Windows7: whats your thoughts on it (in Off-topic)

i pre-ordered it. so far liking it. directx 11 is awesome. faster. better then xp. though ive got somethin that will show its just a polished vista. a mod manager for fallout 3 was giving me a message that it cant run from program folders because of vista. heh.

What are the main differences from Vista?

first of all its not a hog like it is. its everything vista wasnt basically. it runs smooth(after some updates since i was running XP Pro). for one thing my boot/shutdown times were lessened by over 1/2 of the time it took on xp. and i can now run fallout 3 on ultra settings with my evga 9800gt 512mb graphics card which would stutter some with the directx 9 xp used. am now using directx 11 which makes A HUGE difference in gaming. and a plus side from preordering my windows7 up grade was i got BOTH i repeat both 32 and 64bit of 7. dont know if this was an exclusive or not from preordering but i was surprised when i opened it lol..over all its smooth as silk and was worth my money to get the upgrade IMHO.

I have been thinking about getting it. I am waiting to hear what others think about it first before I do.

Looking at the first test results, its on meagerly faster then XP, it is way faster then Vista.

Directx 11? First of all you need a dx11 videocard to see it and the only ones available are a few card from ATI. And there are no dx11 applications yet. So you're probably seeing dx10 if not dx9.

In games its a close tie between Win7 and XP and even some games windows Vista is faster.

So no I'm not going to get on this pc, probably when I build a new PC.

Overall its a buffed up version of Vista with the speed of XP.

ow and as response to your second post, if you buy win7 you get a license key for win7, Microsoft really doesn't care if you use it for the 32bit or 64bit version.

But then again I can buy the win7 64bit key for 70 bucks :) I love OEM.

(I'm a system builder before you ask)

Well, we're getting Win7 fo Free!!!

I am running Windows7 in a couple of different ways on a Mac:

-- Through VirtualBox (virtual session)
-- On it's own partition, native boot, no Boot Camp (x64 doesn't work with Boot camp on an iMac, because Apple is stupid).

I have an MSDN membership so I can download any Windows OS. Burned the Win7 image to DVD and it upgraded the VirtualBox instance (from Vista) without issue. Can't finish the experience index on the virtual session because it says it cannot read memory correctly. That is not entirely surprising, since I suppose there are quirks in that when run inside another machine.

Upgrading the native partition (again, from Vista x64) went smooth, too. Things rebooted on their own and everything looks OK. Considering getting Vista x64 installed in the first place was a major chore (had to manually install network driver, sound driver, video, everything, since not using BootCamp), upgrading to Win7 was pretty easy. Additionally, one run of Windows Update found updated sound and video drivers right off the bat, and networking/internet worked without modification. Experience index on the native Win7 partition is a 5.8, with most scores well above 6.0.

Overall impressions are that I like it, but then again, Vista was running very well by the time Win7 came out (provided all the patches and newest drivers were installed). I also never has a problem with UAC stuff, as it is not hard to click OK on a few security prompts. I have left that all turned on in Win7.

I like the task bar organization and system tray in Win7. Gadgets are nice, too, though there don't seem to be that many really useful ones. Mac has more things like that, and they fit very compactly into the global menu bar at the top of the screen (iTunes controller, system info, backup status, calendar, etc.)

The other gitchy things in Win7, like shaking a window, are absolutely pointless to me. They seem to make things harder (why would you need to shake a window to make the other windows go away? It would already be on top...?) But the task bar previews and window nav does work well, on par with Mac and Expose.

But there is still one thing on Mac that I really like, and that's Spaces. I've used a lot of great pagers, including Spaces, and still have never found anything on Windows that matches it. Maybe there is something in Win7 I am missing, or an add-on that will be coming soon, but Spaces just works and makes segmentation of work/displays a breeze (hence, no need for "shaking" a window free...)

Other things I have heard about Win7 that are nice, but that I don't have a particular feel for, include:

-- When an app is minimized, it's video resources in use go to zero. That's nice, and didn't used to be the case pre-Win7.
-- NTFS is still a rock-solid file system. I know that isn't new to Win7, but I wanted to mention it. I even have a large external volume running NTFS that I can read from Mac (hooray for NTFS-3G!) and Windows at the same time to share stuff like music.
-- I think Windows Update really is getting there, if not there. Used to be it was a crapshoot for anything except MS-specific updates, but now it appears to do a very good job of keeping things updated including vid drivers, sound driver, and Visual Studio/SQL Server. Everything still plays nice with third-party anti-virus software (I use AVG Free)

Sorry I can't weigh in on games, since I don't play much on the computer.

The thought of running a 27-inch iMac with Win7 Ultimate is very compelling. 27 inches is enough to really watch movies and such, and I do love the Mac hardware post-PowerPC (my previous iMac had chronic heat issues with PowerPC, but the Intel builds are sleek and sound). I've got another year of AppleCare on my current iMac (24-inch), so by the time I need to upgrade they will probably have moved to 32 inches. *smile* Though, I do think these machines are getting too dang big... Not sure I need something over 24...