Upgrading to Windows 7

[Albert]

Hello all,

I have been resisting going to Windows 7 but it looks like the
inevitable has to take place. I'm contemplating getting a new laptop
which will in all probability have Windows 7 on it.

With XP I'm using a 32-bit installation but I would like to go to a
64-bit installation with Windows 7. I don't know all that much about
W-7 so I'm asking if I should install W-7 Pro?

I have downloaded and printed Windows 7 upgrade advisor and it shows
that my PC is compatible for 64-bit. I've also downloaded and printed
"Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7"

I am running two (2) hard drives and using Casper to clone the C Dr.
to the D Dr. daily which I use as a bootable backup. It will also
enable me to use it when I install Windows 7 to transfer needed files.
I do understand that it will be a clean install therefore I have to
have all of my installation disks for whichever programs I want to
use, which I have.

Which would be your choice to install and why.

I thank you,
Albert

 

[Wolf K]

Hello all,

I have been resisting going to Windows 7 but it looks like the
inevitable has to take place. I'm contemplating getting a new laptop
which will in all probability have Windows 7 on it.

With XP I'm using a 32-bit installation but I would like to go to a
64-bit installation with Windows 7. I don't know all that much about
W-7 so I'm asking if I should install W-7 Pro?

Pro will run pretty well everything that XP{ can run, with the exception
of DOS programs (XP can run some of those.) Premium Home 64 bit ditto.
Keep in mind that for many, perhaps all, of your favourite programs
updates will be available that are tweaked for Win7.

I have downloaded and printed Windows 7 upgrade advisor and it shows
that my PC is compatible for 64-bit. I've also downloaded and printed
"Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7"

I am running two (2) hard drives and using Casper to clone the C Dr.
to the D Dr. daily which I use as a bootable backup. It will also
enable me to use it when I install Windows 7 to transfer needed files.
I do understand that it will be a clean install therefore I have to
have all of my installation disks for whichever programs I want to
use, which I have.

Which would be your choice to install and why.

I thank you,
Albert

Since C: is cloned to D:, do one more back up, then install Win 7 per
the article you read. This will (as you have no doubt inferred) keep all
your XP programs and data in place. If Casper works with Win7, fine,
just let it continue to do its stuff. If not, there are plenty of other
backup utilities out there.

IMO, the most important aspect of this (or any other) upgrade is data,
not programs. I suggest you buy an external drive, and copy all data to
it. You can always reinstall programs.

HTH,
Wolf K.

 

[Albert]

Home Premium is enough for most people.

Thanks for the input.

 

[John Williamson]

Hello all,

I have been resisting going to Windows 7 but it looks like the
inevitable has to take place. I'm contemplating getting a new laptop
which will in all probability have Windows 7 on it.

With XP I'm using a 32-bit installation but I would like to go to a
64-bit installation with Windows 7. I don't know all that much about
W-7 so I'm asking if I should install W-7 Pro?

It depends what you want to do. Some programs have problems with
compatibility under 64-bit.

Some older programs may need XP mode, which isn't available unless
you're running Pro or Ultimate.

I have one laptop running Home Premium, which works fine for day-to-day
stuff, and current programs. I tested out Ultimate when the Beta tests
were out, and it has better networking tools and compatibility for old
programs than Home Premium. If money was no object and I needed the
facilities, then Ultimate, otherwise for office use, Pro.

Whatever you do, avoid Starter editon like the plague. Its networking is
so crippled, it even crashed my router.

 

[Albert]

Pro will run pretty well everything that XP{ can run, with the exception
of DOS programs (XP can run some of those.) Premium Home 64 bit ditto.
Keep in mind that for many, perhaps all, of your favourite programs
updates will be available that are tweaked for Win7.

Good to know so my choice will probably be Premium Home 64-bit.

Since C: is cloned to D:, do one more back up, then install Win 7 per
the article you read. This will (as you have no doubt inferred) keep all
your XP programs and data in place. If Casper works with Win7, fine,
just let it continue to do its stuff. If not, there are plenty of other
backup utilities out there.

I checked with Casper and it is compatible.

IMO, the most important aspect of this (or any other) upgrade is data,
not programs. I suggest you buy an external drive, and copy all data to
it. You can always reinstall programs.

I do have a hard drive enclosure for USB so I can probably just do a
one-time clone as a backup for my D Dr. clone in case the D Dr. backup
fails ;-)

HTH,
Wolf K.

Thanks for your help. As I said, it will probably be Premium Home
64-bit. And as I understand it Premium Home can be installed as 32-bit
or 64-bit.

Thank you

 

[Albert]

It depends what you want to do. Some programs have problems with
compatibility under 64-bit.

Some older programs may need XP mode, which isn't available unless
you're running Pro or Ultimate.

I have one laptop running Home Premium, which works fine for day-to-day
stuff, and current programs. I tested out Ultimate when the Beta tests
were out, and it has better networking tools and compatibility for old
programs than Home Premium. If money was no object and I needed the
facilities, then Ultimate, otherwise for office use, Pro.

Whatever you do, avoid Starter editon like the plague. Its networking is
so crippled, it even crashed my router.

All good to know. Thanks

 

[Steve Hayes]

Pro will run pretty well everything that XP{ can run, with the exception
of DOS programs (XP can run some of those.) Premium Home 64 bit ditto.
Keep in mind that for many, perhaps all, of your favourite programs
updates will be available that are tweaked for Win7.

I have Home Premium on my laptop. It came with 64 bit installed, but my DOS
programs would not run, so I switched to the 32 bit version which came on a
DVD. In understand Professional has a "compatibility" thingy, but not Home
Premium.

 

[Wolf K]

I have Home Premium on my laptop. It came with 64 bit installed, but my DOS
programs would not run, so I switched to the 32 bit version which came on a
DVD. In understand Professional has a "compatibility" thingy, but not Home
Premium.

True, but the compatibility thingy is not needed for every program. I
suggest not using it if you don't need it. We run PMView (orphanware
image viewer/processor) on W7 Pro and Home Premium 64 bit with no issues
whatever. PMView was originally written for OS/2, then ported to Windows
2000.

HTH
Wolf K.

 

[Brian Gregory [UK]]

Hello all,

I have been resisting going to Windows 7 but it looks like the
inevitable has to take place. I'm contemplating getting a new laptop
which will in all probability have Windows 7 on it.

With XP I'm using a 32-bit installation but I would like to go to a
64-bit installation with Windows 7. I don't know all that much about
W-7 so I'm asking if I should install W-7 Pro?

I have downloaded and printed Windows 7 upgrade advisor and it shows
that my PC is compatible for 64-bit. I've also downloaded and printed
"Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7"

I am running two (2) hard drives and using Casper to clone the C Dr.
to the D Dr. daily which I use as a bootable backup. It will also
enable me to use it when I install Windows 7 to transfer needed files.
I do understand that it will be a clean install therefore I have to
have all of my installation disks for whichever programs I want to
use, which I have.

Which would be your choice to install and why.

Bear in mind that there is unlikely to be any benefit from going to 64 bit
version of Windows unless you have 4GB or more of RAM.

 

[Brian Gregory [UK]]

It depends what you want to do. Some programs have problems with
compatibility under 64-bit.

Some older programs may need XP mode, which isn't available unless you're
running Pro or Ultimate.

I have one laptop running Home Premium, which works fine for day-to-day
stuff, and current programs. I tested out Ultimate when the Beta tests
were out, and it has better networking tools and compatibility for old
programs than Home Premium. If money was no object and I needed the
facilities, then Ultimate, otherwise for office use, Pro.

Whatever you do, avoid Starter editon like the plague. Its networking is
so crippled, it even crashed my router.

It works fine on all the routers I've ever connected my netbook to.
You can't buy starter edition anyway, it only comes pre-installed of small
low power machines with a maximum of 1GB of RAM.

 

[Ken Blake]

Bear in mind that there is unlikely to be any benefit from going to 64 bit
version of Windows unless you have 4GB or more of RAM.

Bear in mind that there is unlikely to be any benefit from going to 64
bit version of Windows unless you have 4GB or more of RAM *and* you
run applications that can benefit from having 4GB or more of RAM.

 

[Albert]

Bear in mind that there is unlikely to be any benefit from going to 64 bit
version of Windows unless you have 4GB or more of RAM.

At the present time using XP I'm running 4 GB but XP only utilizes
3.33. I was thinking about bumping it up to it least 6 GB it and when
I go to the Windows 7.

3.33 gigahertz Intel Core2 Duo
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
6144 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5Q PRO TURBO Rev
1.xx
Serial Number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Bus Clock: 333 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 0210 02/20/2009
Albert

 

[dweebken]

Whatever you do, avoid Starter editon like the plague. Its networking is
so crippled, it even crashed my router.

I've used starter, Home Premium 32 bit and Pro 64 bit. Had no real
issues with any of them in day to day operation. The main diffs to me were:

Starter: can't customise the desktop background and has no aero
features. I could live with these limitations, but the small form factor
of the screen of the Netbook had only 600 lines, instead of the 800
lines most programs wanted to use. I got tired of looking for netbook
versions of software (often there wasn't any) and the slowness of the
netbook processors. Office ribbons were also somewhat
truncated/compacted. I gave the machine to a nephew high school student
who was delighted to get it.

Home Premium 32 bit. I upgraded a laptop from Vista to this and the PC
ran a heck of a lot better. Vista was really poor but the same machine
with Win 7 ran really well by comparison. No support for legacy XP
applications but for the most part I never noticed it.

Win 7 Pro 64 bit. I had to upgrade some (lots) of my software to move
from XP/32 bit to this, and for some of the hardware I had to resort to
Vista drivers. This would've been the same issue for the other editions
of Win 7 by the way, but seems more problematic on the 64 bit edition.
For example my Lexmark MFP model X342n worked ok on the Starter edition
and the home premiium 32 bit edn, but wouldn't work via USB on the 64
bit Pro edition via USB cable, even though Lexmark has 64 bit drivers on
their web site. The workaround was to put the printer on a LAN cable on
my network switch and access it via the LAN instead, and that worked. I
can scan and print through the lan cable (not the USB port). All my
other hardware worked without issues with the right drivers. In
addition, the Pro version has an XP mode and Virtualisation which can be
useful I guess, but I'm not using them so have them disabled. There are
also some oddities, like I'd like to run Office 2010 in 64 bit mode, but
can't because some of the Outlook connectors I want to use only come in
32 bit flavours. Anyway the 32 bit version of Office 2010 runs fine on
the 64 bit system.

YMMV

 

[dweebken]

I've used starter, Home Premium 32 bit and Pro 64 bit. Had no real
issues with any of them in day to day operation. The main diffs to me were:

Starter: can't customise the desktop background and has no aero
features. I could live with these limitations, but the small form factor
of the screen of the Netbook had only 600 lines, instead of the 800
lines most programs wanted to use. I got tired of looking for netbook
versions of software (often there wasn't any) and the slowness of the
netbook processors. Office ribbons were also somewhat
truncated/compacted. I gave the machine to a nephew high school student
who was delighted to get it.

Home Premium 32 bit. I upgraded a laptop from Vista to this and the PC
ran a heck of a lot better. Vista was really poor but the same machine
with Win 7 ran really well by comparison. No support for legacy XP
applications but for the most part I never noticed it.

Win 7 Pro 64 bit. I had to upgrade some (lots) of my software to move
from XP/32 bit to this, and for some of the hardware I had to resort to
Vista drivers. This would've been the same issue for the other editions
of Win 7 by the way, but seems more problematic on the 64 bit edition.
For example my Lexmark MFP model X342n worked ok on the Starter edition
and the home premiium 32 bit edn, but wouldn't work via USB on the 64
bit Pro edition via USB cable, even though Lexmark has 64 bit drivers on
their web site. The workaround was to put the printer on a LAN cable on
my network switch and access it via the LAN instead, and that worked. I
can scan and print through the lan cable (not the USB port). All my
other hardware worked without issues with the right drivers. In
addition, the Pro version has an XP mode and Virtualisation which can be
useful I guess, but I'm not using them so have them disabled. There are
also some oddities, like I'd like to run Office 2010 in 64 bit mode, but
can't because some of the Outlook connectors I want to use only come in
32 bit flavours. Anyway the 32 bit version of Office 2010 runs fine on
the 64 bit system.

YMMV

Forgot to mention: one of the reasons I went for the 64 bit edition was
to have more RAM available to me. I maxed out my laptop at 8GB (the most
the hardware can take) and I'm averaging about 30-40% usage of the
memory, but right now I'm using 60% and I've had plenty of
configurations using over 80% of the 8GB. I also siphoned off 1 GB of
this memory to use as a RAMDISK for IE and Firefox and Thunderbird to
use for their cache. Don't wanna save the cache between restarts and
having the cache go to RAM instead of the SSD speeds it up a bit and
reduces wear on the SSD. Oh, if you can afford a big enough SSD, GO FOR
IT! It's the biggest productivity boost I've EVER seen on the PC, bar
none. If you can't afford SSD, then a Hybrid drive is more affordable
and still way faster than a 7200 RPM spindle HDD, according to my
personal testing with ATTO.

 

[Tony]

Windows 7 is a lame pig! Stick with XP pro like i do.

Hello all,

I have been resisting going to Windows 7 but it looks like the
inevitable has to take place. I'm contemplating getting a new laptop
which will in all probability have Windows 7 on it.

With XP I'm using a 32-bit installation but I would like to go to a
64-bit installation with Windows 7. I don't know all that much about
W-7 so I'm asking if I should install W-7 Pro?

I have downloaded and printed Windows 7 upgrade advisor and it shows
that my PC is compatible for 64-bit. I've also downloaded and printed
"Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7"

I am running two (2) hard drives and using Casper to clone the C Dr.
to the D Dr. daily which I use as a bootable backup. It will also
enable me to use it when I install Windows 7 to transfer needed files.
I do understand that it will be a clean install therefore I have to
have all of my installation disks for whichever programs I want to
use, which I have.

Which would be your choice to install and why.

I thank you,
Albert

--
The Grandmaster of the CyberFROG

Come get your ticket to CyberFROG city

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There's the employer and the employee and the FROGGER and the FROGEE,
which one are you?

Hamster isn't a newsreader it's a mistake!

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I hate them both, With useless bogus bullshit you need at least *three*
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I'm a fulltime text *only* man on usenet now. The rest of the world
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Using my technical prowess and computer abilities to answer questions
beyond the realm of understandability

Regards Tony... Making usenet better for everyone everyday

This sig file was compiled via my journeys through usenet

 

[Bob Henson]

Bear in mind that there is unlikely to be any benefit from going to 64
bit version of Windows unless you have 4GB or more of RAM *and* you
run applications that can benefit from having 4GB or more of RAM.

Quite! I've had 64 bit (it came with the computer) for a while now, and
have yet to find any benefit. There have been four new versions of
Pinnacle Studio (which would benefit from 64bit more than anything else
I use) since I had it, and there *still* is no 64 bit version.

However, I hope the OP is looking at the downsides too - there are far
more snags than advantages, for the very reason you mention. Not only
are there very few 64 bit applications, there is a dearth of drivers. I
had to buy a new all-in-one printer as my old HP printer and my HP
scanner had no 64 bit drivers. As a temporary measure, I had to use
Linux in a VM to print and scan! Unless there is a compelling reason, I
think it better to stick to 32 bit for a while yet - maybe permanently,
since software writers are still avoiding 64 bit.

--
Bob
Tetbury, Gloucestershire, UK


Roses are red, Violets are grey, Ooer that's wrong, still ne'mind, eh?

 

[Wolf K]

At the present time using XP I'm running 4 GB but XP only utilizes
3.33. I was thinking about bumping it up to it least 6 GB it and when
I go to the Windows 7.

You're seeing what you should see. Part of of RAM is always reserved for
system overhead. What you're seeing is "usable" RAM, so to speak.

HTH
Wolf K.

 

[Ken Blake]

At the present time using XP I'm running 4 GB but XP only utilizes
3.33. I was thinking about bumping it up to it least 6 GB it and when
I go to the Windows 7.

It's not just XP (and it it's not exactly 3.33GB on all computers).
It's *all* 32-bit client versions of Windows; you will have the same
issue with Windows 7 unless you go to a 64-bit version of it.

All 32-bit client versions of Windows (not just XP/Vista/7) have a 4GB
address space (64-bit versions can use much more). That's the
theoretical upper limit beyond which you can not go.

But you can't use the entire address space. Even though you have a
4GB address space, you can only use *around* 3.1GB of RAM. That's
because some of that space is used by hardware and is not available to
the operating system and applications. The amount you can
use varies, depending on what hardware you have installed, but can
range from as little as 2GB to as much as 3.5GB. It's usually around
3.1GB.

Note that the hardware is using the address *space*, not the actual
RAM itself. If you have a greater amount of RAM, the rest of the RAM
goes unused because there is no address space to map it to.

 

[Wolf K]

Forgot to mention: one of the reasons I went for the 64 bit edition was
to have more RAM available to me. I maxed out my laptop at 8GB (the most
the hardware can take) and I'm averaging about 30-40% usage of the
memory, but right now I'm using 60% and I've had plenty of
configurations using over 80% of the 8GB. [...]

Generally speaking, any OS will use available RAM instead of the paging
file if at all possible. The more programs you're running, and the
larger the file(s) being processed, the more RAM will be used. I also
have the impression that Win7 does better job of this than XP did.

HTH
Wolf K.

 

[Ken Blake]

Forgot to mention: one of the reasons I went for the 64 bit edition was
to have more RAM available to me. I maxed out my laptop at 8GB (the most
the hardware can take) and I'm averaging about 30-40% usage of the
memory, but right now I'm using 60% and I've had plenty of
configurations using over 80% of the 8GB. [...]

Generally speaking, any OS will use available RAM instead of the paging
file if at all possible. The more programs you're running, and the
larger the file(s) being processed, the more RAM will be used. I also
have the impression that Win7 does better job of this than XP did.

However, note the following:

The more programs you're running, and the larger the file(s) being
processed, the more memory (including RAM and page file) will be used.
If a program is running, but not actively being used (for example a
word processing program that is not being typed in) it will almost
always quickly be paged out. The program or programs being actively
used are the only ones that use RAM, unless there is enough RAM for
more than those.