Windows 7

[Griffin NoName]

Sounds like fun. Very tempting. Oh to be able to play Zork again (N, pick up trophy, S, E, open trap door,......)

-- in other words, you could set this thing up, such that it can see other hardware (such as extra hard drives) in your PC.

Can it find the ghost in the machine?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

VMware update:

Apparently, it actually simulates a video card.  I rather expected it to "pass through" my good one, but VMware does not,  it simulates an S3 video-- fine for business.

Worse than useless for games.

So, alas VMware does not do what I wanted it to.

Back to dual-booting into XP, for old games.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

XP is nice, relatively quick and quite compatible.

W7 may have DX11 but I don't have a DX11 video card and the games I run do so very nicely under DX9c (the differences so far are hard to spot). I may consider 7 if I have the hardware and -more importantly- the games I play run significantly better on 7 than XP.

The 64 bit version that allows me to use more than 3.2 GB of memory is a nice thing too but given that I change my hardware with some frequency I'm bothered with the likely chance of 7 saying that it will not activate because I upgraded my videocard or my processor. If I find a version of 7 that doesn't require activation I may even try the thing. 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Well, the other day, I had some extra cash-money lying about, and it was late, and I was thinking about Windows 7 and...

... yep, I upgraded my Win 7 Home Premium all the way to the top, to Windows 7 Ultimate.

After agonizing over the chart-o-features in Wiki, I finally concluded the $$ difference was not that much betwixt upgrading from Home Premium to Business Pro, and upgrading all the way to the top, to Ultimate.

By going to the penultimate version, I now know that **nothing** is locked-down that I cannot legally unlock and muck about with.  Well, at least with regards to features, controls, permissions, how-to's, networking, etc.

Obviously, I cannot clone this onto a 2nd machine legally, and I have no interest in doing that. 

But more than once, I had run up against a Genuine Windows Experience Annoyance, and wondered how to change that behavior.  Nine-of-ten times, the solution involved features, engines, weavels or arcane spells that only resided in the universe of Ultimate.... so.

I have drunk the Kool-Aid.

I am now an Official Towel Boy, should Gates come to my town, and demand obescience.... /sarcasm.

I am happy to report, though, that I paid no taxes on my upgrade-- a surprise.  Furthermore, from start to finish took less than 10 minutes, including the 2 times it rebooted itself.

Now, my boot-screen displays "Windows Ultimate".

I then went and installed the Official MS Virtual XP machine, but haven't done anything with it, of yet-- I will, just not right now.  It does appear to boot and run quite quickly, within a window running on Win 7.  I must install some of the "broken" games within it's little footprint, and see what happens. 

Now, if I can only figure out how to wash off the "Official Microsoft Fan Boy" stain that has mysteriously appeared on my hand... 

[Griffin NoName]

I've been vaguely thinking about upgrading from Vista. Useful to know it really is worth going to Ultimate. My only reservation is all the software I have which may not run in Windows 7. Running it in a virtual XP environment seems a little silly, as then I would never be running anything in Windows 7 so upgrading to it would be for no reason, except to get the virtual XP. If you get my drift.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

7 is useful IF:

-You have more than 3GB of RAM
-You have a 64 bit capable processor
-You need to run DirectX 11

OR

-If you can't downgrade from Vista to XP

If you can find the XP drivers for your computer I would much rather recommend going the XP route as 7 doesn't really offer much unless having transparency in your windows is really that important to you. 

[Griffin NoName]

I've got 4 GB RAM but I'm not 64 bit.

[Sibling DavidH]

On Thursday my laptop died permanently.  Our local boffins diagnosed a cracked motherboard (I dropped it.  I have put in a claim on my insurance, fingers crossed.)
So I've bought a new Toshiba with Windows 7, which so far I have found a huge improvement on Vista.  I took out the old hard drive and connected it with a rather ramshackle USB adaptor which I've had for a while.  No problems, no permissions, no casting of spells: I straightforwardly copied over everything I wanted, though the photos folder took an hour (61 Gig).  After a bit of ferreting around I even tracked down the Thunderbird address book and the Chrome bookmarks and imported them in the usual way.
Time will tell how I like this OS, but so far so good.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I've been vaguely thinking about upgrading from Vista. Useful to know it really is worth going to Ultimate. My only reservation is all the software I have which may not run in Windows 7. Running it in a virtual XP environment seems a little silly, as then I would never be running anything in Windows 7 so upgrading to it would be for no reason, except to get the virtual XP. If you get my drift.

Another reason to get Ultimate Win7, is that you get both 32bit and 64bit flavors, out of the box-- but this is only if you get the end-user CD's (DVD's?).

I have a 64bit pc, and have discovered that for routine programs, the "compatibility engine" built-in to 7 actually works well enough, I can usually brow-beat the program to run, and run more than good enough for my needs.   I've yet to discover one of my favorite utility programs that I either cannot get to work, or that Win7 does not have covered natively anyway.

But.

With some programs that push the envelope [games]-- even if that envelope was circa 1998, simply do not work in 64bit 7, no matter what I do/try.  Hence the virtual XP, and the 2nd rooted hard disk with an actual install of XP I can reboot to (using my excellent BIOS's boot option-- press F11 during startup, which I've added a slight delay to, by enabling the long memory test-- more than enough time to press F11, if I'm inclined, else it simply boots to 7 automagically).

But.  Win7 U vs Win7 HB has a huge price kicker, if you're purchasing retail-- which I do not recommend.  That's too much markup, and M$ ought to be censured on that alone, using the anit-monopoly rules. 

So, go the upgrade path, and keep a copy of your genuine XP cd around, to re-enable that upgraded Win7 cd-- a pain, but worth the savings-- I used that route for many a M$ product I'd upgraded, and then had to later fresh re-install in a bare disk drive machine.  There's a point, where you pop the old CD in the drive during the later-version's install, so it can "see" that you had the old software.  It becomes obvious after you try it without the CD where you need to do that.

Anywho-- here's a chart'o'features for the various Win 7s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions#Comparison_chart

Here's the Official price list of the upgrade versions-- the full-retail is roughly $100US higher at each point-- roughly, it's a sliding scale, with Ultimate being the highest.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare  Overseas pricing will vary a bit, due to pricing policies, rate-exchange, etc.  (and consumer-protective rules a country may have in place)

Note:  DEEP STUDENT DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE-- if you are attending **any** educational system, where you can prove it, (i.e. student ID, etc) you are elegable for a deep discount as said student.  Sometimes, you can purchase M$ products directly through your school, generating them some modest revenue (never a bad thing) and getting a genuine, legal M$ copy for pennies on the $$.  I suggest talking to your campus bookstore, first.

[Griffin NoName]

Oh Wow! You mean I can use my student ID to get it cheap. That alone makes doing this MSc worthwhile

Though I can't see where the student discount is.

And what is the N versions?

Looking at the comparison chart, I can't see why 7 Professional wouldn't do for me. I don't need the last two functions in the list. -

.              Help protect data on your PC and portable storage devices against loss or theft with BitLocker.
.              Work in the language of your choice and switch between any of 35 languages.

[Swatopluk]

.              Work in the language of your choice and switch between any of 35 languages.

But if you don't, they might choose a language for you that you can only change after paying a hefty fee.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Oh Wow! You mean I can use my student ID to get it cheap. That alone makes doing this MSc worthwhile

Though I can't see where the student discount is.

Check with your university, first.  Often you can get a legal student copy through them, and they get a modest fee for doing so.

Everyone wins (except M$ who get a bit less $ than otherwise)...

wait.... that still qualifies as "everyone wins".

[Griffin NoName]

I wonder if you can get Ultimate as a student or if on;y the most basic version.

[Aggie]

Student versions are usually a little stripped-down, but that's based on MS Office, not the OS.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I wonder if you can get Ultimate as a student or if on;y the most basic version.

Student versions are usually a little stripped-down, but that's based on MS Office, not the OS.

As far as I know?  The student windoze 7 is the full-blown thing, (depending on which flavor you ordered, obviously).  The only difference I can find out, is the cost.

Some less than honest websites offer student discounts to anyone, but I've always avoided doing business with those people.  No telling if it's a legit copy until you've made your purchase, and tried to activate it.

Gates is seriously in favor of supporting education; look at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation's charter.  It's hardly surprising they extend this attitude to students.