Windows 7 Fast or SLOOOWWWW???

Ok, im going to start out with the fact that I have seen a lot of people complaining that Windows 7 is slower than VISTA. I want to convince all those skeptics into believers lol.

It has been proven in many places that Windows 7 boots up faster, eats up less resources, and scales muliple cores better. I have found this to be VERY true.

My Example:

HP dv1000
1.6GHz
2GB RAM (Brand new sticks)
50GB HDD

I recieved this device with XP (Used). I recieved it for 50$ with several viruses and a few hardware problems. I fixed it up and its running great, untill i had a spell of bad luck. XP became corrupted, so i tried a system restore. Something happened to the system restore files and it wouldn't restore. And i couldn't find my discs. So I had to install my Dell Vista copy or I was going to have to say goodbye to my laptop.

Problems I have:

-Its slow (And i know you people who are Vista lovers will say that my system isnt fast enough, but im WELL within the so called 'Recommended Specs')
-I can't stream anything higher than 360p (Untill i installed IE 9 Beta 1-Then i was streaming at 480p fullscreen YAY )
-DVD stutter even when playing in WMP
-DVD's sometimes won't play-I will press play, and it will tell me a bunch of bull crap about how windows can't play a copyrighted DVD
~I have K-Lite installed....
~In VLC I can get it to play everytime so that really isnt a problem
-It's a hog, my RAM is NEVER below 50%. Most of the time it hovers around 60%+
-Crashes Often


Good things i HAVE seen:

-GREAT update software
-Fun effects
-Groundwork for Windows 7


Overall Vista was a flop, and we all know that (Most of us). And now for my 7:

Same setup:

I installed Windows 7 Enterprise Trial in desperation. It worked like a charm:

-Upgraded nicely, and worked without a hickup.
-Unlinke Vista it never froze or crashed.
-CPU usage was low.
-RAM hovered around 20-40%.
-Most if not all options of Vista were present in 7.
-I was able to get to the desktop in 1:15, it also woke up WAY better than Vista.
-NO RAM leaking when put in standby, at least that I can see. Vista in my experience can go longer than XP, but 7 improver on that.

I saw an article on Windows 7 and how it saves time. It was a HUGE number, ill see if I can't pull out that up and post it later. The Aero snap, shake, and preview are all timesavers. I really love the dock style taskbar, it saves a ton of flipping around time. You don't have to switch around tabs to find the right one, you just hover over each tab untill you find the reall one.

Sadly it was only for 3 months and I had to install Vista back on.

I could spit links that give charts and the sort, but most people would pass on them. You can google it your self: Vista vs 7. You will find the same results.

BEWARE of Vista on Netbooks and BEWARE of Windows 7 STARTER. Starter is a cheap OEM version of Windows with many restrictions. Here they are (What is list is what is NOT SUPPORTED/INCLUDED):

•Aero Glass, meaning you can only use the “Windows Basic” or other opaque themes. It also means you do not get Taskbar Previews or Aero Peek.
•Personalization features for changing desktop backgrounds, window colors, or sound schemes.
•The ability to switch between users without having to log off.
•Multi-monitor support.
•DVD playback.
•Windows Media Center for watching recorded TV or other media.
•Remote Media Streaming for streaming your music, videos, and recorded TV from your home computer.
•Domain support for business customers.
•XP Mode for those that want the ability to run older Windows XP programs on Windows 7.

All other Versions support the above features (Home Premium-No XP Mode). So don't worry , you get the full experience no matter what version you buy. And starter isn't available to sale in the US, plus they can only put it on Netbooks.

Also I hear people talk about how XP is faster than 7. I find them to be VERY compariable. I see that the new features outweigh ANY (And if there are any) slowdowns.

Ok im done, you can find all of this information in other places, but i kept seeing that people thought Vista was faster, and it made me want to write this article . Thanks for those who read it all!

Oh yes, im sure there are several similar threads running around like this but i thought that I could write one too !! And sorry about the tangents on Vista/XP/Versions of 7/And who knows

You didn't really bother to read his post, did you?

I have to agree that I've been very impressed with how quick Windows 7 is. I cannot compare it to Vista since I upgraded directly from XP to 7, but 7 is at least as fast as XP ever was on my hardware.

1. Imo, recommended specs are a joke. You are better off basically going a noticable amount above recommended specs. Recommended specs should be the minimum specs imo.

2. I haven't had any problems with DVDs on my desktop, HOWEVER, on my laptop, it sometimes stutters, but very rarely. Happens on VLC and WMP. I now run MPC-HC and so far haven't had problems: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/

Win 8 you mean? And I DO hope that Microsoft will give us a better file system. NTFS is getting damn old and isn't that efficient on SSDs. The Linux folks have so much freedom when it comes to file systems. I run Linux and I miss having all these filesystems. ext4 is awesome and improved my random read/write over ext3 on my SSD.

According to an article that I read on MSDN/TechNet Windows 7 uses more RAM. However, the way that it uses this RAM is much more different than Vista or XP. Basically, what the Microsoft Devs said was that most of the stuff that the OS thinks it will need in the the short term are put in to RAM instead of keeping it on the HDD. This significantly reduces the latency of having to access the HDD as RAM is significantly faster than either an SSD or a HDD. However, for this, you sacrifice more RAM and imo, with 4GB or more, this is not an issue. Vista did something like this too, however Win 7 significantly improved it.

I will try and find this article and link to it. It's a pretty good read. Most people don't realize how different Win 7 is from Vista and XP under the hood.

edit:
Didn't find the Win 7 specific one, but here is the Vista one: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2 [...] emory.html
Basically, the same idea, but much better implementation on Win 7.

op's thread is basically a waste of time.
we all know this and knew this before he did.
I wouldn't and didn't even bother with some dumb trial edition, not with Win7.
after Vista I knew it had to be an upgrade and went with it off that bat.
op was just bored and wanted to waist time.
my recommendation is to just get Win7 (pro or ultimate for me) a real copy,
activate it (legal copy i hope) and 7 on up.!

you were good until the " windows 7 dressed down chicken compared with vista " comment, is that when the drugs kicked in.?

^
LMAO..!

I just posted it for discussion. I know MOST people know its faster, i just wanted to post that out there for the morons who still love Vista.

And ive know 7 was better when the beta first came out... So i wasnt the last one... And if we all know this, then why when i visit forums and the such there are people whining on how 7 sucks and they wished they never upgraded from Vista.

I used the Dumb Trial becuase im a poor student and i don't have enough money to be ripped off my Microsoft. I just wanted to try it on my laptop, i was curious how well it performed compared to Vista.

And if you think its a waste of time DONT POST. It is a discussion forum for those to share what they think of 7 ect.

You can get Win 7 Pro for about $30-50 as a student. At least I can at my school.

^ Correction. Upgrade is $30. The full version is $60-65 ($50 at my school with ID): http://www.microsoft.com/student/e [...] fault.aspx

Also, if you are a CS/IT/Digital art student, you can usually get Win 7 (and a lot of other stuff) for free or low cost via MSDNAA assuming your school has a deal with MSFT. I got Win 7 free this way and got the full VS 2010 suite for $20.