Windows 7

[picsfor]

At this stage i still haven't had a chance to use it much.
All i've done is some use of Firefox for internet browsing and installed a copy of Settlers which is an older game to see how it handles it. Thus far it has handled it without a problem.
Kaspersky loves it (the genuine one not the Virgin branded one) and Office 2007 hasn't batted an eye lid.

It seems to boot up noticeably quicker at this stage and it has a much better defrag application than on Vista.
But - the update downloads are coming in thick and fast. At this rate in a month i'll have to re-build it...

I might persuade my self to give it a real go one day - but i'm still in love with my Mac!

[Mick]

Got my free Acer windows 7 upgrade a few days ago.  Been a bit reluctant to install it yet though.

A couple of questions to those who have gone through the upgrade process.

I downloaded and run the upgrade adviser, and it told me I have a couple of problems to sort out.  One was a nvidia stereoscopic driver.  The other was the fact that I haven't got windows live mail installed.  Surprised to see there's no email program included with 7 

It showed I have ten programs that are compatible with windows 7.

What about all the other programs I have installed, no mention of those at all.   Do I have to remove them first, and re-install after the upgrade.  Or just leave them and see if they work afterwards.

Also have any of you done this upgrade on a Acer Aspire desktop?  My upgrade comes as two DVDs, and the instructions on Acer's website don't mention two disks.  And have conflicting instructions.

[picsfor]

Mick,

mine came by way of a Toshiba upgrade disk.Told me to do what you've done and oh it didn't half talk some rubbish.

So, having made sure i had no data of worth - i stuck the upgrade disk in and ran it is a clean install, formatting the hard drive along the way.
The installation went as cleanly as a Mac rebuild - without a hitch. Completed in about 15 minutes i think it was.

I then proceeded to re-install the few programs that still get used with Windows which despite MS warnings have all worked like a dream.
i have had to install an old copy of Outlook to deal with any e-mail issues.

The reason there is no e-mail program is because they (Microsoft) want you to adopt the "Windows Live" and cloud computing way of life.
I have never had a Hotmail or any other MS mail account and first thing i done once the install was completed was uninstall IE and install Firefox.
I then went into Firefox and Kaspersky as i have always done and told them that as far as possible Hotmail and IE are evil nasty things that should never cross it's path and added Windows Live just to make sure.

The only thing that annoys me for which i can find no fix is that when ever i log onto this site and play something in the arcade some stupid back up regime seems to feel a need to operate and interrupt the activity.
Irritates the hell out of me.

That aside - i have to be honest and say it has worked without a hitch - for a Microsoft Windows OS. Certainly as solid as Win 2K or XP when installed on suitable computers.  

[spinner]

Got my free Acer windows 7 upgrade a few days ago.  Been a bit reluctant to install it yet though.

A couple of questions to those who have gone through the upgrade process.

I downloaded and run the upgrade adviser, and it told me I have a couple of problems to sort out.  One was a nvidia stereoscopic driver.  The other was the fact that I haven't got windows live mail installed.  Surprised to see there's no email program included with 7 

It showed I have ten programs that are compatible with windows 7.

What about all the other programs I have installed, no mention of those at all.   Do I have to remove them first, and re-install after the upgrade.  Or just leave them and see if they work afterwards.

Also have any of you done this upgrade on a Acer Aspire desktop?  My upgrade comes as two DVDs, and the instructions on Acer's website don't mention two disks.  And have conflicting instructions.

After my upgrade some programs worked the way they had on Vista, some had to be reinstalled and some were there but not on the start menu and all I had to do was find the launching file double click it to get the program running and after that it showed up in the menu. In retrospect, I probably reinstalled a couple of programs I didn't need to, I just couldn't find them at first.

As to the Mail program, the one in Vista was an abysmal failure and yes they are pushing their cloud applications. If you like firefox, download thunderbird it works a great deal like Outlook Express did.

You have two discs because Windows now ships both the 32 bit program and the 64 bit together. I've got 32 bit on one machine and 64 bit on another. I haven't seen any worthwhile performance increase with 64 bit and to be honest there isn't a whole lot of 64 bit software out there anyway.

I can't speak to the specifics of your Acer, but I installed one upgrade on a Gateway Desktop, a Gateway laptop and a custom built rig and all went fine. They've been up and running since Christmas with no issues.

[spinner]

One codicil, if you have any usb peripherals leave them disconnected until you do the upgrade. For some reason that throws a wrench into the install. My desktop currently has 4 external HD's and two Printers attached. The install hung until I turned them all off, then went ahead as expected. Once done and running I turned them all back on and they loaded without incident.

[SimonW]

Maybe not strictly a Windows 7 issue, but perhaps a small note of caution:-

I recently bought a new Dell laptop with Windows 7 after confirming that Elements 8 and ProShow would run on it. They both installed and ran OK - no bother at all with Elements including making backup DVDs and slide show CDs. But Proshow hit a snag - it does not see the optical drive and therefore I cannot create CDs of any sort with it. Their very helpful and persistent support team tried everything and in the end said Proshow does not support my particular optical drive - which is a bog standard "old tech" DVD+/-RW, no double sided or blueray.

(ProShow can generate an ISO disk image, so I hope to find some burning software which can turn this into a CD, but haven't got there yet.)

[Forseti]

Simon - I don't want to stray too far OT here but the answer to your problem might well lie somewhere else -  I won't get too technical because in all honesty I don't understand a lot of it myself LOL, but anyway. The problem can lie in (a) the codecs installed on the machine or/and (b) another programme capturing the burning device. A while back now on an old PC running XP I was no longer able to burn CD's/DVD's from WMP and after many hours of net searching discovered that the problem lay in Nero's InCid not allowing other applications access to the burner. Once this unnecessary application was removed WMP once more had access to the burner. More recently (on my present PC - also XP) another application - Sony Vegas was unable to access the internal burner although with a separate external USB burner it could. In this case, and after several telephone conversations with Sony support I was advised that many applications install codecs packages and most users (including me) aren't aware that old one's should first be removed. This also includes codecs that camera manufacturers install/as well as the OS allowing one to view images etc. The advice given in this case was (a) to access the start up programmes via msconfig and one by one to disable them, reboot the system and try the burner again. This method, whilst time consuming allows one to discover and eliminate which applications are accessing the burner and basically taking it over denying other applications access to it. The second method, and the one that worked for me was to locate all the codecs on the PC, remove them followed by installing a complete codecs package that is readily available on the web.

[Mick]

Well I did the upgrade yesterday.  Surprisingly all my files are still intact, and all my programs seem to be working too.  Even the ones that were not down as compatible.

Took a while going the upgrade route, but not as long as having to reinstall all my files and programs would have done.

Happy so far.   

[picsfor]

Glad to hear it all went OK Mick and you are still operational so to speak.
I think many of the MS warnings about compatibility are excessive caution.

They (MS) got their fingers well and truly burned with Vista and i think this time they've taken the opposite line. It seems fairly stable to me - but I just do not like the new interface.
But, in true Microsoft fashion, they've designed it so you are going to (as far as they can enforce such a thing) sign up to "their" version of modern computing.
Fortunately the EU have passed a few rulings which have almost negated their ability to enforce such a policy. Choice of browser, e-mail client and music player really are down to you to choose 

[Forseti]

OK then, having run Windows Upgrade Advisor my system seems good to go for either the 32 or 64 bit versions of Windows 7. The question is, for a current XP user which one of the several options should one choose? I know that I'd want the Professional version but having taken a quick look on Amazon I'm left scratching my head somewhat. For English readers here's the link to the Amazon UK site - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002DGS82G/ref=s9_simh_gw_p65_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1T55F4C9W17RSPRWF01R&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467198433&pf_rd_i=468294 - please take a look at Customer Review #2 by Dr. Norman W. Poole who it would appear was mislead by Amazon.

Whilst the PC scan suggests that from a hardware point of view my system is OK, it threw up a few software compatibility issues. A couple such as Microsoft RAW image viewer I can live without as I use another codecs application for viewing RAW thumbnail images in Explorer so that, and a couple of others, I'm not too concerned with. Another non compatible is Canons Internet Library Zoombrowser EX v1.6.39 which takes up over 100MB of hard drive on my PC. I don't even know what this is exactly but am reluctant to delete it via Add/Remove Programmes as it might interfere with Zoombrowser itself. Can anyone help in this particular regard.

Essential applications are of course Lightroom and Photoshop which are currently running on my 32 bit system. With Lightroom I know that there is a 64 bit installer and I can quite happily use the existing licence provided. But what about Photoshop - does the supplied DVD also allow for 64 bit installs and would one need to 'Deactivate' it within the XP OS first prior to reinstalling using the W7 installation?

[picsfor]

Forseti,

Photoshop would need to be de-activated before uninstalling from your current computer configuration. That is standard since the intro of CS2.
As for the 32/64 bit issue i can't help.
LR installs without any hitch and you would just select the 64 bit version.

I'm taking it from your enquiry that your system is fully 64bit compliant? If not then i would stick with the 32 bit version - it does still seem to fly along with 4gb ram and a reasonable processor on the laptop.
My only comment of certainty here is that you should perform a clean install and not mess about using the upgrade path - most of the problems upgrading come from this path.
Clean installs tend to work much better and only requires you to put your old XP DVD in the drive for verification purposes.

Of importance to note - Windows 7 does not come with a mail program, so i suggest you had better make sure you have one or your current one can be installed.

And finally - it most definitely was NOT my idea! As said before, if it was my idea Apple and Linux would be history 

[spinner]

Forseti,

I've installed both the 32 bit version and the 64 bit version on reasonably compatible systems (if anything the 64 bit system is slightly better). Frankly I can't see any difference in how they process data. And other than high end software like photoshop, most other stuff is still only 32 bit.

And why are you leaning towards the professional version? Unless you run a network, home or otherwise, you're buying features designed for system administrators to track and evaluate multiple systems and users.

[Mick]

please take a look at Customer Review #2 by Dr. Norman W. Poole who it would appear was mislead by Amazon.

Not sure he was mislead, the info is Here  And as far as I'm aware you've never been able to do a upgrade install of windows 7 from XP.  You have to do a custom install ( in other words clean install) .  This wipes your data.

If on the other hand you had vista, then you can do a upgrade install as I did, and all your programs and data remain.

[picsfor]

And why are you leaning towards the professional version? Unless you run a network, home or otherwise, you're buying features designed for system administrators to track and evaluate multiple systems and users.

Excellent point that chap - stick with the home premium version. It's cheaper and does all you need.

[Mick]

And why are you leaning towards the professional version? Unless you run a network, home or otherwise, you're buying features designed for system administrators to track and evaluate multiple systems and users.

Maybe it was for this, Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC  Only available for Pro / Enterpirise and ultimate versions of windows 7.