OS Discussion: Windows 7, vista, xp

[EHM-2155 Mariano]

Edit by Moderator EHM-1997 Alexander: OS discussion split from the simulator poll to keep that thread clean

Winows 7 is better than vista, but it's not vastly better than vista - slight performance improvement and removal of some of the strange ui choices may not make it worth the hassle of reinstalling.

Windows 7 has one huge advantage over Vista that makes it worth the reinstall: it's the current OS and because of that, everything will be optimized and built for it. Vista is a bad memory that everyone wants to forget and never see again. Microsoft will stop giving support and updates to it soon, whereas 7 can (and I think, will) stay for a while.

[EHM-1997 Alexander]

Windows 7 has one huge advantage over Vista that makes it worth the reinstall: it's the current OS and because of that, everything will be optimized and built for it. Vista is a bad memory that everyone wants to forget and never see again. Microsoft will stop giving support and updates to it soon, whereas 7 can (and I think, will) stay for a while.

If only that were true. Unfortunately, the number of windows users on windows xp dwarfs those on vista or win 7. Maybe that will become more true in the future, but it's not a pressing force for change now.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/02/os_market_share_stats/

In addition, MSFS is not under active development, and x-plane is primarily developed on mac (although perfromance is better on pc due to faster gpu hardware availability and more optimised graphics drivers)

Vista end of life is currently I think April 2012.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

If only that were true. Unfortunately, the number of windows users on windows xp dwarfs those on vista or win 7. Maybe that will become more true in the future, but it's not a pressing force for change now.

Yes, but... It looks to me like M$ are looking to have Win7 become the next WinXP, and a good thing that is too... Hardware development will stagnate if the software isn't there to help push it along.

[EHM-1997 Alexander]

I don't think hardware stagnated during the long run of xp 

That said, I'd be happy for Win 7 to be a long run like XP was.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

I don't think hardware stagnated during the long run of xp  

That said, I'd be happy for Win 7 to be a long run like XP was.

You don't think the lack of decent 64-bit support in the Windows desktop OS from world+dog doesn't have a little something to do with XP stagnating progress?

[EHM-1997 Alexander]

I think that RAM is the braking effect - until lots of people have more RAM than a 32bit OS can utilise, there's not much impetus for them to change OS.

Don't forget there's a 64 bit version of xp <shudders>

I don't think that the large XP userbase is causing hardware to stagnate currently though, as a lot of that userbase are running older hardware - when they upgrade, they'll get a newer version of win.

[EHM-2155 Mariano]

If only that were true. Unfortunately, the number of windows users on windows xp dwarfs those on vista or win 7. Maybe that will become more true in the future, but it's not a pressing force for change now.

I could quote you on that and change "windows xp" for "Fsim 2004" and "win 7" with "FSX"... of course majority of people still haven't upgraded. I still like XP, but we have to face it, moving forward you just need 7. XP chokes with more than 4 gb of ram and more and more it makes sense to have 4 or more. 64 bit support is a lot better in 7. Not to mention the new graphic cards and Direct X 11.
For me it was quite easy. My gaming rig which runs on an aged hardware I upgraded as much as I could, runs XP.
My laptop which came with Vista originally, ran XP for a bit (when I got extremely pissed at Vista's bullcrap) and now is running on 7 because the hardware in it just works better with this kernel. Any computer newer than 1 year should be on 7 already.

I could also mention both these computers are dual boot with Ubuntu, but thats another matter