Author Topic: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet? (Read 93153 times)

Innuendo · « **Reply #75 on:** November 21, 2009, 10:21 AM »

I'm loving Windows 7, but increasingly I'm losing my "loyalty" to the 3rd party shareware that I have purchased over the years that has kept me on Windows.
-Darwin (November 19, 2009, 12:59 PM)

To hop back in the thread a little bit...Darwin, I wish had a core set of apps which were OS-agnostic & were multi-platform then I wouldn't feel tied to Windows, but I'm tied to Windows because of the power of the apps. To illustrate:

1) The Bat! email program - It has the ability to store thousands upon thousands of emails without bogging down & has a powerful search engine to find what you are looking for fast. Last I checked, The Bat! didn't fare well under WINE due to custom Windows tricks the program uses & there's no email client on Linux that can compete on features.

2) Total Commander - This is a huge one. Reports say that Total Commander can run pretty well under WINE, but a lot of the plugins available won't & that's where the true power lies with this program. And like The Bat! nothing on the Linux platform compares to this program in its class.

3) Foobar2000 - This just became my default music player. Programmed by an eccentric mad genius there isn't another music player available anywhere that can do half of what this thing can do. Like Total Commander, the core app itself will run under WINE, but a lot of plugins won't & that's where its true power lies. Again, there's nothing that runs on Linux natively (or any other OS) that can touch it.

It's probably much the same for Mac users when they discover Quicksilver. Nothing on any other platform can touch it.

Darwin · « **Reply #76 on:** November 21, 2009, 10:22 AM »

The thing is if you don't really need a program to be 64-bit, then compiling it that way is just an academic exercise/waste.
... [snip] ...
None of my other software is 64 bit as there is just no (way to justify the memory usage waste) need for it.
-Stoic Joker (November 21, 2009, 08:21 AM)

Well there is the rarely seen processor efficiency. In theory x64 apps should run a bit faster as they can avail of more recent processor instructions which 32bit apps usually avoid to maintain backwards compatibility with older CPUs. Exactly how that manifests in day to day applications would be debatable.
-Eóin (November 21, 2009, 09:40 AM)

Yes, and as noted in this thread, there are at least four of us on 64 bit that have seen negligible issues WRT 32 bit programs running under 64 bit OS's. That is, the often quoted "issue" of 32 bit programs running more slowly under a 64 bit OS.

Darwin · « **Reply #77 on:** November 21, 2009, 10:29 AM »

I'm loving Windows 7, but increasingly I'm losing my "loyalty" to the 3rd party shareware that I have purchased over the years that has kept me on Windows.
-Darwin (November 19, 2009, 12:59 PM)

To hop back in the thread a little bit...Darwin, I wish had a core set of apps which were OS-agnostic & were multi-platform then I wouldn't feel tied to Windows, but I'm tied to Windows because of the power of the apps...

It's probably much the same for Mac users when they discover Quicksilver. Nothing on any other platform can touch it.
-Innuendo (November 21, 2009, 10:21 AM)

I hear you - as noted, I've never tried the full Linux immersion experiement, but I have tried dual-boot setups a few times over the years (most recently about 18 months ago with XP Pro and Ubuntu 8.x). I am impressed by the power of Linux and the variety of software that is available for it, but have thus far not been moved to make the switch. My earlier posting reflected more an "itch" to try the experiment again and an optimism that more compelling FOSS Linux programs are available. Of course, when I posted that, I neglected to mention DOpus - File Management is what keeps me on Windows. I have a Mac, with Quicksilver, but find it hard to imagine switching to it if I can't take DOpus with me. Ditto for Linux. It's the lack of great file management options that have kept me away.

FWIW, I also have XYplorer and TC licenses and love them both as well. Of course, neither of them have Linux analogs, either

f0dder · « **Reply #78 on:** November 21, 2009, 10:30 AM »

Eóin: very debatable indeed - most standard apps aren't going to benefit from wider address space or wider registers... but will rather be penalized by somewhat larger memory consumption (code as well as data). Of course, while 32bit code does run natively under 64bit and isn't emulated, there's the WOW64 translation layer taking place... but for standard applications (barring foxit reader

), the speed hit there is negligible, just like you don't see a speed hit due to the unicode<>ansi conversions the non-unicode functions do on NT.

Innuendo · « **Reply #79 on:** November 21, 2009, 12:29 PM »

Of course, when I posted that, I neglected to mention DOpus - File Management is what keeps me on Windows.
-Darwin (November 21, 2009, 10:29 AM)

DOpus is an app I can't imagine it working under WINE or Crossover, either. It's just too heavily buried into the Windows API. I can't imagine there being a clone on Windows, either, as DOpus is very much oriented to the Windows Explorer (but on steroids) way of doing things. I think if any Linux developer coded a Windows Explorer clone they'd be run out of town on a rail.

Eóin · « **Reply #80 on:** November 21, 2009, 12:48 PM »

F0dder, I agree it's very debatable. But it's just no harm remembering that extra memory, both usage and access to, isn't the only thing x64 brings to your PC. Even if it is the most noticeable.

delwoode · « **Reply #81 on:** November 24, 2009, 07:16 AM »

For me its all about maximum program compatability. This is why I am using xp and not a mac os or umbuntu or whatever. I tried Win7 for a couple of weeks. Too many of my apps didnt like it or would not work. I tried work arounds. So I will stay with xp for a couple more years until the apps catch up with the operating system.

Innuendo · « **Reply #82 on:** November 24, 2009, 09:14 AM »

For me its all about maximum program compatability. This is why I am using xp and not a mac os or umbuntu or whatever.
-delwoode (November 24, 2009, 07:16 AM)

I did the "I'm going to run the less popular, but infinitely more cool OS" thing a long time ago. It was the Amiga & to this day modern OSes could learn a thing about it's elegance and grace. AmigaOS could pre-emptively multi-task very well with just 512K of RAM. Installing device drivers was a simple matter of copying one or two files into a certain directory on your hard drive. Remove the device later? Just delete those two files & you're done. Independent file formats ensured that any word processor could load a file written with another. Same with images and graphics programs. Just try to tell me that wasn't elegant.

I moved to a PC when I realized that, for me, a computer isn't about it's OS. It's about the apps.

I tried Win7 for a couple of weeks. Too many of my apps didnt like it or would not work. I tried work arounds. So I will stay with xp for a couple more years until the apps catch up with the operating system.

No offense, but your problem isn't a case of your apps not catching up to the operating system. That's already happened. Anything that can work on Vista (a two year old OS) can work on Win7. Anything that can't needs to be upgraded or replaced. Any apps still in development will work with Win7. If yours don't then chances are development stopped a long time ago and you need to start searching for a replacement that'll do what it did.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #83 on:** November 29, 2009, 12:45 PM »

afa Superfetch goes, running locate32 was likely the culprit for most of the drive run-on. I switched to Everything Search and turned as much indexing off as I could. I don't cache or shadow network shares, don't index for faster searching, etc.. I tried Superfetch fully enabled, then with the setting I use.
-MilesAhead (November 20, 2009, 06:45 PM)

btw although these tweaks, along with tuning some services, quieted down the HD on both Vista 32 bit and Vista64 SP1, they seem to have no benefit on W7 32 bit afaict. Something is pulsing my HD every 2 seconds. I'm damned if I can find it. Unlike Vista, it doesn't seem to hurt performance. I guess it's one of those "Windows Annoyances" someone will find a cure for in 2 years.

cmpm · « **Reply #84 on:** November 29, 2009, 05:03 PM »

I haven't really 'switched' to w7 yet, but I partitioned half my drive and loaded w7 pro.

I never did vista, so I can only compare it to xp. Did a clean install to the D partition and w7 changed it to C. Which surprisingly did not affect the operation of xp on the other partition, which is now D for xp.

W7 is much faster then XP. All programs I installed works fine. And I can access the xp drive and anything on it, though I haven't tried to run anything from xp via w7. I did install a few things from xp's partition.

UAC is an annoyance, that is certain. Other then that, so far it's an enjoyable experience. Especially since I bought w7 pro at a school discount. $60 total including shipping.

I had to activate games because of the school type release it is, not sure if that's true for all w7' pro's, since it is the business release. Just a tad under Ultimate, of which it's extras would not be needed by me.....I think.

f0dder · « **Reply #85 on:** November 30, 2009, 01:51 AM »

cmpm: in which ways do you find w7 to be faster than XP? (Not that I disagree, just want to hear other people's opinion

).

UAC is annoying at first, but you get used to it quickly - and it's good for security (just remember to crank the UAC security level to the max in the control panel, otherwise it's useless).

cmpm · « **Reply #86 on:** November 30, 2009, 04:18 AM »

everything starts faster, most notably firefox

there doesn't seem to be as much process' starting or they start faster
dunno?

f0dder · « **Reply #87 on:** November 30, 2009, 04:25 AM »

everything starts faster, most notably firefox

there doesn't seem to be as much process' starting or they start faster
dunno?
-cmpm (November 30, 2009, 04:18 AM)

SuperFetch

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #88 on:** November 30, 2009, 05:44 AM »

For me the nice thing about the startup is that you get control of your system much earlier (even if it hasn't fully finished the startup process).

Darwin · « **Reply #89 on:** November 30, 2009, 11:28 AM »

For me the nice thing about the startup is that you get control of your system much earlier (even if it hasn't fully finished the startup process).
-Carol Haynes (November 30, 2009, 05:44 AM)

Yes - my experience is that Vista 64 and Win7 64 boot to the login prompt in about the same amount of time. The big difference, however, is that Win7 loads to a useable desktop in a few seconds whereas Vista and XP take quite a bit longer to do the same. The Vista/Win7 comparison are on the same machine.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #90 on:** November 30, 2009, 01:14 PM »

afa Superfetch goes, running locate32 was likely the culprit for most of the drive run-on. I switched to Everything Search and turned as much indexing off as I could. I don't cache or shadow network shares, don't index for faster searching, etc.. I tried Superfetch fully enabled, then with the setting I use.
-MilesAhead (November 20, 2009, 06:45 PM)

btw although these tweaks, along with tuning some services, quieted down the HD on both Vista 32 bit and Vista64 SP1, they seem to have no benefit on W7 32 bit afaict. Something is pulsing my HD every 2 seconds. I'm damned if I can find it. Unlike Vista, it doesn't seem to hurt performance. I guess it's one of those "Windows Annoyances" someone will find a cure for in 2 years.

-MilesAhead (November 29, 2009, 12:45 PM)

In case anyone else is wondering why the metronome won't stop even though the disk is idle for hours, in my case at least, I think it's an HPism. The LED flicks every 2 seconds like a clock. On my quad core, the HD LED doesn't act like this but at the top of the case near the memory stick ports I can see a red LED come on every now and then. I think they hooked the memory stick polling to the HD LED for some stupid reason in the old model.

Superfetch on/off; Windows Search on/off; seems not to slow it down so I'm leaving them on. Seems like they've been optimized since Vista. I saw some other posts since Win2k that some machines if you have auto-insert for the optical drive enabled, people would get this clock tick action on the LED. Made me think it's likely the memory stick ports since I have all that auto-insert disabled.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #91 on:** November 30, 2009, 01:19 PM »

For me the nice thing about the startup is that you get control of your system much earlier (even if it hasn't fully finished the startup process).
-Carol Haynes (November 30, 2009, 05:44 AM)

Yes - my experience is that Vista 64 and Win7 64 boot to the login prompt in about the same amount of time. The big difference, however, is that Win7 loads to a useable desktop in a few seconds whereas Vista and XP take quite a bit longer to do the same. The Vista/Win7 comparison are on the same machine.
-Darwin (November 30, 2009, 11:28 AM)

One thing a bit annoying I notice in Vista64.. I have a USB drive that I leave hooked up all the time. It adds about 14 seconds to the boot cycle. The machine gets to the initial boot options screen, the USB drive lights up, then it shuts it down, then spins it up again. My solution is to turn the machine on then make my coffee. Using BootSpeed .vbs script the best I can get seems to be about 78 seconds for a warm boot. With the drive unplugged it shaves 12 to 14 seconds off the time. Cleaning all my little hotkey gizmos out of auto startup only shaves off about 2 seconds, unlike most advice you see posted for speeding up your boot times.

One of these days I'll have to try unplugging my docking station from the W7 machine to see the difference. I think W7 32 bit warm boot cycle is around 68 seconds, which is comparable to Vista 32 bit. Must take more time to load up that WOW stuff.

edit: just tried it for grins. W7 7077 32 bit warm boot cycle using BootSpeed with docking station powered up is 54 seconds.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #92 on:** November 30, 2009, 01:28 PM »

For me the nice thing about the startup is that you get control of your system much earlier (even if it hasn't fully finished the startup process).
-Carol Haynes (November 30, 2009, 05:44 AM)

Yes - my experience is that Vista 64 and Win7 64 boot to the login prompt in about the same amount of time. The big difference, however, is that Win7 loads to a useable desktop in a few seconds whereas Vista and XP take quite a bit longer to do the same. The Vista/Win7 comparison are on the same machine.
-Darwin (November 30, 2009, 11:28 AM)

Just curious. Is it a multi-core PC? I'm wondering if 7 does a better job of distributing processes among the cores at startup?

Darwin · « **Reply #93 on:** November 30, 2009, 02:16 PM »

Just curious. Is it a multi-core PC? I'm wondering if 7 does a better job of distributing processes among the cores at startup?
-MilesAhead (November 30, 2009, 01:28 PM)

Well... Dual Core

I've noticed the disk activity light flashing fairly frequently as well since moving to Win7 but there's not audible disk thrashing going on and performance doesn't appear to be affected so I'm not sweating it.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #94 on:** November 30, 2009, 03:32 PM »

Yep dual core - and one of the improvements in Windows 7 is multicore distribution - which has to be worth the effort.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #95 on:** November 30, 2009, 03:42 PM »

Just curious. Is it a multi-core PC? I'm wondering if 7 does a better job of distributing processes among the cores at startup?
-MilesAhead (November 30, 2009, 01:28 PM)

Well... Dual Core

I've noticed the disk activity light flashing fairly frequently as well since moving to Win7 but there's not audible disk thrashing going on and performance doesn't appear to be affected so I'm not sweating it.
-Darwin (November 30, 2009, 02:16 PM)

I think it must be some interaction with drivers or something. When I was searching I noticed a lot of people saying XP SP1 didn't give the blink but XP SP2 did. It seemed like the consensus was disabling auto-insert notification sometimes fixed it. When I had Vista 32 bit on the machine I was getting so much disk activity and it took so long to tame it that I don't remember if I got the regular pulse with Vista or not. I was definitely getting performance killing drive hogging. But I think the pulsing is just some controller polling issue. CrystalDisk benchmark is giving good numbers. I'm not worried about the LED wearing out before the machine dies.

Innuendo · « **Reply #96 on:** November 30, 2009, 10:20 PM »

For those of you experiencing the HD LED flashing thing....what might be going on is that Windows 7 will defrag your hard drives while idle if Windows deems it's needed. You can turn this behavior off in the Defrag app if you desire.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #97 on:** December 01, 2009, 12:02 AM »

For those of you experiencing the HD LED flashing thing....what might be going on is that Windows 7 will defrag your hard drives while idle if Windows deems it's needed. You can turn this behavior off in the Defrag app if you desire.
-Innuendo (November 30, 2009, 10:20 PM)

If it was defrag it would run on. I'm talking about a ticking like a clock every one or two seconds. The LED just lights, then goes out. It doesn't stay on like when the HD is being accessed steadily such as during defrag. I'm pretty certain it's polling the hardware. It may stop and start depending on the OS and service pack. Must be some driver interaction. I went through all this with Vista before SP1. Believe me, it's not defrag.

f0dder · « **Reply #98 on:** December 01, 2009, 01:38 AM »

Simply "polling" a harddrive (which I can't imagine being done) shouldn't cause the LED to light - only if you're reading or writing the drive... but that can happen for a lot of reasons. I don't see that happening on my install, but I've stripped off windows search/indexing and defragger.

What other software do you have running in the background?

Innuendo · « **Reply #99 on:** December 01, 2009, 10:55 AM »

If it was defrag it would run on. I'm talking about a ticking like a clock every one or two seconds. The LED just lights, then goes out.
-MilesAhead (December 01, 2009, 12:02 AM)

Last time I saw something like that was when Windows 95 was out. A driver update and a new BIOS fixed it.

It doesn't stay on like when the HD is being accessed steadily such as during defrag.

Defrag-when-idle doesn't just access your hard drive steadily. It'll defrag a couple seconds, stop a couple seconds to see if any other program needs to perform any operations, defrag again a couple seconds, etc.