Windows 7

Iconic

I am thinking of getting Windows 7 because most people think it's a big improvement on Vista and better than XP. My main machine is XP but I do have access to a Vista laptop.

I would rather wait to see if the overall impression is still good after a few more months but there are a few good deals about at the moment.

The main reason I am holding back is software and hardware compatability. My printer will not work properly with XP but uses Vista's own drivers and works well. One of my network cards does not work properly with XP and Vista so I assume Windows 7 will not improve this. And what about software?

Should I buy now or should I wait?

custardy

it is possible W7 will work but network cards are cheap anyway really.
you did well to skip vista as W7 is far better.im in the process now of backing up this PC to change it from vista to W7
i recently put W7 on my sempron laptop(it was XP) and i uses far less resources compared to vista running on this intel core duo PC with double the ram

Jaffa.

You can wait if you want, XP's not going anywhere fast.

nitr02007

I've recently upgraded two machines from XP to the free Windows 7 RC 64bit and its been great. I'd highly recommend it.

You can upgrade an old PC pretty cheaply these days - I upgraded mine in January with a new motherboard (Gigabyte [FONT=&quot]GA-MA74GM-S2[/FONT]), Dual core AMD Athlon 64, and 4GB of Memory for less than £100.

The new motherboard has network & sound built in - so I didnt have to use/buy network or sound cards.

Havent had any driver problems with windows 7 at all.

Iconic

custardy wrote: »

it is possible W7 will work but network cards are cheap anyway really.

Actually it's a firewire card that I need to transfer footage from my camcorder. I have had to do a workaround to get it to work with XP. Do you think it would work with Windows 7?

Iconic

nitr02007 wrote: »

I've recently upgraded two machines from XP to the free Windows 7 RC 64bit and its been great. I'd highly recommend it.

You can upgrade an old PC pretty cheaply these days - I upgraded mine in January with a new motherboard (Gigabyte [FONT=&quot]GA-MA74GM-S2[/FONT]), Dual core AMD Athlon 64, and 4GB of Memory for less than £100.

The new motherboard has network & sound built in - so I didnt have to use/buy network or sound cards.

Havent had any driver problems with windows 7 at all.

Mine is a Dell 8300. I think a motherboard upgrade is not an option. However I have upgraded the RAM and it does what I want it to do now.

custardy

Iconic wrote: »

Mine is a Dell 8300. I think a motherboard upgrade is not an option. However I have upgraded the RAM and it does what I want it to do now.

nothing stopping you fitting another mobo
its just a pc case.
only difference is you will lose all the 'dellism' and would need to buy a new OS

spaceboy

Cheapest for Windows 7 at the moment seems to be Amazon at £68.

Iconic

custardy wrote: »

only difference is you will lose all the 'dellism' and would need to buy a new OS

Why? I have reinstalled XP on a couple of machines with no problems at all.

Iconic

spaceboy wrote: »

Cheapest for Windows 7 at the moment seems to be Amazon at £68.

It was £40 odd a couple of weeks ago with Tesco:mad:

spaceboy

Iconic wrote: »

It was £40 odd a couple of weeks ago with Tesco:mad:

Yeah now the !!!!!!!s want £147...