Is windows 7 worth the 119.99 bucks (+tax)

[Deleted]

Save your cash, go back to XP and wait for Android on PCs... it will be reality within 2 years or less

Android won't be on PCs as it is designed for mobiles in mind. Google had to design 3.0 specifically for tablets, as all other flavours of Android really don't give the tablet justice. Hence why Google has been developing Chrome OS for laptops.

On topic; Vista really isn't anywhere near as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. Sure it has its problems, but that is purely down to the fact that Microsoft were taking too long with Windows 7 and had to ship a new OS.

[Atrea]

Lately ive been feeling like im behind , for not switching to 7 already. But still the damn upgrade is 119 bucks and ive yet to find anything to justify the cost or the hassle of reinstalling WoW and everything else. Im currently running vista 64 bits , havent had any major issues so far.

So what i want to know is :

What will i gain from upgrading?

Is it worth the 119?

Also any advice/tips are welcomed.

Just a tip;
If you upgrade from Vista 64 bit to Windows 7 64 bit, you won't have to reinstall WoW.
It does not require any special registry files, and everything from your previous install will remain intact.
(It's just, some programs will require reinstallation due to the registry files, but I think these will be mercifully few in number.)

[EverFX]

Will that be any good? What are its benefits?? )

Not Android OS, but Chrome OS.

I don't know if they're still working on this or they have focused their attention to developing Android as an actual OS.

chromium.org/chromium-os

youtube.com/watch?v=mTFfl7AjNfI #Boot Speed demonstration of Chrome OS

[synthetikv]

if you have access to a .edu email address you can get win 7 for $30. it says upgrade edition, but allows you to do a clean install like full edition as well.

[pucGG]

You clearly then have no experience outside Microsoft products.

Macs are not men's tools.

[krunksmash]

get 7 vista is trash

[Deleted]

Not Android OS, but Chrome OS.

I don't know if they're still working on this or they have focused their attention to developing Android as an actual OS.

chromium.org/chromium-os

youtube.com/watch?v=mTFfl7AjNfI #Boot Speed demonstration of Chrome OS

They are publicly testing Chrome OS at the moment, with own brand netbooks.

Macs are not men's tools.

Many men would disagree with you. Specifically men of music and men of science and medicine. Also there are other non Microsoft OSs out there which aren't Apple.

get 7 vista is trash

No it's perfectly fine and really isn't worth the upgrade to 7 unless you can get 7 cheap.

[Valthios]

I had no issues with Vista64. I liked the OS, but it was a bit of a resource hog. I upgraded to Win7 64 and haven't regretted it at all. Smooth, light-weight (for Microsoft), and everything just works. Upgrading from Vista to Win7 is smooth and requires little to no reinstalling of third-party software (I needed some new drivers etc, but all my games worked with no changes). Boots up much faster and uses a lot less RAM. All of my games ran smoother and loaded faster.

If you can't get a student copy to upgrade with, get an OEM copy from Newegg. $99 Win7 64 Premium Home Edition.

[Deleted]

A lot of bad advice is being given in this thread by people who have no clue about the content they are talking about.

Windows Vista with service pack 2 is nearly identical to Windows 7 in the current state, Upgrading to windows 7 would be a minimal stability upgrade if you have Service Pack 2 installed in Vista there is no big reason to upgrade to Windows 7.
The concern for Vista users is just in the future, because it will not support Directx 12, but if you are just playing wow and won't play the highend games in the near future, then that is no issue either.

If your Operating system is clogged down, there are much more efficient ways of cleaning it up than a full re-install. You could defragment your partitions (there are plenty of guides on how to do this on the internet), go through your software installations and uninstall what you do not need, etc.
If you do however decide to re-install Windows, a good practice is to install it on a small partition (say 20GB) and make a so called "image" of it right after you installed all the drivers etc, this way you can very quickly restore to a working state if anything ever goes wrong with your installation. Install all programs and data on other partition(s) so you don't lose them when recovering your operating system.

Some other wrong points have been made in this topic, for example both Linux and MacOS are in the current state much more stable than any Windows version you can get, and they can both run World of Warcraft fine, but these things are pretty much outside the scope of your original question.

[vesseblah]

Considering the emulation support of WINE is still quite narrow, i have to agree that W7 is the most user friendly OS to date. Sure, Mac is more stable, but it only runs on Macs, and not on any old hardware. Windows has the advantage of flexibility, but loses out on complete stability.

Dunno what you are doing with Windows, but I've used 7 since the public beta, and currently got 32bit on my old laptop and 64bit on my desktop, and I haven't seen even one OS related crash in this past year. Few bluescreens I've got on this desktop came from overclocking attempts and trying to force 32bit vista drivers of USB TV tuner to install into 64bit Win7. System stability is just as good or better than OSX. On the bright side Windows actually tries to be helpful in explaining what went wrong if it crashes, instead of "sorry, I crashed" in 10 languages like Mac does.

Compared to Vista, W7 is well worth the upgrade. They might seem like the same OS, but the difference is quite noticable. First of all, W7 is configured at default to be a LOT less annoying with UAC alerts. Secondly, the performance increase between them will show thorugh quickly.

When you enter DirectX mode in some game, the performance is exactly same on both Vista and 7, but have to admit that the desktop experience of Win7 is more fun. Stuff is orgranized better and less annoying than before. Still you can get bigger OS performance boost from installing Vista into SSD than switching Vista into 7 on mechanical disc.

[Hitzler]

i use win 7 its worth it. my fav ver of win to date, hated vista

[skyclops]

To the op it really depends on what hardware you have
& yes this does make a huge difference
the gains i would achieve by upgrading are minimal so i dont
i,m on vista ultimate 64
my pc is super fast, stable & i,ve never had any serious issues with it
if it aint broke dont fix it

[Tamsus]

I got mine for a dollar because I'm a college student

[LGalucard]

What i can gather from the replies is :

-That it wont benefit me gaming wise in a noticeable manner

- And the only upgrade comes from the lighter , faster , more "fun" interface.


Am i correct?

[Deleted]

If you have a dx11 cabable graphics card and a dual or quad core computer , upgrading to windows 7 will give you a mentionable fps increase in WoW, since w7 can manage the cores better and has dx11. Btw u wont have to reinstall everything if u just select upgrade when installing windows, only requirement is that windows 7 also has t obe 64 bit.


btw i neither had issues with vista, though i upgraded to 7 on the release day ( win 7 ultimate 64 bit 125€ at amazon yay )
and gained around 10 fps in dalaran back then. Also in my opinion the os itself just runs better...

[Riavan]

If your a student you can get 7 professional for like 50 bucks australian, assuming its cheaper in american.

I have to agree that 7 is much better, my wow used to use a lot of ram and have stuttering fps problems on vista.

[LGalucard]

student version is 65 bucks, or at least thats what the main page says. Ive applied with my edu email that ive never ever used before. The email servers seem to be down so ill check if im eligible later.

Otherwise ill have to drop the 120 bucks it cost on best buy.

Also is the upgrade choice(install over vista) a good idea? does it creates any kind of conflict? How will i know which programs i do need to reinstall?

[Deleted]

Considering the emulation support of WINE is still quite narrow, i have to agree that W7 is the most user friendly OS to date. Sure, Mac is more stable, but it only runs on Macs, and not on any old hardware. Windows has the advantage of flexibility, but loses out on complete stability.

Wine is much better than what it used to be, running wow in wine is now actually quite easy, there is a good guide here at wowwiki: http://www.wowwiki.com/World_of_Warc...nality_on_Wine

Compared to Vista, W7 is well worth the upgrade. They might seem like the same OS, but the difference is quite noticable. First of all, W7 is configured at default to be a LOT less annoying with UAC alerts. Secondly, the performance increase between them will show thorugh quickly.

I'm not saying Vista is a bad OS. I'm just saying it's essentially Windows ME with "moar shinies". Ok, slight overexaggeration, but the point is Windows 7 is well worth the upgrade. Since W8 won't even be peeking into beta for at least a year (assuming they do indeed go for a planned 2012 release), it's worth sitting on W7.

This is quite wrong, windows vista and windows 7 use the same core (windows 6 core, windows vista is windows 6.0; windows 7 is windows 6.1). Windows vista had problems in the start, but if you install servicepack 2, it is nearly identical to windows 7 bar the desktop "experience".

Personally, as a gamer, developer, designer, computer enthusiast, and video editor, i wouldn't even look twice at Vista. Come to think of it, i wouldn't look twice at anything but Windows 7 in the current day, simply because no other OS provides me with the support for everything i deal with. Even if just as a gamer, Windows 7 just stands out to me. However, what's just as important is having the hardware (and moreover the knowledge to optimise) to be able to maximise what you can get out of it.

If you are professional on video editing, there is not much way around macos, because it is a far superior platform for that than windows 7. If you are professional on developing, you pretty much need to run multiplatform, because most software nowadays is made compatible for multiple platforms, unles you are a windows-only coder ofcourse. Also again, both linux and mac are far superior platforms for coding, unless you are coding something like c#.

I'm in no way some sort of fanboy and i am wary of the way Microsoft works, but in the end, they made an almost perfect Operating System for both the average user, and the power user (myself being the latter by a massive amount).

Me neither, i use windows, mac, linux and bsd, but i just know which platform is best for which task

[Drunkenvalley]

How about using a friends disc? You have 3 licenses or something?

A single Windows 7 license cannot be used on two computers connected to the internet. Doing so will disable on machine.

If you are professional on video editing, there is not much way around macos,

PC:
+Superior hardware
-Inferior software

Mac:
+Superior software
-Inferior hardware

The simple fact is that Mac OS is better, but I can more or less guarantee you you're using it on hardware that is worse than a PC of the same price. Or is it just Norway where they run those outrageous prices that put them in line with PCs? Who knows. In the end the products wind up being about equal at least. :/

[soulbound]

Save your cash, go back to XP and wait for Android on PCs... it will be reality within 2 years or less

that is going to be a nightmare. at least microsoft has a layer of protection that boundchecks. Android already has heaps of exploitable buffers (no pun intended) . I'll pass, but thanks for the suggestion.