Windows 7 Yes or No?

[Bill Cunningham]

I have been using AVG. It works good, too.
www.avgfree.com

Just stay away from that 'Avast' thing.. It bogged my computer right down and even though it has a uninstall, it leaves junk threaded all through your system. I thought I finally got it all out, but nope, I still get the odd popup when I try to load an older program.. My Panda virus checker (one year subscription came with the new computer) went south for some reason, so I went to the mcfee site and they have a 3 month. free trial. I used it on an older system and was satified, their current version works very well and will buy it before the trial runs out.. On these free checkers, You 'do' get what you pay for in most cases.

[Lee DeRaud]

So far, so good (knock on wood). The extra 4GB of RAM and the DVDs from Microsoft both showed up yesterday morning, and I've been configuring my "new" computer ever since.

Since I was going from Vista/32 to 7/64, it was a "custom" install. But as it turns out, "custom" is not the same thing as "bare-metal clean": the entire Program File, Windows, and Users directory trees get preserved under a "Windows.old" directory. Doesn't help with the program reinstalls, but it beats having to copy a couple hundred GB back in from the external drive. (I'm not kidding about that: ~1000 CDs worth of MP3s, several thousand scanned slides and negatives, and a ton of synthesizer sample files take up a lot of room.)

Corel and friends, my software development tools, and most of my music and photography stuff is back in play. Machine is quite zippy...bunch of contributors to that: more RAM, no preinstalled OEM cruft, and whatever benefit W7 and 64-bit themselves bring to the table. I've still got all the Aero eye-candy enabled: decided for once to just "embrace the suck" rather than trying to force the whole world into "Windows Classic" mode.

The only major incompatibility casualty is my 7-year-old Minolta film scanner: obsolete hardware from a defunct manufacturer is a bad combination for the transition to 64-bit. Luckily I'm done with my slides and negs, my mom's slides, and my girlfriend's slides, and it will still work on the XP machine if something comes up. Or else I'll just give it away to the next friend who finds a shoebox full of old film in the attic.

I have the 3-pack of upgrades (well, 2-pack now), but I may let the laptop stay with Vista for awhile: I'm told that HP is way behind the curve on Win7 when it comes to support for the oddball extra "keys" that control the speakers, DVD, etc.

[Anthony Scira]

I do finally have a problem with Win7 RC 64bit/Corel X3/Epilog Driver. It won't work at 1200DPI for anything other than a minimum job. It gives me some error about the driver needing reinstalled. Restarting Corel X3 resolves the driver problem, but only if I then lower the DPI.

I think the Epilog Drivers are Beta drivers and the only official release is for the 32 bit.

Give the tech support some feedback, could help them with the final.

[Jerry Allen]

I have been using Avast! for a year now and like it. It uses less system resources than AVG. I have tried it on Win7-32 with no problem.
Most virus sofware is extemely invasive and does not cleanly uninstall. One reason I hate Norton and Macafee. I have not used the new free MS stuff yet. It might be okay.
I trust Avast! and Spybot and am pretty careful about what I do or open.

I tested the beta and RC candidate of Win7 because I have old software that works great in XP--particularly my drafting platform, Helix MicroCADAM.
Still works in Win7 but with a lot of tweaking. The security bs is really annoying even when turned all the way down.

I bought the Win7 3-pack because it is priced right, and installed it on various machines to test it in 32 and 64-bit mode. I used to do a lot of video editing, some programing and compiling which I don't do anymore. I could not tell any difference using the same hardware using typical programs including Corel CGS X3/X4 and Office 2003. The only thing I know for sure is that in order to use more than 3.5GB you need the 64 bit version, and that there are programs and hardware that will never work. My machines all have 2GB, so it's not an issue to me. Surprisingly though in 64 bit, all my hardware had drivers which Windows 7 recognized and installed drivers for including video and audio (excluding a network printer and my Mercury).
If you are a tinkerer, Win7 loses hands down to XP.
Win7 is better than Vista and has a few cool features, but for the most part, I think XP is faster, smaller and cleaner.
Unless you are a gamer, are putting together a new machine, or are using Vista, I wouldn't bother. The 3-pack is a deal though, which may be needed in the future and is a limited time offer. So get it anyway.

I think that keeping the power requirements down for everyday computing is a worthwhile endeavor. I have an Intel Atom N330 Dual Core running XP that will also run Vista and Win7. It uses 40 watts under load with 2GB of RAM, a 500GB hd and a DVD burner. It works fine with Corel CGS, the net, and my laser. For most folks, that's all they need. This thing could stay on 24/7 and still use far less power than some kid's outrageous game rig. Better for the planet, better for America. Using more power so you can run Aero is bs. And the MS collar gets tighter...