Microsoft's Redemption

[apomb]

Last night, against my better judgment, I decided to install Windows 7 on my Dell Dimension E520 POS with a Celeron D 3.05GHz 2GB of RAM 100GB hdd. I have to say, this was the most enjoyable windows installation Ive ever experienced. It didnt even destroy my Linux partition. even though this computer is dated and seemingly underpowered, it runs Win7 like cake. Even XP didnt run this good on a clean install. Anyway, I'm amazed that I'm gushing over a windows product, but its true, Windows 7 is actually a reasonable Operating System. Anyone else get the feeling like Windows has finally created a useful Operating System?

[md]

I tried it, it wasn't awful - but there were still plenty of issues (VGA output being the most obvious...).

[apomb]

What kind of problems with VGA output?

Except for the installation screen, the resolution defaulted to my monitor's native resolution, my printer worked right away, and so did my wireless connection; something I cant say Vista or XP did at all well.

[DemonWasp]

I've also had largely positive experiences with Windows 7. I've also had it completely crash (really really hard) twice in the past two weeks. I'm hopeful SP1 addresses some of the stability issues.

[Tony]

My brother's HP laptop was missing video drivers; had to manually go and find (Vista's!) drivers to install to make it reasonable.

The sound still doesn't work on my MacBook, even though I've installed the drivers that everyone seems to be pointing at for that issue.

But I guess I'm with Penny-Arcade on this one:

[md]

apomb @ 2009-11-11, 9:39 am wrote:

What kind of problems with VGA output?

Except for the installation screen, the resolution defaulted to my monitor's native resolution, my printer worked right away, and so did my wireless connection; something I cant say Vista or XP did at all well.

It couldn't drive the VGA output properly, so when I hooked my LCD up to my laptop I would either lose the top and left ~40 pixels, or bottom and right 40 pixels. Which was dependent on how windows felt - and it would change whenever the resolution changed, or the display was turned off (aka, power save mode). There were other problems with Lenovo not having drivers for all the hardware yet - and apparently Intel HD audio being a royal screwup (even on linux).

Using linux I don't have that problem - though I do have issues with the Gnome Display Manager forgetting what it's settings are.

[andrew.]

Weird. So far my experiences with Windows 7 have been very positive. Drivers are easy to install and work well. I've had the beta, RC 1, and the final version and the only time I had a problem was with the beta on my P4. The graphics drivers I installed were for XP so when I started Media Centre it crashed. This was fixed with the RC 1 though as the computer runs amazing (better than XP) and can even play Sims 3!

[Alexmula]

i've been having problems with the switchable graphics options of my t400. thats about it

[SNIPERDUDE]

XKCD approach?



In all honesty I'm going to do a little more research before i jump on board - stability is absolutely crucial for me.
Don't need 3DS Max crashing...

[andrew.]

I doubt it will crash. I've never really heard of W7 crashing or glitching up on the final version except for md's computer.

[apomb]

I actually heard that alot of people had problems with the initial install, it apparently kept rebooting endlessly. I personally think they forgot to switch their boot order back to harddrive first.

here is the site i got my info from

[wtd]

apomb @ Thu Nov 12, 2009 11:39 am wrote:

I actually heard that alot of people had problems with the initial install, it apparently kept rebooting endlessly. I personally think they forgot to switch their boot order back to harddrive first

Shouldn't be an issue. I've yet to encounter a BIOS that will just automatically start (as opposed to doing so at a prompt) from the optical drive if there's a bootable hard drive partition.

[Brightguy]

LOL, my computer doesn't even meet the minimum requirements. Linux wins again.

[saltpro15]

Brightguy @ Fri Nov 13, 2009 wrote:

LOL, my computer doesn't even meet the minimum requirements. Linux wins again.

same. Ubuntu 8.10 is still my OS of choice

[andrew.]

Ubuntu isn't that great of a Linux distro though IMO. The requirements are higher than other distros and it just feels slow to me (almost as bad as Windows).