Upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7?

[Crash]

Hi everyone,

The Windows XP install currently on my desktop computer has been kind of slow, cluttered up and have been giving me BSODs. Since it is now summer vacation, and I have recently filled up that hard drive, I was thinking of starting a clean install on a larger hard drive. However, I am not sure if I want to stay with Windows XP or go with Windows 7. If I stayed with Windows XP, I would just use SP3 Professional. If I switch to Windows 7, I would run Windows 7 Professional x64.

WinXP Pros:
I am familiar with most everything about it. I know drivers and software works. At this point, it is a highly customizable OS. However, the interface is starting to be a little dated, and I do want to use some of the new features of Win7.

Win7:
I have some experience with it, however not close to the experience I have with WinXP. New interface and new feature are nice. It's also nice to not live in 2001 anymore. Also, at this point, I imagine that most software issues and drivers issues are sorted out...

I am running on an older system: single core AMD Athlon 64, ASUS A8N-SLI mobo, Nvidia Geforce 7800GTX, 4GB of DDR RAM. How well would Windows 7 run on my machine? I am not really looking to upgrade any hardware at this stage, as I mostly use my laptop anyways. If anything, I am going to wait either a few more years or until some major part (processor, mobo, etc.) croaks before I build a new machine.

What do you guys think? I have had experience with both OS, but neither excites me enough to make me definitely choose that OS. One of my major concerns is that my hardware is too dated to run Windows 7 well. What are your experiences with Windows 7 vs Windows XP, especially on an older machine?

 

[Car-less]

I'm in a similar position with a single core desktop machine that's running poorly, so I mainly use my laptop now. I also have experience of both XP and 7.

The main difference is that I have been running Windows 7 RC (Release candidate) on the desktop machine, and have an unused copy of Win 7 Home Premium that I've been thinking of installing.

I found that the release candidate was faster and more stable than the factory instaled XP on this machine; 2.93Ghz P4, 1Gb Ram, 128Mb GPU, obscure HP Mobo, so I'd guess that your machine should handle 7 reasonably well.

However, I've decided NOT to install the full version of 7 onto my machine as I know that my problems are hardware related, and it would be a waste of a good serial number. Instead I am currently saving towards building a new machine that will run 7 so much better.


A couple of things to consider;

How solid is the Hardware in your machine? I've doubled the Ram, upgraded the CPU cooler and replaced the PSU on this machine in the past year, yet it continues to decline in reliability.

Do you have an XP or 7 CD that you could use? At this point I'd say a single core machine is too old to bother investing in a new copy of windows for.

What OS is on your laptop? I found it useful to have different OS's on my laptop and desktop.

 

[wfooshee]

Do you use shared printers from other machines on your network? 64-bit OS will not connect to a printer shared from a 32-bit machine. And really, unless you've got the 64-bit versions of your apps, you're not really gaining anything.

 

[DQuaN]

Do you use shared printers from other machines on your network? 64-bit OS will not connect to a printer shared from a 32-bit machine. And really, unless you've got the 64-bit versions of your apps, you're not really gaining anything.

It will if you have the 64bit drivers for the printer.

 

[wfooshee]

You can't install the 64-bit drivers on the 32-bit machine for it to share. The 64-bit drivers on the 64-bit machine have no target, because it won't accept the \\servername\sharename as the location of the printer. If it's a network-attached printer, then print to the IP address all day from 64-bit Windows, but if the target is a 32-bit share, it doesn't work. That's my experience with Laserjets and Officejets, anyway.

 

[DQuaN]

Hmm. At home I have a Server 2003 32bit with a printer shared on it. After installing Windows 7 64 i just browsed to the share, connected, windows update popped up and went off to retrieve the driver for me. It prints no problem. This is with a Samsung printer.

 

[Crash]

Do you use shared printers from other machines on your network? 64-bit OS will not connect to a printer shared from a 32-bit machine. And really, unless you've got the 64-bit versions of your apps, you're not really gaining anything.

I don't really ever print anything on that computer, so I'm not too worried about that.

But actually, the school club/team that I do IT for is running a Dell printer off of a Windows Server 2003 domain with Windows 7 x64 clients. It took a while to get it to work, but the computers do print. The scanning function just won't work.

A couple of things to consider;

How solid is the Hardware in your machine? I've doubled the Ram, upgraded the CPU cooler and replaced the PSU on this machine in the past year, yet it continues to decline in reliability.

Reliability's been ok; most of my problems seem to be Windows related. Nothing major has really needed replacement yet, the only thing was the chipset fan on the motherboard a couple of years back. That was apparently a common issue though, and ASUS just sent me another one without question.

Do you have an XP or 7 CD that you could use? At this point I'd say a single core machine is too old to bother investing in a new copy of windows for.

Yeah, I wouldn't buy a new copy of Windows, but I already have a copy of XP (desktop's been running that copy since day 1) and my school is part of MSDNAA and I took a computer science class, so I was able to download a bunch of Microsoft software legally for free. One of those licenses is for Win7.

What OS is on your laptop? I found it useful to have different OS's on my laptop and desktop.

My laptop is actually a Mac, so yeah...


Well since my lovely XP partition won't even boot anymore, and it sounds like Win7 should work fairly well with my old hardware, I think I'm going to go ahead and upgrade. Thanks guys!