XP? Thanks for the memories

I Made The Switch Already

...From an XP-based machine straight to a Win7 Professional 64-bit machine. have to say I'm loving it. I did spend a lot of money on a very powerful PC (graphics and DAW), admittedly (this thing has frankly ridiculous 12GB of RAM as well as one of these: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s) according to my system information. It is amazingly fast and powerful compared to my old XP machine.

I haven't stumbled across very many compatibility issues at all. All my Adobe software works just fine (and now Photoshop runs in spiffing 64-bit mode - yay!) and my MIDI software, indluding VSTi plugins for 32-bit, have just about all been absolutely fine.

All in all, for me, migrating to a hugely more powerful beast has been very painless and - so far - most enjoyable. For me, Win7 feels like a very much more faster, more powerful XP. BTW, I'm running Win7 off of a dedicated 32GB SSD. I know. Even that's too small (just 7GB free). Still, I have 2TB of internal storage. Nice!

A Long Time Coming

Bearing in mind 64bit hardware has been with us for years now anyone upgrading to Windows 7 should most definitely go 64, we're doing it now and haven't had any problems in so doing. While it's still not yet essential it soon will be if you consider all the new technolgies being developed today; UEFI, 3+ TB hard disks and ever increasing memory requirements mean making the change now will be more cost effective than waiting until you're pushed to do so.

Not only that but the more people who switch the more incentive there is for developers to finally moveto the world of 64bit too. The general concensus amoung our beloved code monkeys seems to be the inherent difficulty in writing much more expansive and multithreaded code, furhter uptake will bring us better tools to overcome this.

64 bit *can* be an issue.

If you're lucky enough to be rolling out new hardware, it's likely the PC vendor is going to supply Win7 64bit drivers too.

However, if you're upgrading the OS on existing hardware, good luck with that. And don't bet that Microsoft will "magically" have those drivers too - you REALLY need to do some homework first.

Let alone card and peripherals without 64bit support. Again, good luck with that.

All the hardware I have at home, and what I use at work are all 64bit capable, but I'm still running 32bit simply for this reason. Till the vendors pull their thumbs out and start writing drivers for the 64 OS we're ALL going to be running in the near future, I'm staying where I am thanks.

64-bit, a-okay!

I am rolling out 7-x64 to all of my managed sites with little issue. Legacy software which has refused to run operates just fine in XP Mode, and the integration makes the users happy as well. I have to say Microsoft did a really good job with this.

My biggest issue is Microsoft's middle finger to all those who did not "upgrade" to Vista. By not providing an upgrade path directly from XP to 7, it has made the chore a major PITA for upgrading the OS. In most of my cases we are moving to new hardware, anyway, so the only migration we worry about is profile (USMT works wonders for this) and software installation. In all, it is a great opportunity to flush out old software installations which may be stale or illegitimate.

Second issue is drivers. While Microsoft has required both 32- and 64-bit drivers for WHQL qualifications, not all 64-bit drivers are sane. Printer drivers have been the absolutely worst for me in a couple of situations, especially when trying to network to Server 2003 print services. Take the server out of the picture, and even direct printing to a network printer can be sporadic.

For myself, I have been using XP x64 Edition for a couple of years now, and me likey. The primary issue holding me back for myself will be to reload all of my programs and data, and that I absolutely abhor and despise the Vista user interface. It is not just about being different than what we have been using for over a decade, but having to navigate a phone tree to get to "advanced" system options.

For all the benefits it provides, 64-bit is IMNSHO definitely the way to go. I feel we should have been here many many years ago.

Paris, doing everything the same way for over a decade.

Warning: May contain traces of nuts

There was a 64 bit version of NT4.0

Most ordinary people don't need 64bit windows. It's less efficient.

XP support possibly till 2020

Ubuntu is a more interesting upgrade for XP users than Win7 unless your PC is an expensive game console.

I know one guy with XP + 1G RAM for real work and 8G RAM and 64bit Win7 solely for games.

Any OS you like, as long as its Window 7

"Windows 7 has had a very positive reception, and it has quickly become the operating system (OS) of choice for consumer and SMB PCs"

As in the Hobson's choice of "Buy a PC with Windows 7 pre-installed" or "Don't buy a PC"?

Yes I know you can mail-order or build a bespoke PC with an alternative OS if you really want. What you can't do is walk into PC World, Tesco or any other High Street seller of branded PCs and buy a one that has an alternative OS (or no OS at all) pre-installed. As that's how the majority of consumers buy a computer, it's stretching the truth to say they chose to buy Windows 7 when it is the only option.

Ah the race, I remember it well!

I have to have a faster machine 'cos the O/S needs it. I have to have the latest O/S, cos the hardware is too new for the older O/S I did like.

I stepped out of the home PC arms race and got a life with some real hobbies outside in the fresh air. I now make do with a 2 year old machine that still chugs along and will be replaced when it croaks out it's final death rattle.

Don't get me wrong, if you have need for a powerhouse to get something useful done like computing huge prime numbers or some serious CAD work, go for it, but just for bragging rights and signatures on some forum full of other saddos, no thanks. Need to answer a few mails, look up the local Sainbury's opening times and play the odd game? I have a ASUS notebook dohickey for that.

Windows 7 64 Bit Ultimate

I upgraded my old quad core to Win 7 when it first became available through the MSDN subscription. After a couple minor upgrades ( more and better drives and memory ) , it's much faster and more stable than my xp installation was, and allows me to run multiple concurrent virtual machines under virtualbox.

Q9550 with 12Gig, a pair of striped 15k drives for onboard 300GB of storage, with ~20 TB of NAS connected storage on my home network.. I literally can do everything I want from one machine.

I have to say I haven't enjoyed a windows upgrade this much in a decade or so.