I has Windows 7

[Teleku]

I've glanced at the features and think I'm ok.  But just to be sure:  If I get professional edition instead of Ultimate edition, will I be missing anything actually useful?  Friend of mine has access to a workplace discount and can get me a copy of Pro for $29.

[caladein]

Here's a good round-up of the different versions.

Short answer, skip Ultimate.  Medium-length answer, if you don't need/want BitLocker (encryption tool, described here) or the ability to boot from a VHD (which you probably know what it is if you're ever going to use it) you're fine with Professional.

Honestly, if you don't need to domains or Remote Desktop, Home Premium probably has everything you need too.

[Salamok]

Here's a good round-up of the different versions.

Short answer, skip Ultimate.  Medium-length answer, if you don't need/want BitLocker (encryption tool, described here) or the ability to boot from a VHD (which you probably know what it is if you're ever going to use it) you're fine with Professional.

Honestly, if you don't need to domains or Remote Desktop, Home Premium probably has everything you need too.

Also to clarify, Remote Desktop=the ablity to host a remote desktop session.  The home version can still use remote desktop to control another machine, it just can't be remotely controlled.

[Teleku]

Well, I might actually remote desktop into my home machine more in the future (use to do it in the past more), so I would like that yes.  But yeah, looks like I'm fine.  I just really didn't understand what all the Bitlocker shit was (so thanks for the link that explained it).

[lac]

I have two i7's with 6gigs of ram and Vista 64 tends to be a bit snappier than the windows 7 machine. The 7 machine isn't a huge pain but it tends to crash the gt220 drivers (and recuperates on its own after a few seconds), all to be expected from a young os without adequate driver support I suppose.

I fully expect my two year younger self to appear out of the void and forcefully knee me in the nuts for even considering this but I'd advice people to stick to vista64 on i7 systems for now.

[JWIV]

I have two i7's with 6gigs of ram and Vista 64 tends to be a bit snappier than the windows 7 machine. The 7 machine isn't a huge pain but it tends to crash the gt220 drivers (and recuperates on its own after a few seconds), all to be expected from a young os without adequate driver support I suppose.

I fully expect my two year younger self to appear out of the void and forcefully knee me in the nuts for even considering this but I'd advice people to stick to vista64 on i7 systems for now.

Vista 64 is not bad at all.  I built my wife's machine with it last year and I've no plans on upgrading her to Win 7.

[Teleku]

I'm using the Windows 7 release candidate on an i7 system with 6 gigs of ram as we speak.  I have not had a single application crash once since I first turned on this PC.  Operating system runs extremely snappy.  My wonderful experience so far has been the thing to convince me to actually buy a copy of Windows 7 this time around.

So I guess ymmv it seems.

[fuser]

Sidenote, action center's recommendation for antivirus points you to: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/antivirus-partners/windows-7.aspx
The recommended icons are random on page load and the security essentials link is no bigger/bolded/<blink> then any others. I guess they trying to prevent any antitrust cases 

Also, even where security essentials requires proper validation to install, it will install on an unactivated copy of windows.

[caladein]

Anti-trust issues are definitely why things are either separate downloads like Security Essentials or are being folded into Windows Live.

[tgr]

I hate to say it, but I decided to spend the weekend testing out windows 7. And no matter how sceptical I was, or how much I might want to try to hate it ... I just can't. Installed more nicely than previous windows, it's annoyingly snappy and I just can't help think most of the things they've added in the UI department is just right.

I keep trying to find something I hate about it, besides the DRM, and I just can't. So chances are I'll be buying this.

(Well, actually, there's one thing that's annoyed me so far, besides just the fact that things are unfamiliar. Turning off the "fancy effects" was not what I would call in a logical position, but once I figured that out, dayom did things get snappy.)

[Venkman]

Except for the ability to support ungodly amounts of RAM, is there any reason I should consider 64bit? I'm only gaming. And, err, emails. Quad core, GTX 260 1gb, 4gb RAM.

[Nerf]

If you're a student, or have a .edu email address, you can get a copy of home premium or professional upgrade for $29 from the windows 714 thing, with an extra $13 for disks.  Total was around $43 shipped, not too shabby.

Hell, at $200 a copy, you'd save money signing up for a 1 credit hour class at a community college and never showing up.

[Salamok]

Except for the ability to support ungodly amounts of RAM, is there any reason I should consider 64bit? I'm only gaming. And, err, emails. Quad core, GTX 260 1gb, 4gb RAM.

If by ungodly amounts of ram you mean more than 3gb then not really.  64bit apps running on a 64bit os should be faster than 32bit apps running on a 32bit os but that theory hasn't proven to be 100% true in practice.  Also, w/o beefing up the system i doubt it is hugely noticable.

[Yegolev]

The practical reason for 64-bit is addressing.  More memory, more devices, etc.  It could be faster if you are using a CPU-intensive application and the programmers did a great job, but really you are looking at more addressable RAM.

[Xuri]

I keep trying to find something I hate about it, besides the DRM, and I just can't. So chances are I'll be buying this.

Could be that this is only in the RC version I've got installed, but I've found that I often cannot right-click directly on files without selecting them first. Also, when copying files from one location to another, you need to right-click on empty space between other files to paste - you don't get the paste-option in the menu when you right-click on another file. -_-

This is different from how it has worked in previous Windows-verisons all the way back to (at least) Windows 95, and while I love the rest of Windows 7 I absolutely hate this part of it.

[tgr]

This is different from how it has worked in previous Windows-verisons all the way back to (at least) Windows 95, and while I love the rest of Windows 7 I absolutely hate this part of it.

Simple solution: get hooked on http://www.ghisler.com/ instead. :P

[KallDrexx]

I keep trying to find something I hate about it, besides the DRM, and I just can't. So chances are I'll be buying this.

Could be that this is only in the RC version I've got installed, but I've found that I often cannot right-click directly on files without selecting them first. Also, when copying files from one location to another, you need to right-click on empty space between other files to paste - you don't get the paste-option in the menu when you right-click on another file. -_-

This is different from how it has worked in previous Windows-verisons all the way back to (at least) Windows 95, and while I love the rest of Windows 7 I absolutely hate this part of it.

Actually I've been getting annoyed at something similar.  It seems like explorer context menu plugins do not get activated when no file is selected.  So when I'm trying to do something such as clone a git repository into the current directory, I then have to go to the parent folder, right click on the desired folder and then perform my right click action. 

That's my only complaint though.  Everything else I have been loving.

[Der Helm]

Got my Email, I shall be a Windows 7 user in 10-15 days. 

[Delmania]

I'm vaguely annoyed that Amazon didn't ship the boxes so that they would be received today, but it gives me time to prep my system.

[Venkman]

Except for the ability to support ungodly amounts of RAM, is there any reason I should consider 64bit? I'm only gaming. And, err, emails. Quad core, GTX 260 1gb, 4gb RAM.

If by ungodly amounts of ram you mean more than 3gb then not really.  64bit apps running on a 64bit os should be faster than 32bit apps running on a 32bit os but that theory hasn't proven to be 100% true in practice.  Also, w/o beefing up the system i doubt it is hugely noticable.

I thought XP SP3 could support up to 4gb now (though it shows up at about 3.6gb)? If someday down the road I wanted to have 8gb of RAM, that'd be 64bit required?

[Yegolev]

You can have a lot of RAM installed on the system but a 32-bit process can still only use 2GB of that, if I remember my maths.

[lac]

A standard 32 bit XP will see about 3.5 gb of ram when you put 4 gb in it.

There is a good article up on Ars Technica about how user feedback shaped windows 7.

[Sky]

I'm vaguely annoyed that Amazon didn't ship the boxes so that they would be received today, but it gives me time to prep my system.

Newegg did 

[lac]

Does anybody know how to enable the search option in the right click menu? I could enable it in Vista with a registry tweak but it doesn't seem to work with Windows 7.

[Delmania]

You can have a lot of RAM installed on the system but a 32-bit process can still only use 2GB of that, if I remember my maths.

Ha, how quaint! :)

32 bit versus 64 bit in applications refers more the word size that the application can deal with.  In terms of how much memory a process can use, the reality with current OS is that it simply asks the OS for storage, and the OS is responsible for granting that.  So, if 32 bit process needs 5 Gb of storage, the OS will take care of that. 

Details: http://blogs.msdn.com/ericlippert/archive/2009/06/08/out-of-memory-does-not-refer-to-physical-memory.aspx

[Delmania]

Double post.

[lac]

Hosting Your Windows 7 Torrenting Party

[Delmania]

MS really needs to get a better advertising dept.

[Viin]

I'm vaguely annoyed that Amazon didn't ship the boxes so that they would be received today, but it gives me time to prep my system.

I'm getting mine today.

[Delmania]

I'm getting mine today.

I'm vaguely annoyed that Amazon didn't ship the boxes so that they would be received today, but it gives me time to prep my system. I am too cheap to pay for that shipping.

[Viin]

Heh. Yeah I pay for Amazon Prime (worth it if you + 2 family members order a lot), so I get free 2 day - woooo.

[Sky]

Newegg shipped free. Use the egg! Box is sitting on the counter at home, got it before lunch. Don't know when I'll have time to install it, bought a fresh WD black to install it on.

[Delmania]

I suspect I'll do that from now on.  In terms of installation, my wife's computer is a netbook, so I just reformat, reinstall, and then put Firefox back on it and I'm done.  With my computer, I need to do the hack that lets you install it over the RC and then reinstall Visual Studio 2008 (with SP1) and WoW.  Neither application is small....

[Nerf]

Theres a hack to install it over the RC? Does this work with the upgrade version or only brand new?

[Delmania]

http://icrontic.com/articles/upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-retail