Windows 7 Free Upgrade

[Darren]

I have just grabbed my free Windows 7 disc today from PC World and done a clean install.

First impressions its ok, looks good but the start menu and bar is bugging me to hell.

You are able to get a free copy if you purchased Windows Vista OS or desktop / laptop after the 26th June 2009 on a like for like basis.

IE: i purchased Vista Home Premium i got 7 Home Premium.

Anyone else running 7? whats your thoughts?

 

[aZooZa]

I have to run one PC with Windows just for Windows-specific tasks when virtualisation just won't work. All my other machines run a Unix flavour OS.

I would never run any version of Windows other then XP - it's the most mature OS from MS since MSDOS.

My 2p

Darren, is Win 7 on a CD or - I'm guessing - probably - a DVD?

 

[Darren]

Darren, is Win 7 on a CD or - I'm guessing - probably - a DVD?

Yes the version i have is DVD.

Here is a link with detailed information if you bought Vista or Desktop / Laptop to claim your free upgrade:

Microsoft Windows: Windows 7 Upgrade Option

 

[suzi]

Hi - What exactly is the PC World disc?

I'm about to buy a laptop and want W7 - but most still come with Vista+Free Upgrade. That's OK - if I can get the upgrade almost instantly - I don't want to have to wait days / weeks before I can install W7. So, can I just get PCW and use their disc?

Thanks

 

[aZooZa]

Hi - What exactly is the PC World disc?

I'm about to buy a laptop and want W7 - but most still come with Vista+Free Upgrade. That's OK - if I can get the upgrade almost instantly - I don't want to have to wait days / weeks before I can install W7. So, can I just get PCW and use their disc?

Thanks

Suzi

Find a new laptop with W7 already installed. There are plenty of new deals right now. Don't go through the upgrade hassle! Even low-price netbooks are shipping with W7 now pre-installed.

 

[Darren]

Its not a PC World disc, its the retail version of Windows 7

What ever version of Windows Vista you have you get like for like.

Windows Vista Home Retail > Windows 7 Home Retail
Windows Vista Home Upgrade Pack > Windows 7 Upgrade Pack

Thanks, Darren.

 

[TinkyWinky]

I wouldn't buy a new pc now with Win7.... wait until post Xmas - the prices with pre-installed will be less and they will undoubtedly have got the first big set of patches out to fix all the little bugs....

 

[aZooZa]

I wouldn't buy a new pc now with Win7.... wait until post Xmas - the prices with pre-installed will be less and they will undoubtedly have got the first big set of patches out to fix all the little bugs....

Good point!

 

[Slater]

Been running 7 for last couple of months major improvement over Vista.

Saw it first about 6 months ago at a Microsoft event, Msoft techie admited that Vista had become very bloated with lots of redundant code, 7 has been a major re-write which has really improved the performance.

Couple of nice features I use are Windows XP mode which allows you to run a virtualised copy of XP (licence included with 7), and ability to launch individual apps virtualised as well as the normal full desktop.

Problem Steps Recorder allows you to record your session activity including screen grabs, keyboard and mouse clicks, then saves them in a zip file which can be viewed in IE on another machine, good for troubleshooting/training, run psr.exe to try it.

Mark.

 

[aZooZa]

Been running 7 for last couple of months major improvement over Vista.

Saw it first about 6 months ago at a Microsoft event, Msoft techie admited that Vista had become very bloated with lots of redundant code, 7 has been a major re-write which has really improved the performance.

Couple of nice features I use are Windows XP mode which allows you to run a virtualised copy of XP (licence included with 7), and ability to launch individual apps virtualised as well as the normal full desktop.

Problem Steps Recorder allows you to record your session activity including screen grabs, keyboard and mouse clicks, then saves them in a zip file which can be viewed in IE on another machine, good for troubleshooting/training, run psr.exe to try it.

Mark.

Mark, that's interesting that you can run a virtualised XP in W7. How fast does that run? Any CPU overheating and noisy fans? I'm thinking that if W7 can virtualise XP, then it's just running a native code subset rather than a translation and thus could be quite seamless and with no degradation in performance. Is this the case? If W7 isn't 'bloatware' like Vista, I might just upgrade.

 

[Slater]

XP mode based on Microsoft Virtual PC, you also download a prebuilt XP virtual machine from Microsoft which your Windows 7 license entitles you to run.

Requires a machine with Intel-VT support in the BIOS, I run it on a dual core laptop and performance is OK.

 

[Skinner]

Dale you Blasphemer, XP Mature ? Win2k is where its at, not "My First OS by fisher price" i mean XP

 

[afx]

Dale, W7 isn't a true hypervisor product (not that is's meant to be) that runs on the bare metal. The virtualisation option it gives you to run XP is still Windows running on Windows. Probably similar performance to Vmware server / virtual PC installed on Windows, which is ok for non intensive use. But to answer your question there will be performance degradation.

 

[rjs_essex]

I upgraded to Windows 7 yesterday... Been getting used to it today... A few annoyances, but overal it seems pretty good. I like the Windows Action Centre that tells you what software needs updating, what apps (if any) have issues etc...

I hate not having the 'Show Desktop' icon where it should be though (hidden over in the far right corner by the clock). Same goes for the Quick Launch menu too... Pinning applications to the taskbar is a bit cumbersome for me so I've just created my own new quick launch menu in the old XP / Vista style...

I played with Windows 7 when it was at RC1 and I liked it, plus it seems a hell of a lot more stable than any version of Vista ever was!

Rich

 

[packeted]

Any students out there should google the student offer - £30 for a Windows 7 Professional upgrade Very nice upgrade from Vista (which I should have never migrated to from XP)... Nice and stable, relatively quick... only possible issue is NET 1.0 framework isn't compatible which DRT needs to run as far as I can tell..