Windows 7

[picsfor]

Thanks for that Harry I may not bother with it then.
Janet

Now for a different take. I got a free upgrade same as you Janet. I performed a clean build which took a little over 3 hours including the installation of all the software and updates. I'm not a fan of putting the upgrade disk in and letting it run, but by all accounts it does a reasonable job - haven't heard too many disaster stories yet.

As for difference and benefits - well your laptop is clearly designed to work with Win 7 which is very different 'under the bonnet'. Win 7 is to Vista what XP is to Win 2K and i heard no end of complaints about Win 2K though i loved it.
The big difference is that all the things that were causing problems with Vista have been taken away and completely re-developed into a far more stable and efficient application.
The fact that the boot up and shut down times are so much quicker is an obvious testament to that. The facility to hook up to a broadband node, whether in your house or out on the road, is a huge improvement over Vista. Whilst their are many other benefits that you will gain i haven't had time to find them all yet - having become a Mac convert.

But i will say this. Whilst i personally never had 'any problems' with Vista  - my over riding view was 'that it is a dog' - where as Win 7 is more of a breath of fresh air. The desk top working environment is organised differently but not in a bad way once you get used to it, though i do miss the ability to swap back to 'classic mode'. So, you should really be using Win 7 to get the most out of your laptop. Business have avoided Vista like the plague and yet they are embracing Win 7 - that should tell you something in itself...

Well that's my opposing 2 penneth worth.

[Mick]

Thanks for that Harry I may not bother with it then.
Janet

Now for a different take. I got a free upgrade same as you Janet. I performed a clean build which took a little over 3 hours including the installation of all the software and updates. I'm not a fan of putting the upgrade disk in and letting it run, but by all accounts it does a reasonable job - haven't heard too many disaster stories yet.

I went the other way and did the upgrade install.  Never taken the upgrade route with previous versions of windows because it always caused problems.   I have to say though I'm well impressed with the way everything went with this.

I ran the supplied disks from Acer, and this walked me right through the upgrade.   I never lost my internet connection, or my desktop settings, all my icons on the screen were as before, in fact everything looks identical until you start delving into the system menus. 

Now as others have said there's no email program with windows 7, and as I used outlook express previously I had to install Windows live mail to replace it.   All I had to do is let it transfer my email settings and emails etc for me before I did the Windows 7 upgrade.  I had no other programs to install because they were automatically imported into windows 7.

I had no loss of data, no loss of emails / browser settings or favourites, and no loss of programs.  The only problem I had with Vista previous to this was my IE8 browser used to crash constantly, and this has never happened since upgrading.

I'm well chuffed with just how smooth this PC runs now. 

[Forseti]

I bought a laptop at the end of October

I'm a later convert to W7 having only upgraded a few days ago from XP which in itself isn't/wasn't bad. However, the more I get used to W7 the more I am beginning to like it. And on a laptop I'd say it's a must as it's supposed to be less greedy when it comes to battery consumption.

[stevebedder]

I've done 3 or 4 installs of Win7 and each time done it from scratch as I'm not a fan of upgrading an OS - I'd much rather have a clean build. Each time I've installed Win7 it's gone very quickly and without any problems.

The change from Vista to Win7 IMO is night and day, Win7 is so much slicker at what it does and the engine and gearbox has had a real good overhaul so that it makes much better use of your hardware. If you're running Vista now, you won't regret going to Win7 IMO.

Cheers

Steve

[Forseti]

'God Mode' for W7 - some might find this convenient. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10423985-56.html

[picsfor]

bit like the old MMS folder in 2000 & XP.

It was created for the tech support people who would be able to configure whole networks and support tools to be dealt with from a single folder.
Great stuff, thanks for pointing it out, before i set about removing MS from my computing environment.