Windows 7 as an extra for Windows Vista Ultimate customers.

[maplecookie Veteran]

Thread Cleaned

[Mr. Dee]

I didn't have a specific reason to choose Ultimate, I just wanted the best, I believe its just my nature to want the best in everything. But it does have its unique advantages of giving you everything, Domain Join, Media Center, Encryption, Complete PC Backup (which I think should be in all the SKUs), Tablet PC (although I don't own a Tablet PC). But for the user who doesn't want a trade off, its the best option. As for Ultimate Extras, lack luster yes but they still seem committed. I think the idea of Ultimate Extras is being down played for Windows 7, the Team I hear has even been disbanded. I hope all those Dreamscenes come with 7, I don't have the time redownload all of them again, in addition to the sounds and games.

Windows 7 is looking more like a hard sell, so many of the multimedia and productivity apps like Photo Gallery and Live Movie Maker are going be free downloads through Windows Live, even for XP users. And no doubt about it, traditional programs like Media Player 12 will be freebies too. The only key differentiators I see is Multi-Touch and a clean up of Explorer and slimmer OS and optimization of the kernel to increase boot time and shutdown and a new Taskbar for large monitor and multiple displays. For XP users, it will be a worthy upgrade by then, especially if you still using that PC you bought back in October of 2001 with it.

[Doli]

I didn't have a specific reason to choose Ultimate, I just wanted the best, I believe its just my nature to want the best in everything. But it does have its unique advantages of giving you everything, Domain Join, Media Center, Encryption, Complete PC Backup (which I think should be in all the SKUs), Tablet PC (although I don't own a Tablet PC). But for the user who doesn't want a trade off, its the best option. As for Ultimate Extras, lack luster yes but they still seem committed. I think the idea of Ultimate Extras is being down played for Windows 7, the Team I hear has even been disbanded. I hope all those Dreamscenes come with 7, I don't have the time redownload all of them again, in addition to the sounds and games.

Windows 7 is looking more like a hard sell, so many of the multimedia and productivity apps like Photo Gallery and Live Movie Maker are going be free downloads through Windows Live, even for XP users. And no doubt about it, traditional programs like Media Player 12 will be freebies too. The only key differentiators I see is Multi-Touch and a clean up of Explorer and slimmer OS and optimization of the kernel to increase boot time and shutdown and a new Taskbar for large monitor and multiple displays. For XP users, it will be a worthy upgrade by then, especially if you still using that PC you bought back in October of 2001 with it.

I dont think Windows 7 would be very good on a PC from 2001.

[Mr. Dee]

I dont think Windows 7 would be very good on a PC from 2001.

I am saying it would be a worthy upgrade buying a new PC with 7 for a user with PC still running XP from so long ago.

[DJ Woody]

By the way, wasnt Win98 R2 like a $30 upgrade for win98 customers?

[Scorbing]

'and it has the media centre.

honestly I'm not even looking forward to windows 7 after how vista's turned out.

There is nothing wrong with Vista (and coming from my mouth, that's a lot to say). I used to hate Vista, now I like it a lot. Yes, it had its flaws just like Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP when they were just released but a lot of those flaws have been corrected through Windows Update and SP1. Vista isn't perfect, but what in this world of ours is?

If you want Vista to work for you, you MUST have the correct hardware and latest drivers. If you see my specs, I don't have the fastest, greatest or most expensive computer in the world. hell I don't even think Gateway is a great brand, but that doesn't mean you can't make it better. When I first bought this PC it came with an integrated Nvidia video card which I immediately replaced with an 8800GT that cost me $149.00. Now, if you want Vista to run like it should, you need to update ALL your drivers to the latest and most recent versions, especially the chipset drivers. believe it or not, most people don't bother updating the chipset drivers. They just use the generic ones that Vista installs or the ones that come with the mobo CD which is most likely an outdated driver since they are updated quite often. In my case, I was making the mistake of not updating the chipset drivers - I found out the hard way - plus I only had 3 GB of memory (2.5GB in reality since the hardware uses .5 of that 3GB) so I just recently upgraded the memory to 4GB and now instead of 2.5GB I have 3.5GB to play with. 1 more GB can make a difference since the OS is memory hungry. It doesn't do you any good to have a car if you don't have the wheels to move it with. By this I mean that your CPU might be a Quadcore Intel 3GHz but if you have only 1GB of memory and using an internal video card with outdated drivers, the Intel CPU is not going to do you any good.

Give Vista a chance. Take it from me - I know. Upgrade your memory to 4GB if you are using the 32 bit version, upgrade your video card to something with power and make sure you update ALL your drivers and you will see how that sucker runs.