Flupa

I'm thinking about going from XP to Windows 7 for my desktop and getting it from the win741.com deal.

1. My understanding is that since this is an upgrade version, you have to have a Vista or XP OS disk (or maybe you just need the key?) to install Windows 7. I do not have any retail Vista or XP disks, but I do have the reinstall disks that came with my laptop. Would these work for the upgrade?

2. My desktop is old and can only do 32bit. If I get Windows 7 in 32bit, then later get a new desktop and want to upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit, do I have to buy a new 64bit copy of Windows 7, or is there a cheap way to upgrade from 32bit to 64bit? Maybe I'm better of sticking with XP until I get a new computer?

*edit to add question*
3. Since going from XP to Windows 7 requires a clean install, do I need to pay the extra $13 for a bootable Windows 7 installation disk (instead of just digital download)? Might have to wait until after Oct 22 for this question to hear other people's experience with it.

Gaige

1. Yes, those should work.
2. Yes, you can get the 64bit version of Win 7 from MS for just shipping cost.
3. With the digital download its an iso that burns into a bootable CD.

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Fat Chick + Nacho Cheese + Xbox 360 + Bergon = Good Times. Just Saying~

Flupa

That's a big help. Thanks!

Niber

Slight hijack.. but after hearing all the Windows 7 praise I've been completely unimpressed.

I still haven't found drivers for either of my 2 DVD drives and it seems like half my software programs lead to compatibility errors (or warnings). I also find the new dock to be a nuisance despite being ascetically appealing. Why is this so much better than previous OS's?

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Flipmode

Speed. Less bloat. Speed. OS has a future. Speed. Better looking. Speed. Stability. Did I mention speed?

What do you have that isnt supported and more importantly, how old is it?

Gaige

Weird that you've had driver issues, I haven't seen anything of the sort. Plus the new taskbar is amazing if you pin shit to it!

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Fat Chick + Nacho Cheese + Xbox 360 + Bergon = Good Times. Just Saying~

Morara

You...shouldn't need drivers for a DVD drive.

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Pinski

Yah........

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Niber

Do you really notice a speed increase, or are you just reading off the MS bullet points? If so, what are you doing exactly? Feels the same to me in normal operation. Stability? Were you really crashing all the time in Vista? I can't recall a single crash and I leave my machine running for months at a time without a reboot. I don't know, it feels to me like Vista with a new UI that's prettier but less user friendly.

My drives cant be that old, I mean .. maybe 2 years? I don't know, one of them is a DVD R/W (Samsung) that I've had little reason to ever replace. The other is a LG CDRW, both of which were detected automatically in Vista.

After install I had to scour the net for NForce and SoundBlaster drivers, it was a mild annoyance but not nearly as annoying as the DVD drives.

I'm not crazy about the task bar, the boxes take up too much room (vertically) and the pinning feature while nice is just a simplification of dragging a program to your quicklaunch in Vista. I find myself configuring it to look more like it's Vista and XP counterparts (rectangular boxes). Not to mention UAC is still a piece of shit and half my programs (that work) spit odd compatibility warnings every time I launch them because they're not Win7 approved. Is there a way to disable that?

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Gaige

Yes, disable UAC ofc. No one uses that shit. For two make the taskbar icons small, that helps the size thing. Pinning them is amazing because unlike quicklaunch they don't take up the entire fucking bar and multiple programs just tile out, which is win.

Your dvd/cd burners should just work, you shouldn't have to find driver for them, my LG 20x dvd burner uses a Microsoft driver from fucking 2006 ffs.

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Fat Chick + Nacho Cheese + Xbox 360 + Bergon = Good Times. Just Saying~