Has anybody upgraded their comp to win7? I am contemplating it as the laptop I have is slowing up, and vista won,t recognise 4 gig of ram. Its either upgrade or get new laptop, and upgrade is cheaper, at about $110.People tell me that win7 is better. What are your views. Thanks, Bill
aussietraveller said
02:05 PM Jun 22, 2012
I switched to Windows 7 about 6 months ago from vista and am very happy with the result.
Keith19837 said
04:07 PM Jun 22, 2012
bill12 wrote:
Has anybody upgraded their comp to win7? I am contemplating it as the laptop I have is slowing up, and vista won,t recognise 4 gig of ram. Its either upgrade or get new laptop, and upgrade is cheaper, at about $110.People tell me that win7 is better. What are your views. Thanks, Bill
I got Windows 7 when I bought a new desk top late last year. Not much choice at the time as it was about all that was selling at Officeworks. I find it to be O.K. but the Office programme it comes with doesn't appear to fully support some of the previous versions. For example, some 'doc' files don't retain their format when opened up in some earlier versions and require a little tweaking to get the formatting to be the same as the original. Having said that, I'm from the old school and find the newer stuff a bit 'over the top' for me personally. I used to love 3.11 because there was a programme to recover lost or erased files on disks etc. But 7 does the job but personally I find it harder to get through all the extra icons etc. For what it's worth.
bill12 said
04:12 PM Jun 22, 2012
Got one for $100.but I have to put up with all the lost files til I get the upgrade. Can,t do my banking cos bank won,t recognise win 8.Should have bought the win 7 upgrade. Bugga! Will post how it goes.Like to shoot Bill Gates as you can,t go back , and the mongrels don,t tell you that unless you read the fine print. Bill
-- Edited by bill12 on Friday 22nd of June 2012 04:14:56 PM
Yuglamron said
04:43 PM Jun 22, 2012
Hi Bill, My son tells me Windows 8 comes out in September.
He also says that if you buy 7 now you can upgrade to Windows 8 in September for $15
He has a Beta copy of 8 and the program runs faster and better than 7.
That's his take on 8.
It would be worth double checking the pricing and then deciding.
Regards
Trevor
Safe Travels.
Happywanderer said
04:45 PM Jun 22, 2012
I have Windows 7 since buying a new laptop last year, have had no problems with it.
bill12 said
09:13 PM Jun 22, 2012
I went looking for a free or cheap win 8 app, and downloaded it- disaster! do not download it if you want to keep your old files.I have just got back online after hours of trying. What a pain in the ass!
gst said
10:40 PM Jun 22, 2012
My sister son just priced win 7 and was told it cheaper to buy a new computer with 7 on as 7 would cost $200.
bill12 said
02:35 PM Jun 23, 2012
This win 8 is not a good system. Its labarinthal and hard to use , and won,t recognise any older programs. I would go back to vista, given half a chance. Can,t do anything I want to.Win 7 disks come next week.Damn!
_wombat_ said
02:02 AM Jun 24, 2012
bill12 wrote:
This win 8 is not a good system. Its labarinthal and hard to use , and won,t recognise any older programs. I would go back to vista, given half a chance. Can,t do anything I want to.Win 7 disks come next week.Damn!
did you do a backup of your complete system to an external drive ?
before installing ANY update
If you did you can reformat and reinstall Vista or Win 7
bill12 said
12:25 PM Jun 24, 2012
That's exactly what I am going to do when the new win 7 arrives.
PeterD said
01:48 PM Jun 24, 2012
jimricho wrote:
I must be a troglodyte, I'm still using XP
Have just updated the last machine in the family (the navigators) to Win 7 this morning. It was getting to the stage that its XP system was getting so roapie that it needed a format: C and reloading of the system. As I still had an unused Win 7 license we used that (even though the Aeroglass feature is not usable.) It would not have been changed if the old XP was working smoothly, I'm now going to start the retraining.
-- Edited by PeterD on Sunday 24th of June 2012 01:49:46 PM
jimricho said
02:39 PM Jun 24, 2012
I must be a troglodyte, I'm still using XP
_wombat_ said
03:43 PM Jun 24, 2012
bill12 wrote:
That's exactly what I am going to do when the new win 7 arrives.
here is the only program I use for backing up my computers (all 5 of them) and I do each computer once a week, I also keep the last 3 backups of each computer, then when I do the 4th backup I delete the 1st in the series so that I only ever have 3 backups on each 2tb external drive, if one backup fail's I always have another 2 that I can fall back on, it's a fail safe system.
jimricho, XP is still a good system, I also still have one and I still use it.
_wombat_ said
09:02 PM Jun 24, 2012
PeterD wrote:
jimricho wrote:
I must be a troglodyte, I'm still using XP
Have just updated the last machine in the family (the navigators) to Win 7 this morning. It was getting to the stage that its XP system was getting so roapie that it needed a format: C and reloading of the system. As I still had an unused Win 7 license we used that (even though the Aeroglass feature is not usable.) It would not have been changed if the old XP was working smoothly, I'm now going to start the retraining.
-- Edited by PeterD on Sunday 24th of June 2012 01:49:46 PM
retraining is the hard part
Cupie said
09:10 PM Jun 24, 2012
bill12 wrote:
Has anybody upgraded their comp to win7? I am contemplating it as the laptop I have is slowing up, and vista won,t recognise 4 gig of ram. Its either upgrade or get new laptop, and upgrade is cheaper, at about $110.People tell me that win7 is better. What are your views. Thanks, Bill
I have a 64bit version of W7 on my laptop. Previous 32 bit W7 ended up with corrupted drivers & the guy at the computer shop reinstalled a 64bit version. Goes great.
As I understand the situation you will need a 64bit version if you want to recognise the extra RAM.
bill12 said
10:27 PM Jun 24, 2012
I bought a 64bit home premium version of win7. I will format the hard drive and do a clean install. I have backup copies of most of my important files. I hope it works. Thanks, Bill
_wombat_ said
11:35 PM Jun 24, 2012
bill12 wrote:
I bought a 64bit home premium version of win7. I will format the hard drive and do a clean install. I have backup copies of most of my important files. I hope it works. Thanks, Bill
Bill I hope your backups are on an external drive, you would not believe how many people put them in their C drive.
Popeye said
12:50 AM Jun 25, 2012
7 can be made to look & work like XP.
Cupie said
03:53 PM Jun 25, 2012
I hope that your peripherals & programs are W7 64b compatable.
The suppliers of some of the older hardware do not offer W7 drivers for dpwnload. My policy of only buying Canon paid off & of my ageing printer & flat bed scanner were OK.
Pitty about some of the old favourite programs though.
Most were freeware with no W7 64b versions avaialble. But with a bit of effort I got some replacements.
The old 'non registered' copies were lost though. Which is probably the right thing & usually had freeware alternatives eg An old Office suite was replaced with either Open office or Libre Office. Outlook was replaced with either Mozilla or Windows Live. I chose WL & Libre, both of which are free & work at least as well as the originals.
PeterD said
08:40 AM Jun 26, 2012
Popeye wrote:
7 can be made to look & work like XP.
Yes, Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization and then scrol down to - Basic and High Contrast Themes > Windows Classic.
-- Edited by PeterD on Tuesday 26th of June 2012 08:44:53 AM
bill12 said
04:41 AM Jun 29, 2012
Hallelujah! I git the win7 disk and did a full format, and am happy to say, IT WORKS!Will post if there are any problems. To say I am relieved , is an understatement. Bill
neilnruth said
04:06 AM Jun 30, 2012
I've had Windows 7 since the laptop last year and it works great. Just takes getting used to like all new systems.
bill12 said
12:28 PM Jun 30, 2012
Yes, I have an external drive, but it creashed afterI droped it, so all the important files were put on cds, and usb sticks. It works, and I have a lot more room after the format. I would like to do it once a year, just to get rid of the junk that accumulates.Win 7 seeem good , too. Bill
milo said
08:19 PM Jun 30, 2012
I love windows 7 , i hear bad things about windows 8 comming out soon.. for packing up your pics and vids try using sites like flickr.com or photobucket.com as for other stuff carbonite and other services out there for back ups..
jimricho said
01:36 AM Jul 3, 2012
It seems Microsoft have a habit of releasing a stable version then a dog then a stable version etc, etc. A tradition going back to DOS days, DOS3x was stable, 4x a dog, 5 their best then along came Win95. (a bit of ancient history for you!). I have a relative who comes from the mainframe IT industry, and he reckons that IBM were into this long before Microsoft and it was they (IBM) who turned it into an art form.
blaze said
05:53 AM Jul 3, 2012
you missed about 6 rewrites of dos 6, then come widows 3, 3.1 etc, win 95 was a late starter Still have numerous copies of dos disks along with other varients of window based operating systems that were mainly designed for networks cheers blaze
jimricho said
01:05 PM Jul 3, 2012
Forgot about about Dos6 but it followed the pattern. As I recall (my "recaller" is not very reliable ) Win 3.11 (the network compatible version) wasn't too bad, was running it with Dos5 and Novell, forget which version numbers but initially the "bindery" version and then the first of the NDS versions.
Didn't get involved with any of the Windows networking stuff, Novell was a big enough challenge for my limited brainpower.
Installing any extra hardware, modems, network cards etc was a challenge as one had to set the memory addresses and interrupts manually, often with jumpers on the card.
No wonder I retired and took up tag-along tours and "grey nomadding".
PS: Also used WordPerfect and Lotus 123, both excellent programs in their day.
jimricho said
07:05 PM Jul 3, 2012
Keith19837 wrote:
What ever happened to the good old piece of string with two tin cans?
or this:
-- Edited by jimricho on Tuesday 3rd of July 2012 07:09:28 PM
Has anybody upgraded their comp to win7? I am contemplating it as the laptop I have is slowing up, and vista won,t recognise 4 gig of ram. Its either upgrade or get new laptop, and upgrade is cheaper, at about $110.People tell me that win7 is better. What are your views. Thanks, Bill
I got Windows 7 when I bought a new desk top late last year. Not much choice at the time as it was about all that was selling at Officeworks. I find it to be O.K. but the Office programme it comes with doesn't appear to fully support some of the previous versions. For example, some 'doc' files don't retain their format when opened up in some earlier versions and require a little tweaking to get the formatting to be the same as the original. Having said that, I'm from the old school and find the newer stuff a bit 'over the top' for me personally. I used to love 3.11 because there was a programme to recover lost or erased files on disks etc. But 7 does the job but personally I find it harder to get through all the extra icons etc. For what it's worth.
Got one for $100.but I have to put up with all the lost files til I get the upgrade. Can,t do my banking cos bank won,t recognise win 8.Should have bought the win 7 upgrade. Bugga! Will post how it goes.Like to shoot Bill Gates as you can,t go back , and the mongrels don,t tell you that unless you read the fine print. Bill
-- Edited by bill12 on Friday 22nd of June 2012 04:14:56 PM
Hi Bill, My son tells me Windows 8 comes out in September.
He also says that if you buy 7 now you can upgrade to Windows 8 in September for $15
He has a Beta copy of 8 and the program runs faster and better than 7.
That's his take on 8.
It would be worth double checking the pricing and then deciding.
Regards
Trevor
Safe Travels.
did you do a backup of your complete system to an external drive ?
before installing ANY update
If you did you can reformat and reinstall Vista or Win 7
Have just updated the last machine in the family (the navigators) to Win 7 this morning. It was getting to the stage that its XP system was getting so roapie that it needed a format: C and reloading of the system. As I still had an unused Win 7 license we used that (even though the Aeroglass feature is not usable.) It would not have been changed if the old XP was working smoothly, I'm now going to start the retraining.
-- Edited by PeterD on Sunday 24th of June 2012 01:49:46 PM
here is the only program I use for backing up my computers (all 5 of them) and I do each computer once a week, I also keep the last 3 backups of each computer, then when I do the 4th backup I delete the 1st in the series so that I only ever have 3 backups on each 2tb external drive, if one backup fail's I always have another 2 that I can fall back on, it's a fail safe system.
This program is FREE
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/download.html
jimricho, XP is still a good system, I also still have one and I still use it.
retraining is the hard part
I have a 64bit version of W7 on my laptop. Previous 32 bit W7 ended up with corrupted drivers & the guy at the computer shop reinstalled a 64bit version. Goes great.
As I understand the situation you will need a 64bit version if you want to recognise the extra RAM.
Bill I hope your backups are on an external drive, you would not believe how many people put them in their C drive.
7 can be made to look & work like XP.
I hope that your peripherals & programs are W7 64b compatable.
The suppliers of some of the older hardware do not offer W7 drivers for dpwnload. My policy of only buying Canon paid off & of my ageing printer & flat bed scanner were OK.
Pitty about some of the old favourite programs though.
Most were freeware with no W7 64b versions avaialble. But with a bit of effort I got some replacements.
The old 'non registered' copies were lost though. Which is probably the right thing & usually had freeware alternatives eg An old Office suite was replaced with either Open office or Libre Office. Outlook was replaced with either Mozilla or Windows Live. I chose WL & Libre, both of which are free & work at least as well as the originals.
Yes, Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization and then scrol down to - Basic and High Contrast Themes > Windows Classic.
-- Edited by PeterD on Tuesday 26th of June 2012 08:44:53 AM
for packing up your pics and vids try using sites like flickr.com or photobucket.com
as for other stuff carbonite and other services out there for back ups..
Still have numerous copies of dos disks along with other varients of window based operating systems that were mainly designed for networks
cheers
blaze
Forgot about about Dos6 but it followed the pattern. As I recall (my "recaller" is not very reliable
) Win 3.11 (the network compatible version) wasn't too bad, was running it with Dos5 and Novell, forget which version numbers but initially the "bindery" version and then the first of the NDS versions.
Didn't get involved with any of the Windows networking stuff, Novell was a big enough challenge for my limited brainpower.
Installing any extra hardware, modems, network cards etc was a challenge as one had to set the memory addresses and interrupts manually, often with jumpers on the card.
No wonder I retired and took up tag-along tours and "grey nomadding".
PS: Also used WordPerfect and Lotus 123, both excellent programs in their day.
or this:
-- Edited by jimricho on Tuesday 3rd of July 2012 07:09:28 PM