Windows 7 Pre-Orders - Now Delivered

**philthomas** · #1 20th Oct 2009, 08:26

I have just received my pre-ordered Windows 7 package ahead of the 22nd October Release. Being a UK resident, I imagine these were sent out early to try avoid the postal strike, planned to start on the 22nd. .... has anyone else received theirs yet ?

Anyway .... I have installed the package and here is a brief summary of my experience :

I installed the 64bit Home Premium version on an unpartitioned 250gb SATA drive and all is good so far. Had a few probs with on board sound driver for 64bit vers., but got there in the end, using Vista driver.

Installation seemed to take a bit longer than the beta and RC1 versions (approx 36mins) and there was a worrying point at the beginning of installation, just after "Windows is Loading Files" message, where it sat for about 4 x mins on a Blue & Green W7 screen with just the mouse pointer ..... looked like it had crashed, but after approx 4 x mins, it continued to the "Choose Language" screen. After that all was normal. I imagine the 4 mins might have been while it created a partition and did a quick format, but there was no progress bar or notification of what was happenning.

It found all drivers, except on board sound (as mentioned) and my Asus mobo is about 3 years old (M2V). First point of call was Control Panel/User Accounts to change User Account Control Settings to "Never"

.... Then onto configuring and installing software. No problems encountered and all seemed very stable. If anything changes, I'll let you know.

I would love to hear others experiences and any issues.

**xactly** · #2 20th Oct 2009, 11:20

So you got Windows 7 2 days early, lucky you

.

Vista has put me off purchasing Windows new OS', however the Beta and RC1 of WIndows 7 have somewhat influenced me against piracy.

How much did you pay for it?

Please report if there are any problems, I would like to know before I get it (If I get it).

**philthomas** · #3 20th Oct 2009, 12:24

No probs so far ..... all is behaving. I paid £49.99, pre-ordered a few months ago.

**xactly** · #4 20th Oct 2009, 12:35

Why did you get Home Premium?

Was the 64bit OS for the 4GB of Memorry you have? Was that the only factor which swayed your choice between 32bit and 64bit?

**philthomas** · #5 20th Oct 2009, 13:20

Yep .... I have 4gb Ram and a 64bit CPU, so why not utilise it

I chose Home Premium because the Pro & Ultimate versions provide little more for a much bigger price tag ... see here
I doubt that many users will need the additional features.

**Razer** · #6 21st Oct 2009, 11:19

I got the Pro version (Free, not pirated, all genuine. Academic alliance is phenomenal) and it's superb. I had Vista home premium on laptop (Now running 7 Pro-32) and had Vista Ultimate 64 on my desktop (Now 7 Pro-64) and apart from the resolution, I never missed anything that Ultimate offered over Home Premium.

As long as you get off Vista, 7 Home Premium and up is a brilliant upgrade!

I do reckon it will take over as the predominant MS OS, so long to XP and DX9!

**Mike0001** · #7 21st Oct 2009, 14:00

I have installed my copy on a blank drive in my laptop. Absolutely no problems so far apart from BTBroadband's security suite, which refuses to install! So, back with Avast...

I now have a laptop that looks and feels like a cut-down version of Linux without the best graphics goodies.

**philthomas** · #8 28th Oct 2009, 09:52

So ..... how many other new W7 users here ....... please let us know how you are getting on and any handy Hints or Tips you have found.

**Razer** · #9 28th Oct 2009, 09:55

I got it! =D

Turn off half the crap you don't need straight off (Animated windows maximizing, mouse shadow etc)

If you can't find a Windows 7 driver for a given product, use the Vista one. Seems to work well enough!

It work amazingly well in everything so far. Games to web, coding, videos, everything

**mctw** · #10 7th Nov 2009, 16:52

I know im slightly behind the times here, but I too have finally have Win 7!

I was skeptical about how good it was, but I'm happy to say ive been shocked! Win 7 equals, if not excedes, the speed of Win XP, and the built in drivers for just about everything are fantastic :-)

Though for some reason, the spell checker in firefox doesn't seem to be working.....

Only problem I've had is with finding the driver for the built in GPU on this Dell motherboard, the XP/Vista drivers refuse to work. It works pretty good on the included drivers though, so I'm not complaining!

I've been turned I think, Bye bye XP!!!