Windows 7 will be faster than Windows Vista and XP

[DrPepper]

I think you need vista to be able to upgrade.

 

[qubit]

Interesting. I thought the media center would only be available in the "ultimate" version.

It's still $200. Can we "upgrade" or "downgrade" from Win7 Ultimate (RC) to Win7 Home premium?

MC was only available in the Ultimate version of Vista, which is why you were confused. As far as I know, you cannot do an in-place install over 7 RC, it must be clean. Even if you could, I wouldn't recommend it, because it's asking for problems.

 

[AsphyxiA]

Newteckie, just tell them to install linux and be done with it! No viruses, plenty of free programs and it runs faster than XP!

 

[newtekie1]

Interesting. I thought the media center would only be available in the "ultimate" version.

It's still $200. Can we "upgrade" or "downgrade" from Win7 Ultimate (RC) to Win7 Home premium?

Nope, it is available in both Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate editions of Windows 7. It was only avialable in Home Premium or Ultimate with Vista.

Also, you bought XP MCE as an OEM, as it was only available in this form, so why not consider the OEM prices of Windows 7? Home Premium will be $99 for the OEM version, and that is the equivalent of XP MCE.

MC was only available in the Ultimate version of Vista, which is why you were confused. As far as I know, you cannot do an in-place install over 7 RC, it must be clean. Even if you could, I wouldn't recommend it, because it's asking for problems.

It was also available in Home Premium. Vista's versions were a little confusing. I like how they revamped them for Windows 7. With Windows 7, each version includes all the features of the versions below it.

With Vista, Home Premium had certain features, and Business had other features. Ultimate had all the features of Home Premium and Business and a few extra features.

With Windows 7, Home Premium has certain features, Professional has all the features of Home Premium and a few extra, and Ultimate has all the features of Professions and hence Home Premium and a few extra.

Newteckie, just tell them to install linux and be done with it! No viruses, plenty of free programs and it runs faster than XP!

You forgot, less functionality, less user friendly, and even worse compatibilty than moving to Vista/7.

No thanks, I am trying to recommend the better solution here, and linux is not it.

 

[qubit]

It was also available in Home Premium. Vista's versions were a little confusing. I like how they revamped them for Windows 7. With Windows 7, each version includes all the features of the versions below it.

With Vista, Home Premium had certain features, and Business had other features. Ultimate had all the features of Home Premium and Business and a few extra features.

With Windows 7, Home Premium has certain features, Professional has all the features of Home Premium and a few extra, and Ultimate has all the features of Professions and hence Home Premium and a few extra.

Heck, it was confusing - I see that I was too and stand corrected.

 

[farlex85]

In my line of work, I have to deal with a lot of people asking me if they should upgrade to the latest version of Windows, and usually they want to upgrade to a new computer also. I can't even count the number of times I've been asked "If I buy a new computer, should I make sure to still get XP? I don't want Vista because it will be slower." The main concern seems to stem from all the complaints about Vista being slower than XP. The same concerns are now being voiced to me about Windows 7.

I always tell them not to worry, Vista and Windows 7 will be faster. I don't bother to really explain my reasoning behind it, but someone argued with me this morning about it, so I need to rant.

Before I really start, let me say this: Yes, I agree entirely that Vista and Windows 7 are slower than XP when all three are run on the same hardware with fresh installs of all three.

Now, the reason I tell the common consumer that Vista and Windows 7 will be faster is two fold.

First, when someone asks me about buying a new computer, and worrying about Vista/7 being slower, I tell them not to worry because when they are buying a new computer, the hardware will more than likely be a lot better than what they were running XP on. So, to them, Vista/7 will be a lot faster than XP was on their old computer. I mean, even on fresh install, Vista on a Quad-Core with 4GB of RAM will be faster than XP on a P4 with 1GB(or 512MB even).

Secondly, even if they aren't buying new hardware, they will be reformatting. And, again, to them this will more than likely make Vista/7 seem faster. Most people that are doing this probably haven't reformatted ever, so their computers are probably in need of it anyway. So a fresh install of Vista/7 will, to them, run faster than their old bloated install of XP.

I can say from experience that the second one is true. I've done several upgrades to Vista on oldish machines. And the people were amazed at "how much faster Vista was than XP". It isn't really faster, it is just less bogged down from years of their crap sitting around choking the machine.

[/rant]

Comments?

Here's a 3rd, most perceived differences b/t those 3 OS's are either due to placebo effects (pre-dis-positioned to believe something) or doing benchmarks that show one is a few milliseconds faster than the other. To me all 3 OS's are of fairly comparable speed, just b/c one does things a few milliseconds or even a few seconds faster doesn't mean I'm going to sit there tapping my foot screaming at my computer to go already. And if I do, then perhaps it's time to see a psychiatrist. Features are more important, and Vista and now 7 after it have successfully upgraded the features of Windows significantly.

That's for performance driven users, who know what a benchmark is and want the most out of their computer. For average users who don't do much I'd tell them if there is any difference b/t speed of the OS then something isn't set up right and needs to be re-evaluated.

 

[Mussels]

Win7 isn't faster than XP. It might boot up faster, but running programs in XP is still faster.

Win7 is faster than Vista.

Win7 also installs faster than XP thats for sure.

I'm sticking with XP Media Center. I would Get Win7 Ultimate but 300+ is to much. Maybe if I get a new prebuilt and it comes preloaded with Win7 Ultimate, I would get it.

I'm dual booting now and Win7 is running smoothly. No compatibility issues at takes up a lot less resource than Vista ever did. But it's not faster than XP.

For examples: I have over 50 movies in my external HD. The video thumbnails takes less than 2 seconds to load on XP. On Win7, it takes up to a full minute to get all the thumbnails loaded.

Same goes with photo gallery. All the thumbnails loads faster on XP.

i dont get that. It may be related to any codec packs you have - excepting my slow arse card reader, all my thumbnails load instantly, or were cached from previous visits to that folder.

Interesting. I thought the media center would only be available in the "ultimate" version.

It's still $200. Can we "upgrade" or "downgrade" from Win7 Ultimate (RC) to Win7 Home premium?

As someone else said, home premium and up have it now.
You can upgrade by putting in a higher level key, but you cant downgrade as far as i know.

Here's a 3rd, most perceived differences b/t those 3 OS's are either due to placebo effects (pre-dis-positioned to believe something) or doing benchmarks that show one is a few milliseconds faster than the other. To me all 3 OS's are of fairly comparable speed, just b/c one does things a few milliseconds or even a few seconds faster doesn't mean I'm going to sit there tapping my foot screaming at my computer to go already..

i agree with this. in many benchmarks XP and 7 are completely tied - in usability it hardly matters if XP can load your program in 2 seconds less, if 7 has a better interface and lets you find what you're looking for 2 seconds faster.

7 has far better searching features, and system features right in front of you - its faster to *use*

 

[ASRockIQ]

why the bitching?

LMAO!!!

 

[vbx]

i dont get that. It may be related to any codec packs you have - excepting my slow arse card reader, all my thumbnails load instantly, or were cached from previous visits to that folder.

Ok, you're right. The 1st time use, it would take a minute. But after that, it would load instantly. Not sure if it would load instantly after a reboot.

 

[Mussels]

Ok, you're right. The 1st time use, it would take a minute. But after that, it would load instantly. Not sure if it would load instantly after a reboot.

no idea on reboots, i'm a hardcore sleep/hibernate user.

 

[SonDa5]

Just installed W7 ultimate 64bit RC from XP 32 bit.

First impressions.


Looks great. Easy to use. Very nice.

Faster???

Not sure yet.

It will take me some time to see if W7 will take my system faster than XP did.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

I think you need vista to be able to upgrade.

That's true,if you buy the upgrade, from XP you will have to do a fresh install, instead of just upgrading like Vista
I'm gonna cancel my preorder for 7 cause I'm going to school for computer science and i now get 4 copies for $19 yay!!

 

[Steevo]

And all your files will be in a folder called windows.old and you can import them from there.

After running XP, Vista, Win 7 tri-boot I am always using Windows 7, it is fast, stable, and yes resume compared to XP is insanely fast, as is boot, and networking, and alot else.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

MC was only available in the Ultimate version of Vista, which is why you were confused. As far as I know, you cannot do an in-place install over 7 RC, it must be clean. Even if you could, I wouldn't recommend it, because it's asking for problems.

Actually its in home premium too.

 

[Mussels]

vistas lineup was just confusing since a version 'above' could miss features from the 'lower' editions.

Media center was in home premium and ultimate, and nothing else in vista. in 7 its in home premium, professional, and ultimate. (i havent checked the 'business' side of things)

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

vistas lineup was just confusing since a version 'above' could miss features from the 'lower' editions.

Media center was in home premium and ultimate, and nothing else in vista. in 7 its in home premium, professional, and ultimate. (i havent checked the 'business' side of things)

I dont think there even is a business version. I think its just Home, Pro, and Ultimate. Though there might be a basic. Im not sure.

 

[Mussels]

I dont think there even is a business version. I think its just Home, Pro, and Ultimate. Though there might be a basic. Im not sure.

i meant things like server, business, whatever else there might be. There is a basic - i'll get a list

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/30/windows-7-whats-the-difference-between-the-editions

enterprise is what i was thinking of, but it seems to match ultimate in features.

 

[newtekie1]

It seems to me that Ultimate has really become a waste for most enthusiasts, and Home Premium or at the most Professional should suite out needs. I don't really see a need to buy Ultimate for most, though I didn't see a need for Ultimate with Vista either. I got buy with Business Edition just fine.

I do know that there were at least some people that were tricked into thinking that the Business Edition couldn't handle any media functions at all because it didn't have Media Center. They believed that Media Center was required to watch videos and listen to music, so they bought Ultimate to get it along with the features of Business Edition.... That shouldn't be an issue with 7 though.

 

[Kenshai]

I dont think there even is a business version. I think its just Home, Pro, and Ultimate. Though there might be a basic. Im not sure.

From what I see the Professional version replaced the Business edition.

 

[RadeonProVega]

I tried all 3 OS's over and over again on the machine i have now. I use to think that XP was the fastest OS ever, but after using Vista for the past few months, gaming performance Vista vs XP, Vista wins by a landslide, seriously. I get like triple the performance in Vista over XP. Only problem at the moment, recording very demanding games is a hassle compared to recording them in XP.
But i think thats more at fault with PCI cards, then the OS itself.

Anyways, Vista is the BeST OS IMO so far, XP is next and Win 7 is next. Win 7 is more demanding then Vista i have notice.

 

[Wile E]

I tried all 3 OS's over and over again on the machine i have now. I use to think that XP was the fastest OS ever, but after using Vista for the past few months, gaming performance Vista vs XP, Vista wins by a landslide, seriously. I get like triple the performance in Vista over XP. Only problem at the moment, recording very demanding games is a hassle compared to recording them in XP.
But i think thats more at fault with PCI cards, then the OS itself.

Anyways, Vista is the BeST OS IMO so far, XP is next and Win 7 is next. Win 7 is more demanding then Vista i have notice.

I think you're probably the only person here that thinks that. Might be related to using PCI cards tho. I know 7 doesn't like AGP, so it serve to reason it probably like a more antiquate interface even less.

Short version = buy a PCIe card and compare again.

 

[Mussels]

I think you're probably the only person here that thinks that. Might be related to using PCI cards tho. I know 7 doesn't like AGP, so it serve to reason it probably like a more antiquate interface even less.

Short version = buy a PCIe card and compare again.

windows 7 makes me happy in my pants.

Theres just some very cool stuff built in, like its default codecs having hardware acceleration, the ability to stream/remote control windows media player from other machines, stuff like that.

 

[Wile E]

windows 7 makes me happy in my pants.

Theres just some very cool stuff built in, like its default codecs having hardware acceleration, the ability to stream/remote control windows media player from other machines, stuff like that.

I can't get hardware acceleration running on mine yet. Even tried forcing it to use the MPC DXVA codecs. (Not that it's 100% needed with an OCed quad.) Would be nice to figure out for the lappy and STB HTPC tho. Not needed on my secondary rig tho, as I just force registered the CoreAVC codec and use CUDA on the 8800GT. Heard that maybe it's the fault of the ATI drivers. Any truth to that?

 

[Mussels]

I can't get hardware acceleration running on mine yet. Even tried forcing it to use the MPC DXVA codecs. (Not that it's 100% needed with an OCed quad.) Would be nice to figure out for the lappy and STB HTPC tho. Not needed on my secondary rig tho, as I just force registered the CoreAVC codec and use CUDA on the 8800GT. Heard that maybe it's the fault of the ATI drivers. Any truth to that?

you need to run in the EVR custom rendering path, and force the "Microsoft DTV-DVD Video decoder" as the preferred codec.

CoreAVC + cuda is a lot easier to get working, ATI's methiod works fine in 7 - they just havent fixed one setting yet where some files come out corrupted (not many, just some)

 

[Wile E]

you need to run in the EVR custom rendering path, and force the "Microsoft DTV-DVD Video decoder" as the preferred codec.


CoreAVC + cuda is a lot easier to get working, ATI's methiod works fine in 7 - they just havent fixed one setting yet where some files come out corrupted (not many, just some)

Yeah, I'm running EVR, and I tried forcing the MS codec as well as the MPC codec with no success. What cat are you using?