Windows 7 --a question

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yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Windows 7 --a question

Post by yoyo123 »

my laptop is getting like me old and slow and often forgetting what is was doing.


I think it is time to get a new one and put this one out to pasture as a work one.

when I bought this one it was loaded with XP just as Vista was coming in.

should I go for windows 7 on a new one, or would it still be in its teething stages? or should I just get Vista (which i never particularly liked).

Most of my work related stuff is on this laptop and I would continue to use it for the programmes already installed (which were mainly downloads) and for tables games etc during lessons.

my new one would be for e-mail, this site and similar, playing games ( i am addicted to nancy drew myseries :oops: ) and for downloading music for my new toy an i-pod)

any comments/suggestions about my best bet?

also this one only has a 12" screen and I am peering at it to read!
mitasol
Posts: 2756
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:59 am

Post by mitasol »

I've had windows 7 running for about a week and so far it's all good. Much faster and less bloated than Vista.

Re old XP. If you're brave and organised (ie kept those downloaded progam registration codes) and did a data backup. You could reinstall XP and all the programs then restore the backup. You would probably find it as zippy as when you first got it.

The above takes ages - so you have to weigh up if it's all worth it! :roll:
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Post by yoyo123 »

mitasol wrote: If you're brave and organised (ie kept those downloaded progam registration codes)
:oops: :oops:

i am neither!
andyb
Posts: 645
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:27 am
Location: Buckinghamshire

Post by andyb »

OH has been using W7 for a week or so on desk top and laptop and thinks it's great - "like Vista only better and faster". He was also part of some trial before it was released so has in effect been using it for about 12 months and wouldn't go back. His recommendation is to buy a laptop with W7 already installed rather than try and upgrade a Vista lap top "because that could be quite painful". I hope this makes more sense to you than it does to me - as far as I'm concerned he could be talking Chinese!
KenR
Posts: 1506
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:12 pm
Location: Birmingham

Post by KenR »

Yoyo

I upgraded by Vista a PC to Windows 7 a couple of weeks ago. Far superior to Vista - much faster. Note: do NOT attempt to upgradean existing PC from XP to Windows - you have to do a reinstall.

If you are buying a new PC I would definitely go for Windows 7 - make sure you have sufficient memory and disk space installed. 3Gb minimum and 300GB disk.

One thing NOT to do is to buy the PC with Microsoft Office 2007 preinstalled - you will pay through the nose.

As parents of children at bone-fide secondary/grammar schools you can buy Microsoft Office 2007 enterprise at a special price of about £35. This is much cheaper that the student edition sold for circa £80 by PC world etc and contains more software. This include Office Outlook email sw as well. This is a special deal endorsed by Microsoft for students and their families but not well publicised.

Go to somewhere like http://www.software4students.co.uk and simply select your child's school from the drop down list.

Hope this helps

Ken
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Post by yoyo123 »

Thanks Ken.

i bought my current Windows office as a teacher. Will go to that site and see if Master yoyo is elicgible.He has left school and is doing his A levels at canterbury college ( the tech in old money)
The info about minimum requirements very useful too.
Glad to see that it has stood up to a year use
Snowdrops
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Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 5:20 pm

Post by Snowdrops »

I've just had to do a complete re-install due to a hard drive failure - luckily 99.9999999% of my work was backed up (I lost about 20 photos is all).

I chose to go with Windows 7, having held onto XP throught the Vista broohaha. DD had Vista installed on her computer which was purchased 2 months ago and everything was fine with that so decided to make the leap.

The only thing I was concerned about was compatibility of my old programmes, luckily all bar 2 things have installed successfully and I may be able to find a way around one of them, if not the digital voice recorder only cost me £20 so it's no great loss (irritating though it still is).

It seemed really weird at first but it's surprising how quickly you become used to it. The biggest difference is the email system. I always liked using Outlook Express which came as part of Internet Explorer, but since IE 7 (or it may be 8 ) they no longer issue OE and you have to download Windows Live Messenger which is basically OE, just with a different look about it.

Yes, it's definitely faster and yes I'd do it again (eeeeeeK!!).

As for Microsoft Office, I also bought the student special offer Ken mentions and it was from that company. I got an extra special offer of 10 programmes (which included Microsoft Access, a very expensive rarity these days) for £35 and the offers still on!! That's still waiting to be loaded onto DD's computer as we now need to upgrade hers to Windows 7. The student licence allows you to load it onto one computer and one laptop.

My computer has my old trusted Office XP Professional on it and I love it.

If you need to replace don't be afraid. Just back up all your files (preferably to two different devices) and then install your new OS, you'll be glad you did :D
Image
Sassie'sDad
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Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:36 pm
Location: Rugby

Post by Sassie'sDad »

Or better still ditch MS and go for Linux (if you don't want to afford Apple Mac ) say Xubuntu. It is free to download and there is a run from CDROM version without changing anything on your hard drive. So you can verify it runs on your PC/Laptop before you install. It makes Microsoft look expensive and overburdened with security flaws and upgrades!

http://www.xubuntu.org/get
mike1880
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Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Post by mike1880 »

I replaced Vista with Win 7 about a week ago on the laptop I'm using now. I copied all my files, internet favourites, Outlook folders, etc., to a USB hard drive, then installed Win 7 from scratch and copied everything back. Much quicker than I expected, probably about 6 hours to do the whole thing and re-install all my programs afterwards.

I haven't noticed it being faster than Vista but it is much more stable - I used to get a lot of random freeze-ups with Vista and some programs just wouldn't work.

The only issues I've come across so far are (1) Flash doesn't work very well at all (but I don't think that's usual) and (2) it's pretty much like Vista which I'm not hugely keen on. And if you're currently using Windows Mail I think it would be very difficult to keep your old emails (Win 7 doesn't have Windows Mail and as far as I understand it, WM is quite hard to export from).

I'm now eyeing the elderly XP desktop that I make the rest of the family use and wondering whether it's worth upgrading the memory to 2Gb and putting Win 7 on that as well...

Mike
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