[IceFire]

So Windows 7 is out officially as of today and my copy arrived in the mail.  No time to install it just yet but I am getting started on the backup process.  I'm going to totally wipe and clean this stuff out before I start fresh and then start loading stuff on again.

Question for those of you who are going through this process.  Any good reasons to stick with 32bit these days or should I go for 64bit.  I know I have one printer that is old that probably won't work but everything else is recent (my system is barely a year and a half) and has 64bit Vista drivers and probably 64bit Windows 7 drivers by now too.  Should I be REALLY careful or is the switch to 64bit now a pretty smooth ride?

I do have 2GB of RAM right now and am thinking of going for 4GB sometime so the switch to 64bit might be good.

[MR_T3D]

i *think* you might as well go all the way, more than 2GB of ram is getting rather common.

[CP5670]

You will probably want the 64-bit version. That's one of the main reasons to upgrade to this or Vista from XP. Driver availability has never been a big issue with 64-bit Vista and 7, at least not any more than the 32-bit versions.

Like Vista, there are a few shortcomings with the 64-bit version: 16-bit programs don't work and using unsigned drivers is a little tricky. The ability to use more than 3GB should be worth the tradeoff though.

[Ghostavo]

You can get 16-bit programs to work through the XP Mode, which is basically a virtual machine running Windows XP. Although when you start the programs, you might as well not notice it.

[carbine7]

Hey IceFire, I would appreciate your feedback on W7 once you get it installed. I would rather not put my money in until I can be reasonably confident that everything wont go 

[Mongoose]

Yeah, if you do have any comments on the experience, I'm sure several of us would be glad to read them. My own machine isn't worth putting anything beyond XP on it, but I'm thinking of possibly upgrading the family's relatively-new Dell from Vista to 7.

[MP-Ryan]

As I just told someone else:

There is absolutely no reason to run Windows Vista or 7 in anything other than 64-bit.  Period.

[IceFire]

Hey IceFire, I would appreciate your feedback on W7 once you get it installed. I would rather not put my money in until I can be reasonably confident that everything wont go 

Will do.  I haven't had a chance and probably won't have a chance to install W7 until the weekend but my brother is already ip and running on 64bit and things are running really smoothly so far.  Came up right away with sound, basic video, motherboard drivers, the whole nine yards.  Time will tell... give me about a week or so.

[Ford Prefect]

I pre-ordered it, but I'm thinking I might wait to install until the first service pack, if I can resist the temptation. (Probably not, now that I think about it.)

[Spicious]

It's been running fine for me for the last two months now I think.

[IceFire]

I pre-ordered it, but I'm thinking I might wait to install until the first service pack, if I can resist the temptation. (Probably not, now that I think about it.)

I'm viewing this as Vista SP3... so I'm not feeling much need to wait.  Its NT6.1 (Vista was 6.0) and most of the backend is streamlined from Vista.  I suppose its prudent to wait if you absolutely hate to run into problems but ... I figure it'll be fine *crosses fingers*

[carbine7]

Hey IceFire, I would appreciate your feedback on W7 once you get it installed. I would rather not put my money in until I can be reasonably confident that everything wont go 

Will do.  I haven't had a chance and probably won't have a chance to install W7 until the weekend but my brother is already ip and running on 64bit and things are running really smoothly so far.  Came up right away with sound, basic video, motherboard drivers, the whole nine yards.  Time will tell... give me about a week or so.

Much appreciated 

[High Max]

 *_*

[Stealth]

I've been running Windows 7 on three machines total for several months now: two test machines and my personal laptop.

I have had no problems with it for months, in all three environments (all three environments are different).  Both 64bit and 32bit works like a charm (depending on your hardware obviously), but i spend several hours every day on my laptop, and it's a beautiful thing to use

I think Windows 7 is going to put Microsoft back on the map.  They've spent more money on this release than on any other windows release to date.

[jdjtcagle]

I think Windows 7 is going to put Microsoft back on the map.  They've spent more money on this release than on any other windows release to date.

Yeah... but... it's windows

I'm skeptical but hopeful all at the same time.

[S-99]

Windows 7. Why buy it if you have more than enough powerful hardware to run vista? Windows 7 is after all just a re-release of vista.

Only buy windows 7 if you were one of the many who had a substantially low amount of memory with vista (remember vista capable stickers and all the suckers that were out there years ago).

To go with 64bit or not to go with 64 bit. Go ahead and get it. I did have vista 64 bit home basic edition. The os itself was 64 bit, but almost absolutely all of my apps are 32bit. Vista 64 bit runs 32 bit code just great, i didn't have a single problem at all, plus i could run whatever few 64 bits apps i had also (the default web browser in vista 64 bit is internet explorer 32 bit, they ship it with 32 bit and 64 bit versions, but 32 bit is the default one). And, if you're going to have at least 4gb of memory or more, go get 64 bit windows 7. 32 bit software only allows for close to 4gb of memory.

I bought vista 64 bit home basic edition for my intel core 2 duo 2gb ram system. It ran fine with my 32bit apps, especially the scp.

Go with 64 bit if you can.

[Nuke]

i cant really think of any reason to use 32 bit except in cases where you have hardware that doesnt have 32 bit drivers, or if you have a 32 bit processor. there are cases where i use 32 bit, like when i want to use my trackir in mechwarrior 2.

[Fury]

Windows 7. Why buy it if you have more than enough powerful hardware to run vista? Windows 7 is after all just a re-release of vista.

Because as long as we stick to Windows, 7 is better than Vista in every way. Sure, you don't have to upgrade if you don't have any need to, that goes for the XP users too. But 7 is actually worth buying. Mine will arrive today along with C2Q Q9550 and Caviar Black 1TB. Nice weekend coming up.

I've been running Win7 RC1 since its release to the public, it's been great. MS really got things right this time around. But I still say that if it wasn't for games, I would be running linux in a heartbeat.

I pre-ordered it, but I'm thinking I might wait to install until the first service pack, if I can resist the temptation. (Probably not, now that I think about it.)

No reason to wait. Win7 is all things considered a minor upgrade over Vista, but it's all that tuning and optimization what makes a big difference. Win7 is like massive service pack to Vista, a service pack Vista won't be getting.

Any good reasons to stick with 32bit these days or should I go for 64bit.

Only if your CPU does not support x86_64 or you have incompatible, but needed hardware/peripherals.

I heard it costs around $200 to get Win 7. Same as when XP was newer. I hear the loading times at system startup are faster.

Get OEM version from an online retailer, depending on local prices OEM version may cost 50% less. You can't however install it on another PC and activate without contacting MS, whereas retail works on any PC but it can only be activated on one PC at any given time.

[Ford Prefect]

No reason to wait. Win7 is all things considered a minor upgrade over Vista, but it's all that tuning and optimization what makes a big difference. Win7 is like massive service pack to Vista, a service pack Vista won't be getting.

I should probably still do a clean install as opposed to an upgrade though, correct?

[QuantumDelta]

Although the upgrade thing is meant to be pretty painless from what I've heard, I will never trust an OS "upgrade", ever.