Windows 7: W7 vs Vista

I've only posted a few times on the forum but have been a beta tester for vista, Windows 7 and started out using DOS and every single windows release since the first. I do admit that the first releases of vista were disasters but the program has matured. The first release of win 7 was slick!

This question is being asked in a good way and meant to detract from windows 7 so keep this in mind.

I have 2 computers on my desk side by side one with Windows 7 64 bit v7100 the other has vista ultimate 64 bit. Both computers are fast home built machines running at nearly the same speed. My wife has an older but quick intel core2 duo machine running vista home premium 32 bit.

I can''t tell $5 worth of difference between Windows 7 and Vista. Sure there are some new interface changes and I hear things like windows 7 is quicker, snappier, loads faster, boots up quicker, has a smaller footprint and has better security but not one huge change that I can see or detect. The Windows 7 screen savers are nicer and windows explorer is less cluttered. I did have to go and find a mail program for Windows 7 but never had problems with Outlook or Windows mail. I'm not a big fan of webmail . Never had security problems that I know of. One problem with 7 is that it will not support Zune or ipod but surely MS willl take care of this problem before release.

I can have both computers off and push the on buttons at the same time and the vista computer will finish booting slightly faster than the win 7 machine. When shutting down the opposite happens the win 7 machine shuts down slightly quicker than vista.

I have 3 full vista programs, one ultimate and 2 home premiums, that cost me several hundred dollars and MS sent upgrade discs when the service pack was released. I enjoy the bit of difference in win 7 but I can't imagine that it is worth spending several hundred more dollars to upgrade my computers to Windows 7 at this point unless something new is released in Windows 7. Both Vista and Windows 7 are fine programs.

The only real difference that I can think of is that Windows 7 will run quicker on a machine that has less speed and resources. I honestly think that is the biggest difference.

I would appreciate hearing some of your opinions.

My experience is the exact opposite of yours. Vista was always fairly slow, buggy and problematic on my T61p laptop. Constantly irritating me. Windows 7 has been much faster, smoother, stable, consistent, easier to work with. In short, it's night and day to me and I would HATE to have to return to Vista. So I'm definitely buying it no matter what the cost.

Do you have an even amount of software loaded on each of your Windows machines?

I personally find Windows 7 faster, not as fast as XP Professional x64 was, but fast enough that I notice it. It's more responsive to clicking on menus, less time for a window to open, less time for a program to start, etc. Sometimes in Vista copying a large set of files, or actually even a small Notepad file, it would pause after the copy for some unknown reason. I will admit Vista's boot time didn't seem that much more, if at all, than Windows 7.

For me it's once Windows has booted that I find Windows 7 more responsive. It also uses less RAM from what I've saw, although not a lot less RAM. Yes I'm aware services, System Restore, etc. can be disabled in Vista, even when I did that it still used slightly more RAM than Windows 7. They also apparently reworked the GDI in Windows 7 so that two programs requesting GDI services weren't being locked out by the opposing process, both programs can request GDI services and get them right away. I'm not sure in the real world scenario how much of a speed difference that makes, and how much RAM is saved under this new system.

So far as stability, I have to say that I've found Windows since XP Professional x64 to be stable, Vista included. I never really had instabilities at all.

After seeing Windows 7 and how it operates, it seems to me that Vista was a mere stepping stone from XP to get to how Vista should have been to start with, i.e. Windows 7 as it is now.

Both computers are evenly loaded exept the vista box has some flight simming software that is difficullt to run.

If I could pick between programs, I would go for Windows 7 over vista but it's just not worth spending another thousand dollars to upgrade 3-4 computers when the programs are running so close.

Maybe the reason that I am not seeing any difference is that the computers are running at mid 3 to 4 Ghz. I've tried a laptop with vista running in the low 2's and it was very slow. I think that is the factor that determines Vista's performance.

Very possible. My laptop is in the low 2's.

Btw, if I'm not mistaken, I think I heard that one purchase of Windows 7 is supposed to provide you with a license to put it on up to 3 different machines at once, but I could be wrong about that. But if that is true, it wouldn't be that expensive for you on a per machine basis.

I had both XP Home and Vista Home Premium 32bit editions on the same machine as both 7 RCs with XP no longer found at all and Home Premium being run through the Virtual PC beta now available after that was replaced by a second 64bit installation of 7 there! Why were both removed?

Vista was far more stable from the start over XP with that edition finally seeing the 1,000+ fixes in SP3 long awaited. Vista on the other hand is simply a "larger" version of Windows still based on the gui is OS principle while 7 is a rather striking change for a desktop OS to begin with.

Windows 7 MinWin (the Core) Windows 7 MinWin (the Core) - Courtesy of Mark Russinovich - Softpedia

I agree. Windows 7 is slower for me too!. Vista WAS slow and buggy at early life, but now is super fast and very reliable.Just try the new sp2. I am running vista home premium 64 bit and it is much faster than Windows 7 is it now.

on my notebook 7 is noticeably faster and more stable than vista ultimate

Yeah, I was running Vista x64 sp2 rtm on my notebook before and although improved from what came before, Win 7 blows it out of the water in every respect. Particularly boot and shut down and generally overall more snappy feeling. It really feels like I got a new PC with more horsepower. No way I can go back to Vista now. Half the time, at least 3 or 4 of my icons wouldn't even show up in the system tray. It is just such a relief to be using a snappy OS that seems very stable so far. I just need a few more drivers, but even w/o them, I'd rather be using Windows 7 than Vista sp2. Just my experience on my particular machine.

I see you found the same thing. Even having seen a recent clean install of XP just prior to the 7 beta releases and hardly even booting into it maybe once a week it took longer there to start up and shutdown then with 7!

Despite 7 actually being larger in size the RCs clearly indicate it is no longer simply a Vista carry over like the article there was pointing out about it seeing breaking from the typical gui based OS into a new modular form of light weight kernel similar to what you would see in the server editions.

Even when Vista was first out it was found more stable over XP with SP2 on. 7 however is far more responsive when loaded up with a good list of programs on the exact same hardwares.