Can I say wow now? Miles different then XP. Very spiffy (of course the only program besides IE that is running now is Microsoft Security Essentials; lol). Got a lot of work to do, but so far very happy. Only too a little more then 20 minutes to install, and all except my dependable 3Com NIC (8 years old now) drivers were found so am quite pleased.

Was this a clean install or over XP?

Windows 7 has to be a clean install over XP, the system is just too different.

Ahh, thanks.

If he did a clean install, then how did it find his old drivers?

Lyle... Where are you?

Well, I went to the Microsoft site and sure enough, you have to do a "Clean" install with XP. Which means format the hard drive. And then reinstall everything.

Oh, Yeah. Just what I want to do this weekend. What fun this will be.

Pandacat wrote:
Well, I went to the Microsoft site and sure enough, you have to do a "Clean" install with XP. Which means format the hard drive. And then reinstall everything.


That's my preferred option, even though I'm running x64 Vista. Make sure all the gunk that accumulates in the registry is truly gone.

I did a clean install of Windows 7 64bit on my i7-920 machine and it went flawlessly. I sprung for a new SSD drive and that coupled with W7 speed (over Vista64) make the machine sing. W7 performance ratings are 7.4 for processor and memory, 7.3 for primary hard disk, and 7.2 for the Radeon 4850 graphics card. Not bad.

I am having a few Firefox issues, like many other people. Some sites will stall between page loads, not freeze, just stall waiting for a page. Hitting the reload button usually causes the page load to proceed. DPReview.com has more of these issues for me than any other site, none on FM. I tried to run Firefox clean, without addons, to see if it was the addons (wasn't). Without adblock running I couldn't believe the tackiness of the ads on dpreview.com. I hear Firefox will issue a new release in a few weeks.

Be careful when you do a clean install after wiping the partition with your copy of XP or Vista. If you do this and then use an "upgrade" version of W7 you will not be able to get by the product key entry screen. Do some googling to get a step by step for workarounds. If you have the HD with your previous os install online the upgrade version will see it and let you finish the installation, if not W7 will declare the product key invalid. The upgrade does not ask for cd/dvd media of the previous os to validate ownership of a qualifying OS, it looks for the actual installation of the OS on the machine you are upgrading. With XP you must do a clean install and the manner of validation just described is going to generate thousands of calls to the MS help desk, nothing is mentioned in the 5 pages of documentation that came in the retail box on what to do if you have wiped the previous os from your hard drive..

So far I am quite impressed with W7, or as we call it, "Vista Perfected". Maybe this will be the one that redeems Microsoft for two tries to get win98 right, debacle of Windows Me, debacle of Vista, etc, etc.

Cheers,

Jim

surreywharf wrote:
Be careful when you do a clean install after wiping the partition with your copy of XP or Vista. If you do this and then use an "upgrade" version of W7 you will not be able to get by the product key entry screen.

Sigh ... that happened to me going from xp to x64 Vista. I built a new machine, put in all new harddrives, wiped the old ones for security and when I went to install the new OS I couldn't get past the key entry screen. After way more time talking to support than should have been required, I finally hooked up with a tech who was able to walk me through a very convoluted procedure to install and validate it.

I was told this was a FEATURE! Since I could then do online upgrades from my relatively cheap version of Vista up to Ultimate. Gack. I'd hoped they'd got over that, I guess not.

Do you have any particular site in mind that could provide a work around? /start<insert obligatory rant about how the softies mistreat their paying customers and consider it read> /end

I understand that if I leave Vista on the boot drive and select a custom install, setup will in fact delete all system files, registry included and move whatever user data/configuration files it finds to \windows.old or something. I'd be interested to know how that works if anyone has tried it. My copy should be here next Tuesday.

Monoprint,

Have a look at the link below. Paul Thurrott provides step-by-steps for 3 ways to do a clean install and get the copy activated. The method I used was to have my previous Vista64 install online, but not on the same drive I targeted to receive the W7 install. Paul's three methods are in addition to the method I used. I think MS may get 100,000's of calls from novice users on this.

Here is the link:

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

As an aside, I always buy a new hard drive to use for an OS upgrade, it makes it easier to rollback without going through the agony of reinstalling everything if I don't like the new OS, which happened with ME and Vista.

Good luck.

Jim

That looks promising. I'll read it more carefully in the morning and ponder my options.

I've only been using Vista for about 8 months so I've never had to reinstall it but no matter how improved win7 is, sooner or later the magpie registry will start to fill up with bits of crud, some of which will affect performance and a another clean install will be needed. Microsoft is certainly aware of that. You'd think they could find a way to address both their legitimate security concerns and the user need to occasionally wipe the machine clean and start over.

Thanks!

I've been running 64 bit Vista for a long time with absolutely no problems.....not enough there (Win7) to cause me to pay Microsoft any more due. I did run the Win 7 beta for a few months and it's fine too. I run OpenSuse on my other desktop and it's great too. Way too much free stuff available to buy any more OS's for awhile, but it would be nice to have a little more choice in imaging software on the linux platform.

Sorry; been busy getting things like I like it. For a quick report, here goes. Win7 found all (and I mean all) my motherboard device drivers which was fantastic. It did not find a driver for my favorite but old NIC (3COM 3C905TX; admit that it's over 8 years old). I replaced that with another NIC (like to keep my Network lazer printer separate from my Internet connection). Also, it was a waste (albeit, $99 not a bad price for the Pro Upgrade) since the only reason I got Pro was for XP-Mode which stinks. I'm using VirtualBox for my XP needs (have a few including Sandboxie which does not run in 64-bit mode; that's what VMs are for). 3 times better then XP-Mode, so if you haven't purchased Win7 yet, then, if you already have a legit license for XP, then forget Win7 Pro and go with Home Premium and download VirtualBox (Open Source, i.e., free). I now have my Ubuntu VM, Win98 VM (because I like UNO and Bicycle Solitaire which had a few issues with XP (though ran) and didn't want to take a chance with Win7), and of course XP Pro. VMs the way to go. Only challenge was setting my my shares between my VM and Win7 (so I can share files as needed; I will admit that XP-Mode did a fantastic job at setting up shares and VirtualBox required a little research to do this, but it's not really rocket science to me). I will upgrade my memory though since I only have 2G RAM (very spiffy with 2G by the way, but why not load as much as I can since I now finally have an OS that can use more RAM then 3.5G). I will add that now that it's been a week, I definitely have no regrets. Only challenge was getting my Lazer printer to work in the VM for XP (works great now in both VM and native Win7 modes). Only caveate that I've found was 2 speciallized software programs that I use for my Dad for downloading information from his Blood Pressure monitor that doesn't work at all in Win7, and, though it did recognize the device in my XP VM, the software still won't communicate with it unfortunately. I can use my XP Laptop so I'm not going to fret this little issue. Also, CS2 upgrade installed flawlessly (I released the license to re-install it in Win7) and of course both GIMP 2.6x and GIMP 1.2x installed fine (I'm a GIMPer, but I do have need to use CS2 for my Leica and some cool Actions and filters that I won't live without).

So, all, and all, go 64-bit all the way. It's the future and you won't have any regrets. Also, if you can afford it, load up your RAM as much as you can because now you can. Even with 2G RAM, my system seems more spiffier then XP; even boots within a minute which is cool. I'm only using Windows Security Essentials since I'm doing any online things using a VM in a sandbox (Sandboxie), so I'm not worried at all with mal-ware (using Threatfire Trojan only protection in the VM; if my Sandbox gets infected, then I will simply delete it. If my VM get's infected, then I will just do a Snapshot recovery).

Yes I did a clean install on my C: partition (kept D: and E: intact). It took all of 20 minutes to complete the OS install (fastest install since Win95; wish Vista would have been this fast; yes, I fix PCs for a living). I've heard that a true upgrade (i.e., if you have Vista) can take over 3.5 hours to do; hope to never have to experience this. lol

Sweet, thanks for the update.

I hate Vista...its such a resource hog...

Then you'll love Win7. I will admit that I did update my RAM to a total of 6Gigs (because I could; can't afford to go to 16Gigs which my MB can take, but 2 was quite fantastic, so 6 will be better). Still using XP using VirtualBox (so I can use Sandboxie; not 64-bit compatible), but with 6 gigs, I can leave a lot open without closing now. I use PS and GIMP in Win7 and have set up shares between my VM and Host (Win7). Run Ubuntu and Win98 (Win98 for a few of my 16-bit games that didn't quite run right in XP). VMs are the future. Can't say that it's fullproof w.r.t. compatibility (if software requires hardware interface, then VMs may not work right), but for pure software programs, you will not have a compatibility issue anymore. My computer still is spiffy. Boots withing a minute still. Very pleased that I did not Vista (said this on another forum, "Never Vista'd; never will."). Even updates don't require the stupid 3 pass Bootscreen install (still does one pass, but I can tolerate that. Yes, I fix PCs right now for a living if you call it that). I've ran it for over a week, and the only thing that I've had issues with is my Lazer printer (when it goes to sleep, sending a print job to it won't wake it up). Decided to use Win7's native drivers (as opposed to Brothers drivers) for the my HL 4040CN and now it works (wakes up that is).

I have to say Win 7 has been great so far, other than a hiccup with my Linksys WMP54G wireless adapter. System config = i7 920, 6 GB RAM (not that expensive), and a 4870HD video card.