custom install. You're confusing two different things here.

    Upgrade install license media works on the assumption that you own a legitimate license to a prior version of windows. Using upgrade install media, you are able to either perform an upgrade install (which attempts to maintain as much of your prior install as possible, like installed programs). You can also do a custom install with upgrade install media, which blows away the current installation of windows (and copies some of it to a Windows.old folder), installing a completely fresh copy of windows in its place. Programs and stuff must be reinstalled there.

    You will have to do a custom install when moving from a 32-bit installation to a 64-bit installation, because the architecture is different enough that it would be extremely spotty with regard to maintaining currently installed programs. You can't do an upgrade install from vista x86 to 7 x64, you can do a custom install from vista x86 to 7 x64. Upgrade or full install licensed media both would be capable of performing this.


    Alright, thanks. What got me confused was the reports that you couldn't "upgrade" from a 32 bit edition to a 64 bit one unless you bought the appropriate disk. This is apparently true for an "upgrade" type install but overall the Upgrade disk can still be used regardless of which edition I owned previously, is what you're saying (custom install).

    Many articles actually suggested that my only option was to buy a full version of Win7 64 because my existing license was for Vista 32, and therefore could not "upgrade" to 64 (implied that Upgrade disks were useless for me), neglecting to mention Upgrade media's clean install capability.

    Looks like I'm going to be using an Upgrade disk to perform a clean install of Win7 64 then. This leaves my other question: my Vista was OEM licensed, would my new Win7 not be OEM?

    Boredom on
  • CobaltredCobaltred Registered User regular
    edited November 2009

    Alright, thanks. What got me confused was the reports that you couldn't "upgrade" from a 32 bit edition to a 64 bit one unless you bought the appropriate disk. This is apparently true for an "upgrade" type install but overall the Upgrade disk can still be used regardless of which edition I owned previously, is what you're saying (custom install).

    Many articles actually suggested that my only option was to buy a full version of Win7 64 because my existing license was for Vista 32, and therefore could not "upgrade" to 64 (implied that Upgrade disks were useless for me), neglecting to mention Upgrade media's clean install capability.

    Looks like I'm going to be using an Upgrade disk to perform a clean install of Win7 64 then. This leaves my other question: my Vista was OEM licensed, would my new Win7 not be OEM?


    Just wanted to confirm that you can use the upgrade to go from Vista 32 to Windows 7 64. I did it with the download install which requires you to boot from a USB or DVD because vista 32 can't open the installer properly, but worked absolutely perfectly. If you buy a disc, it should work with no hitches.

    Cobaltred on
  • Mustachio JonesMustachio Jones jerseyRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    You can always get a 5770, it can hold it's own against a 4870 no problem. It also uses far less energy than the 4870. And since it is DX11 it will be good for several years.

    The thing is, though, that DX10 support has really been kinda meh. Wikipedia says that there've only been 38 games (if I can count) that have some semblance of DX10 support.

    It just doesn't seem worth it at all right now to dive in for DX11 when 10 hasn't really been fully tapped yet.


    it may also have something to do with the fact that I bought a 4890 back in April, and I don't want to buy another card yet.

    Mustachio Jones on
  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products regular
    edited November 2009
    You can always get a 5770, it can hold it's own against a 4870 no problem. It also uses far less energy than the 4870. And since it is DX11 it will be good for several years.

    The thing is, though, that DX10 support has really been kinda meh. Wikipedia says that there've only been 38 games (if I can count) that have some semblance of DX10 support.

    It just doesn't seem worth it at all right now to dive in for DX11 when 10 hasn't really been fully tapped yet.


    it may also have something to do with the fact that I bought a 4890 back in April, and I don't want to buy another card yet.
    Also, the biggest reason was that Vista had such a bad rap that the number of gamers who actually spend money on the top of the line had no intention of upgrading to an OS that actually supported DX10.

    I suspect DX10 will be pretty much skipped over for DX11 at the end of the day.

    syndalis on
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  • Professor SnugglesworthProfessor Snugglesworth Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Just checking in to see if an ideal alternative to Live Mesh has been found, or if they've found a fix for Live Mesh not working.

    Professor Snugglesworth on
  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    syndalis wrote: »
    You can always get a 5770, it can hold it's own against a 4870 no problem. It also uses far less energy than the 4870. And since it is DX11 it will be good for several years.

    The thing is, though, that DX10 support has really been kinda meh. Wikipedia says that there've only been 38 games (if I can count) that have some semblance of DX10 support.

    It just doesn't seem worth it at all right now to dive in for DX11 when 10 hasn't really been fully tapped yet.


    it may also have something to do with the fact that I bought a 4890 back in April, and I don't want to buy another card yet.
    Also, the biggest reason was that Vista had such a bad rap that the number of gamers who actually spend money on the top of the line had no intention of upgrading to an OS that actually supported DX10.

    I suspect DX10 will be pretty much skipped over for DX11 at the end of the day.

    I agree and also suspect this to be the case. It seems that just too many people, particular ones interested in gaming, are just moving straight from XP to Win7. But even that is going to be a drawn out process over the next few years. Vista seems to have had a relatively short and meager life span.

    Win7 also has the advantage of coming out right at a time when upgrades are cheap and having 4 gigs of Ram is fairly common. Before, it didn't matter much if you went with XP or vista if you had less than 4 gigs of ram (like 2 gigs, which was common). Given that choice most went with or stuck with XP. Now that 4 gigs of Ram and massive video card ram numbers, coming in at extremely affordable prices, people are now looking towards 64-bit OS's. Windows7 has just come out, and with the only alternatives being XPx64 and VIstax64, I think the choice is obvious.

    As a side note, of the games I've run in DX10 now on Win7 as compared to running the same games on my system with DX9 on WinXP, it's hard for me to really spot the differences. I thought Resi5 would look noticeably different, but running in DX9 and Running in DX10, I really can't tell a lick of difference. Just as an example. I don't see much difference in Crysis or Lost Planet either.

    slash000 on
  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    You have to look with a really fine-toothed comb to find DX9 and DX10 differences. Part of that is developers don't put a lot of effort into DX10 effects (because very few people will see them) and part of it is that the advances in DX10 just aren't really all that visible.

    Dehumanized on
  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    You have to look with a really fine-toothed comb to find DX9 and DX10 differences. Part of that is developers don't put a lot of effort into DX10 effects (because very few people will see them) and part of it is that the advances in DX10 just aren't really all that visible.

    This is what I figure as well.

    slash000 on
  • IdolisideIdoliside Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    You have to look with a really fine-toothed comb to find DX9 and DX10 differences. Part of that is developers don't put a lot of effort into DX10 effects (because very few people will see them) and part of it is that the advances in DX10 just aren't really all that visible.

    Same with DX11 tbh

    Idoliside on
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  • xzzyxzzy Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    There haven't been any major advances in rendering since DX9 as well.. DX9 put fun stuff like shaders and zillions of texture passes into the mainstream, which is where we're still at today. Mostly been improving on the formula since then.

    xzzy on
  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    From an engineering standpoint DX10/Shader Model 4 is a significant improvement over DX9. SM4 makes a number of things possible which simply cannot be done under SM3, and I'm not just talking about cosmetic touches like the "god ray" effect. Even Crysis, the most technically sophisticated game to date, utilizes a bare minimum of DX10's true capabilities.

    The lack of serious DX10 adoption by game developers can be chalked up to gamers refusing to upgrade to Vista for whatever reason. Hopefully everyone buys Windows 7 and we can finally move forward with this shit.

    Azio on
  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    The reason a lot of gamers, and a lot of people in general, didn't upgrade to Vista was because nobody needed to. XP is quick and stable. Now there's a need among gamers for 64-bit OS's, and the best one to get is Windows 7. So hopefully that'll lead to greater implementation of more recent iterations of Direct X, be it 10 or 11, at some point.

    slash000 on
  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Windows 7 is better than Vista on a purely cosmetic level so it's not like there's suddenly a "need" to upgrade where once there was none

    Azio on
  • Shorn Scrotum ManShorn Scrotum Man Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Azio wrote: »
    Windows 7 is better than Vista on a purely cosmetic level so it's not like there's suddenly a "need" to upgrade where once there was none

    Yeah, but the cheapness of parts/upgrades means people need 64-bit whereas most didn't before, and if you had to choose between Windows 7 and Vista, 7 is gonna win.

    Shorn Scrotum Man on
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  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Azio wrote: »
    Windows 7 is better than Vista on a purely cosmetic level so it's not like there's suddenly a "need" to upgrade where once there was none

    Yeah, but the cheapness of parts/upgrades means people need 64-bit whereas most didn't before, and if you had to choose between Windows 7 and Vista, 7 is gonna win.

    Exactly. There was no "need" to upgrade to Vista in the past because the average gamer was still only running 2 gigs of Ram and 256 megabyte video cards. XP was more stable and leaner than Vista and there was very little practical reason to upgrade.

    Now gamers are upgrading to hardware with 4 gigs of ram and 512 to 1 gigger video cards. Now there is a need to upgrade, at this point, where there wasn't one before - because now, gamers need a 64-bit OS, and the only practical choices that are now available are Vista x64 or Win7 x 64, because everyone knows XPx64 is a joke.

    So yeah actually there is suddenly a need to upgrade where once there was none. The need was created once hardware upgrades to 4+ gigs of ram and 512+ meg video cards became relatively cheap.


    And the choice is of course obvious; everyone's going with Win7 x64 over Vista x64

    slash000 on
  • Bionic MonkeyBionic Monkey Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited November 2009
    Considering the positive buzz around Windows 7 this time around, and especially compared to Vista's debut, I feel pretty confident that Win7 will be the new default OS for a good long chunk of years.

    Bionic Monkey on
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  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Considering the positive buzz around Windows 7 this time around, and especially compared to Vista's debut, I feel pretty confident that Win7 will be the new default OS for a good long chunk of years.

    I agree. I hope so too. I'm ready for a new "default OS" to assume the throne of XP.

    slash000 on
  • LurkLurk Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    So, how can I have my Windows 7 PC share files with the Vista PC on the same network? I keep getting an error that I don't have permission.

    Lurk on
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  • DehumanizedDehumanized Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    We'll probably see Win8 in another two to three years. I doubt Microsoft will fall off their release schedule again.

    Dehumanized on
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Does anyone know anything about this Windows 7 student edition thing?

    Is it a full copy of Pro or just the upgrade, for me in Australia it looks like it's just the upgrade edition.

    electricitylikesme on
  • ZoneZone Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    full copy. I bought it and they asked if i wanted an upgrade or full version. and it is Pro but this was in the USA

    Zone on
  • LurkLurk Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    I did a full install using my student version in Canada.

    Lurk on
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  • SteevLSteevL What can I do for you? Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    All right, I just spent the day building my new PC and getting Windows 7 up and running. It seems to be running well, with one major exception:

    Every now and then it sort of locks up, then the screen flashes and things go back to normal. A message at the bottom pops up with something like "Display driver Radeon has encountered a serious error and has recovered." I'm using a Radeon 5770. I updated to the latest drivers from ATI's website almost immediately after installing Windows. Anyone know what's causing this? I hope my video card isn't bad.

    SteevL on
  • LaCabraLaCabra MelbourneRegistered User regular
    edited November 2009
    I'm not sayin' your card is bad, but I got exactly that error when mine was, once.

    LaCabra on
  • SteevLSteevL What can I do for you? Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Come to think of it, I seem to recall something similar was happening to the card in my brother's PC back when I first put it together. I haven't tested this thing with games yet.

    edit: and in that case, sending back the video card and getting a replacement fixed that problem.

    SteevL on
  • xzzyxzzy Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    slash000 wrote: »
    Considering the positive buzz around Windows 7 this time around, and especially compared to Vista's debut, I feel pretty confident that Win7 will be the new default OS for a good long chunk of years.

    I agree. I hope so too. I'm ready for a new "default OS" to assume the throne of XP.

    W7 had better last a long time.. because if Microsoft follows the cycle, the next consumer release of Windows is gonna suck shit.

    xzzy on
  • AzioAzio Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Vista didn't "suck shit", it was better than XP

    Azio on
  • TrippyJingTrippyJing Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    How can I transfer network settings from XP to W7?

    TrippyJing on
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  • Shorn Scrotum ManShorn Scrotum Man Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Azio wrote: »
    Vista didn't "suck shit", it was better than XP

    For those of us with the hardware, yes. But a bunch of people tried to stick it on their 'only just strong enough to run XP' machines and then shit a brick when it sucked. Also shitty driver support than xp.

    I loved Vista, but then again I have a machine that was beastly enough to handle it.

    Shorn Scrotum Man on
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  • Spoom182Spoom182 Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Do you guys know when the student discount offer will run out?

    Spoom182 on
  • slash000slash000 Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Azio wrote: »
    Vista didn't "suck shit", it was better than XP

    For those of us with the hardware, yes. But a bunch of people tried to stick it on their 'only just strong enough to run XP' machines and then shit a brick when it sucked. Also shitty driver support than xp.

    I loved Vista, but then again I have a machine that was beastly enough to handle it.

    I have it on my 2.33 Ghz Core 2 Duo laptop with 2 gigs of ram and I can tell that it runs chunky.

    Plus I prefer to run my laptop at low performance settings most of the time to save battery life (and I use it mostly for office apps), and that accentuates the chunkiness of the experience.

    Otherwise I liked the little neato additions to the OS and I'm glad they carried over the useful stuff to Win7, but I'm certainly glad I have Win7 on my home desktop as opposed to Vista.

    slash000 on
  • CyvrosCyvros Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Azio wrote: »
    Vista didn't "suck shit", it was better than XP

    For those of us with the hardware, yes. But a bunch of people tried to stick it on their 'only just strong enough to run XP' machines and then shit a brick when it sucked. Also shitty driver support than xp.

    I loved Vista, but then again I have a machine that was beastly enough to handle it.
    Man, Vista was running fine with my crappy Inspiron 1501 with a gig of RAM, a 1.8 GHz processor and something like 128 or 256 megs of dedicated graphics memory. Aero was even running smoothly. Only thing that'd shudder to a halt was Firefox when it started sucking up half a gig of RAM (ended up getting another gig of RAM because of the memory leaks).

    Which is why I used to giggle inside whenever someone with better specs whinged about Vista.

    After a while of reading everyone else's experiences, of course, I soon realised that some miracle had happened and Dell had somehow made me something with hardware that loved Vista (or vice versa).

    Cyvros on
  • DarkWarriorDarkWarrior __BANNED USERS regular
    edited November 2009
    Anyone else having an issue where sometimes stuff you direct download seemingly takes forever to open the Save Where dialogue and when it pops up and you select where you want it to save it is finished in seconds? It seems to be downloading the files BEFORE I choose where to save it and its seemingly doing the same thing with Youtube as well. Video won't start for ages and when it does the full bar is loaded.

    DarkWarrior on
  • Dark ShroudDark Shroud Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Cyvros wrote: »
    Azio wrote: »
    Vista didn't "suck shit", it was better than XP

    For those of us with the hardware, yes. But a bunch of people tried to stick it on their 'only just strong enough to run XP' machines and then shit a brick when it sucked. Also shitty driver support than xp.

    I loved Vista, but then again I have a machine that was beastly enough to handle it.
    Man, Vista was running fine with my crappy Inspiron 1501 with a gig of RAM, a 1.8 GHz processor and something like 128 or 256 megs of dedicated graphics memory. Aero was even running smoothly. Only thing that'd shudder to a halt was Firefox when it started sucking up half a gig of RAM (ended up getting another gig of RAM because of the memory leaks).

    Which is why I used to giggle inside whenever someone with better specs whinged about Vista.

    After a while of reading everyone else's experiences, of course, I soon realised that some miracle had happened and Dell had somehow made me something with hardware that loved Vista (or vice versa).

    Similar experience here, I ran Vista fine on an old P4 box. In fact my PC ran better under Vista than XP because Vista was actually able to make use of my CPU's hyper threading. I've run Vista on many older PCs just fine. I think many people just don't have a damn clue how to actully get drivers installed or tired to use old XP drivers and killed their PC. The later happened many times and were even mentioned in newpapers a few times. Of course nVidia was also a big contributer to crashes because they couldn't be bothered to writer decent drivers for their video cards let alone mobos.

    Dark Shroud on
  • XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Anyone else having an issue where sometimes stuff you direct download seemingly takes forever to open the Save Where dialogue and when it pops up and you select where you want it to save it is finished in seconds? It seems to be downloading the files BEFORE I choose where to save it and its seemingly doing the same thing with Youtube as well. Video won't start for ages and when it does the full bar is loaded.

    Well, things do indeed start downloading before you pick the actual folder where you want it. That's why downloads sometimes seem to start out so fast. It's odd it's actually downloading the entire file that quick, though, assuming it's not really small.

    Xeddicus on
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Vista was awful when it got released though.

    Also, damnit, it's NOT WINDOWS 2007. That bugs the hell out of me for some reason.


    Anyone found an Ultramon replacement for Win 7 yet? Taskbars on both screens, wallpapers different?

    SniperGuy on
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Zone wrote: »
    full copy. I bought it and they asked if i wanted an upgrade or full version. and it is Pro but this was in the USA

    Is there anywhere you can get it for direct download online?

    I'm seeing a whole lot of Upgrade signs here, and while technically I have a copy of Vista Business for my laptop, I don't think I have any of the installation disks and I nuked that service partition long ago.

    electricitylikesme on
  • Silent TristeroSilent Tristero Registered User regular
    edited November 2009
    Getting the student upgrade offer to work is an absoloute nightmare. I have no idea who digitalRiver are, but how Microsoft has ended up using them to distribute their core product is beyond me.

    I just need the simplest way of getting W7 home premium 64-bit onto my new machine; I have a brand new valid XP-32-bit key and disc, which is 100% unused so far. There's just dozens of people on forums who can't properly download the .iso they released for 32-bit users, and seemingly no straight answers to a host of questions.

    If I buy the upgrade, and I have to do a clean install from 32-bit XP, then why should I have to install XP first? Why can't it just ask for that cd-key, before asking for the one I buy with the upgrade...

    Silent Tristero on
This discussion has been closed.