Retiring Windows 7 Anyone Else?

Dual boot xp/7 cause I have two monitors and microsoft decided that individual user accounts don't require separate display settings...

Are you implying that you can't use dual screens on Windows 7? It wasn't a problem on Windows 7 RC on my desktop and still isn't a problem with Windows 7 on my laptop.

omegatron said:

Dual boot xp/7 cause I have two monitors and microsoft decided that individual user accounts don't require separate display settings...

Are you saying that two user accounts can't have dual displays with different resolutions per account? example, User 1 1680x1050 x2 and User 2 with 1440x900 x2?

If you are running LCD monitors, it's always best to run them at their native resolutions.

Regarding the original post, although we use the metric system here, I love that American expression: "your mileage may vary." A lot of what Apple fans (or should I say "devouts"?) brag about the Macintosh derives from the fact that MacOS is run on a single, rigid hardware platform about which Apple has absolute control and which has very little variation. By contrast, all versions of Windows run on a practically infinite number of component combinations, and Microsoft has to make a "one-size-fits-all" solution. Obviously, in some cases the size won't fit. The same applies to Linux: there are many horror stories about all distros, too, as well as many success cases.

So, any Windows version can possibly have problems with a particular hardware combination, and a sample of just one computer or configuration is not enough to give a general verdict about any Windows release. The opposite may also happen: in spite of all the problems with Vista, we all also know people who had an excellent experience with it and are very happy with it. This probably applies even to the most loathed OS ever, Windows Me (though I don't know personally any such case).

Until four years ago, I was a Windows 2000 Professional user. Win2k ran incredibly well on a very old 233-MHz Pentium II with only 128 MB RAM (64 MB at first). Then in late 2005 I bought (or rather assembled) my current PC - see full specs on the link below, but it's an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ with 2 GB RAM (1 GB at first) - and I started using Windows XP Professional. I had a great experience with it, but then I already got it after SP2, when it became almost a whole new system. I remember I worked at an office at the time (now I work from home), and we all worked with Windows 2000 there, among other reasons because before SP2, XP had the same reputation of being a nightmare OS as Vista today, and companies didn't trust it.

Later I tried Vista, and it wasn't a good experience, although it wasn't exactly a horror story either. I didn't have any hardware or driver problems, and it worked very well at first, but later on I did have a lot of software problems: not only were many programs incompatible, but I found out that it was very easy to do something apparently harmless that would render Vista completely unstable and unusable, with weird bugs no one knew how to fix. After several reinstalls and the same instability appearing seemingly out of nothing, I gave up. Yet there were still lots of things I liked in Vista, starting with the interface: when one spends 80-90% of one's waking time in front of a computer, having a nice interface, even a beautiful one, makes a lot of difference for one's motivation and productivity.

So, frustrated and reluctantly, I went back to XP, but Xzaviar's original post that originated this thread reminded me a lot of what I felt when I gave up Vista. The situation was remarkably similar, and so were the problems I had. But I took Windows 7 very seriously and started using it in dual-boot with XP since the RC. I knew I couldn't keep using XP forever, just as one couldn't use Windows 95 forever. I don't work directly in IT any more, but I am a technical translator also working with software localization, so I have to keep myself almost as current as an actual IT professional.

Contrary to Vista, my experience with Windows 7 has been so good that now I've felt confident enough to retire XP. There are a few legacy specialist applications I have to use that won't run on Win7, just as they wouldn't on Vista, but for them I have a XP virtual machine on VMware Player. It works very well, but I find myself using it very little, and the incompatible apps are too few to be worth having a separate boot partition for XP; they will eventually be replaced and go into oblivion as well. Do I miss XP? Definitely not - in fact, I feel as if I've been thrown into the Flintstones' age when I still have to use it. Do I look back or consider giving up Windows 7? Heavens no!!! And yes, Windows 7 still has a few rough edges, but they are incredibly few and manageable for a system that was commercially released just over a month ago. It is better than most Windows versions so far were after their SP1!

Again, a sample of one computer is not significant, regardless of whether the experience is good or bad. But if you take the average of comments, stories and experiences, you will see that my experience is rather typical, with XP, with Vista and with Windows 7. This time it's for real, and you'd better get used to it, because Windows 7 is here to stay, and I have no doubt about it.

Hi all

What on earth do you guys run on your machines that makes them unstable.


XP was just fine - as is Windows 7 -- didn't care for VISTA as the hardware I had then was unsuitable.

In all the years I've been using computers the ONLY time I've EVER had any problems with viruses has been on a WORK and not a HOME machine whether it was old Windows 3.11, Windows 95/98, W2000, W2K3 or the XP / W7 combination.

If you take decent backups, don't download dubious material, be careful what email you open and NEVER EVER run any ONLINE program that offers to find / install drivers / clean registry / "optimize system" etc you should be safe even if you don't run ANY av software at all.

I've NEVER bothered with AV software at all until very recently - and even now I'm only running Microsoft's Forefront Client security (a slightly more robust version of MSE) which uses almost no resources and is just as good as most of the hoggy bloatware out there that passes itself of as AV software.

I Still need XP for some legacy hardware - I run this quite happily on a Virtual Machine. I'll continue to need this for a few years yet -- hardware isn't conveniently replaceable and manufacturer is no longer in business.

No more Native XP boxes for me any more (although for a SERVER I'm keeping W2K3 - W2K8 is a bit of a nightmare still - loads of drivers missing and W7 one's don't always work).

W7 for desktops / laptops is really a "no brainer" - runs fine on stuff VISTA would have had a problem with.


Cheers
jimbo

Reminds me of the thread yesterday defending tweaking and it ended up with a guy's system boinked and needing SysRestore.

Was trying to tell them Win7 is not like Vista and doesn't need tweaking, just choice of settings.

So while we were trying to recover the guy's system from their recommended tweaks, noticed all of the tweakers suddenly disappeared.

@jimbo45, I think you have mixed two different problems.

An unstable system is not the same thing as a system with malware. The two conditions can happen both independently and together, and then they may or may not be related.

Windows users have different machines, with different peripherals and their respective drivers, different software being run, and different system configurations (not necessarily including those usually considered "tweaks"). This is enough variation to ensure an unpredictable interaction of all those hardware and software components. And some configurations will be more prone to instability than others, sometimes hanging on a thread - a faulty driver or DLL, for example. The user's behavior is not always what causes systems to become unstable.

As for malware, you are not the first guy I see boasting that he doesn't get malware even though no antivirus or similar security solution is used (now you do, but until recently you did not). Good luck. But to me this sounds like someone bragging that he/she doesn't get AIDS even not using condoms because he/she chooses well his/her sexual partners. And (in theory at least) one can avoid sex. One can't always avoid all malware vectors even if one has Boy Scout behavior.

There was the Sony rootkit in seemingly innocent music CDs. There have been cases of USB key drives and even external hard drives factory-loaded with malware. There have been recalls of laptops with the BIOS infected with malware. A USB key drive or CD-R you need to use because someone needs to pass his/her data for your work may be infected. And how does one know for sure that one doesn't have any malware? Today's malware doesn't always produce obvious or even visible effects. One may never know if one is part of a botnet, or if one's identity has already been stolen and is being used who knows what for.

Sure, no security software is perfect, no antivirus detects everything, no firewall is completely impenetrable. But condoms may be punctured or torn, too. One minimizes the risks, knowing that eliminating them completely is impossible. But if some door may be closed, let one at least attempt to do so. And some humility goes very well at those times. Throwing the first stone is way too easy.

I love Windows 7 and so I too have retired XP.

Sbrideau said:

Are you implying that you can't use dual screens on Windows 7? It wasn't a problem on Windows 7 RC on my desktop and still isn't a problem with Windows 7 on my laptop.

I have a dual monitor setup. That is correct. Windows 7 runs that perfectly fine.

What I'm saying is that if I want to game. I have to go to display settings every time to disable/enable the second monitor.

I cannot create a second user account specifically for gaming (with the second monitor disabled) that I can logon to whenever I want to game.

Why? Because windows is setup so that all user accounts use one setting.

Lame.

Xzaviar said:

..But I would like to know if there are any others out there that have gone back to a previous version of Windows after using 7 for a while and what your reasons are.

I never left XP, but I’ve been giving W7 my best shot at using it.
I guess I’m too spoiled by XP ...
And W7 has removed many of the good XP tools that I use and depend on.
It‘s just too unfriendly to use without these XP features.