Windows 7

[ramza]

I don't know if you have seen the special limited offer that Microsoft is making: you can now buy Windows 7 at half price. The question is whether we need to upgrade our OS or not. I am pretty happy with XP and it works fine with all of my games. Do I run the risk of encountering problems with my games if I install the new version of windows? Is it worth the risk of purchasing it?

[Pidesco]

Wait until, at least, the first Service Pack.

[Wrath of Dagon]

If your XP works, I don't see any reason to upgrade unless something requires 7. Upgrading is just asking for trouble. Now if you had Vista, going to 7 might be a wise move.

[Rostere]

Create a new partition and try out the RC if you have any doubts.

[Slowtrain]

Buy now and install later?

[Humodour]

I don't know if you have seen the special limited offer that Microsoft is making: you can now buy Windows 7 at half price. The question is whether we need to upgrade our OS or not. I am pretty happy with XP and it works fine with all of my games. Do I run the risk of encountering problems with my games if I install the new version of windows? Is it worth the risk of purchasing it?

 

Stick with XP. Especially because of your games.

 

Games won't stop supporting XP for a long time to come. Take a look - desktop operating system market share - as of June 2009 (actually, the June Net Apps figures are wonky apparently, so I'll round slightly from May based on trend):

 

Windows XP - 60%

Windows Vista - 25%

Mac OS X - 10%

Linux - 1%

Windows 7 - 1%

 

So as you can see, XP still occupies about 70% of the Windows market, and probably will continue to hold majority share for a long time. It's not something publishers can afford to ignore.

 

Windows 7 will be probably be 'half-price' again in a year anyway, because it's starting to look less successful than the hope and hype suggested (though still outdoing Vista, which isn't hard). Just give it a wait and see.

Edited July 2, 2009 by Krezack

[Morgoth]

When DX11 launches, developers will quickly realize it's advantages and finally make the shift, thus making XP quickly obsolete. I give it another year, maybe two, then XP will be a goner for gamers.

[Fionavar]

If you can get it for a good price, I would and then wait to install after initial release. All indications are looking VERY good for the OS - what Vista should have been (reminiscent of 98->ME).

[alanschu]

Except backwards, as 98SE was fine but ME was junk.

[Fionavar]

Fair enough - I meant more that XP is what ME should have been. All indications are that W-7 is what Vista should have been ...

[Humodour]

Fair enough - I meant more that XP is what ME should have been. All indications are that W-7 is what Vista should have been ...

 

Except that it still has a lot of the same problems as Vista for people moving from XP... and just recently two of my friends in my game design course who love Vista (god only knows why) tried Windows 7 and then uninstalled it a week later. Now I don't think Microsoft is getting complacent with Win 7, but I think the media world is. Which could result in a backlash for Microsoft similar to Vista.

 

When DX11 launches, developers will quickly realize it's advantages and finally make the shift, thus making XP quickly obsolete. I give it another year, maybe two, then XP will be a goner for gamers.

 

One year is ridiculous. Windows 7 adoption won't even be at 20% by then. Two years is slightly more believable, but the notion that all developers will be willing to switch to DX11 only-games once Windows 7 comes out is rather faith-based. I know for a fact Blizzard for example will continue to support DX9 (or rather, Windows XP) for ages to come. And considering that publishers like EA are placing a lot more emphasis on Mac OS X these days (and that developers like iD, Epic, and Blizzard always have) and hence OpenGL, I think the future of Windows 7 only games is rather murky. Oh, and Valve - like Blizzard, they pride themselves on their support for the largest number of gamers possible. Can't see them going DX11-only any time soon. Anyway, it's not like OpenGL stood still while Microsoft innovated, after all.

 

For reference, people said the same thing about DX10 and Vista. It didn't happen.

 

Take a look at what Valve sees on Steam. It's a pretty interesting snapshot of all gamers: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

[Fionavar]

Thanks for the clear gaming context of W-7 Krezack. It is helpful - though my feedback was more in respect to the stability of the OS outside of a gaming environ. Seems that, with your critique, it sheds even more likelihood that PC gaming may in fact be facing another shift toward increasing console market penetration.

[Deraldin]

When DX11 launches, developers will quickly realize it's advantages and finally make the shift, thus making XP quickly obsolete. I give it another year, maybe two, then XP will be a goner for gamers.

 

One year is ridiculous. Windows 7 adoption won't even be at 20% by then. Two years is slightly more believable, but the notion that all developers will be willing to switch to DX11 only-games once Windows 7 comes out is rather faith-based. I know for a fact Blizzard for example will continue to support DX9 (or rather, Windows XP) for ages to come. And considering that publishers like EA are placing a lot more emphasis on Mac OS X these days (and that developers like iD, Epic, and Blizzard always have) and hence OpenGL, I think the future of Windows 7 only games is rather murky. Oh, and Valve - like Blizzard, they pride themselves on their support for the largest number of gamers possible. Can't see them going DX11-only any time soon. Anyway, it's not like OpenGL stood still while Microsoft innovated, after all.

 

For reference, people said the same thing about DX10 and Vista. It didn't happen.

 

Take a look at what Valve sees on Steam. It's a pretty interesting snapshot of all gamers: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

 

Even if Windows 7 had 80% market share within this first year, it still wouldn't make developers create DirectX 11 only games. The real benchmark for that would be the marketshare of DirectX 11 capable video hardware. Look at how long it took before Shader Model 3.0 started becoming a requirement for games and the number of people that were left behind because of that. One year is far to short of a time frame for a move like that.

[Humodour]

Thanks for the clear gaming context of W-7 Krezack. It is helpful - though my feedback was more in respect to the stability of the OS outside of a gaming environ. Seems that, with your critique, it sheds even more likelihood that PC gaming may in fact be facing another shift toward increasing console market penetration.

 

"Another shift"? There hasn't been any shift that I'm aware of. There's this big myth that PC gaming is dying because console gaming is growing. In fact, they're both growing - rapidly. It's not a zero-sum game. Gamers are also some of Microsoft's strongest early adopters. Compare Valve stats to Net Apps states: 33% of gamers have Vista vs 25% of general users. The problem with Vista isn't that gamers avoided it - it's that everyone avoided it. I don't think that game developers are going to suddenly switch to consoles just because gamers don't adopt Windows 7 rapidly. It wouldn't exactly make sense since consoles are even less powerful than PCs, and another generation (that would take advantage of improvements in OpenGL 3.1 and DirectX 11) isn't due out for years to come.

 

I actually wasn't contradicting you - you were right. I was largely just pointing out that while certainly better than Vista, Windows 7 isn't all sunshine and lollipops and that people migrating from XP to Windows 7 will experience similar difficulty to those that migrated from XP to Vista. Windows 7 is 2 operating systems divorced from Windows XP.

[Fionavar]

Thanks again Krezack - this has been helpful for me. I am again at an upgrade cross-roads and I am debating the migration to another gaming notebook or simply finally going console (still have not). This has added to that ongoing inner monologue - thanks!

[ramza]

Thanks for the input, guys! I will definitely avoid Windows 7 until it becomes the standard platform (maybe in 5 years, who knows)...

[Bokishi]

I disagree, windows 7 is the best OS Microsoft ever made IMO, and it's not even done finished yet. If you pick Vista over 7, then that would just be lubricious. 7 has the prettiness of Vista and the stableness of XP. For instance a Virtual Machine would crash Vista often, while 7 remains stable when running 3 of them. Video Drivers uninstall in 2 seconds, rather than the 3 minutes + system restart that vista/XP requires.

[mkreku]

And exactly WHAT is better about Windows 7 compared to XP?

 

Remember, XP is a mature OS by now, with relatively few bugs and security leaks (hrm). There are NO GPU's on the market that supports DirectX 11 and it's really not worth bothering with DirectX 10. Since XP is the de facto standard, you never have any compatibility problems either.

 

So, now.. tell me what the real advantages are for Windows 7 over XP?

[Bokishi]

Like I said about how quick it can remove something complicated like those videodrivers; it's pretty much coded from the ground up to be faster and more efficient and more stable in what it does

 

7 can also run anything that XP can, even switching itself to virtualized XP mode if it has to.

 

Windows 7 never froze or crashed on me ONCE, and I have been using and abusing it for 2 months now.

 

It takes advantage of modern hardware (my favorite part of vista), while remaining rock solid in stability; native Blu-Ray burning and scalability for my extra RAM and triple videocards for instance

 

Big UI chages; one thing is that the UI is built for easy multi tasking with options to manipulate open windows to perfectly fit your screen space, I use this feature a lot now.

 

Those might not be extremely compelling reasons to upgrade, especially to yourself who prefers an OS to be nothing more than a clean slate to install your programs, but they are really good improvements and as justifiable an upgrade from '98 to XP ever was

[Rostere]

I can confirm that what Bokishi said about VMs and W7 is true. Choosing not to upgrade to W7 from XP is still a sane alternative, choosing to go for anything else than W7 when buying a new computer should be thought about carefully.

 

But to reiterate what I stated earlier, you who haven't tried W7 yet should just do so to form your own opinion. It's easy, and it's really the best way to find out whether W7 is something for you or not (disregarding future uses for W7).

[Joseph Bulock]

I'm going to agree with the bok on this one as well. I've been running the beta and now the rc1 build, and have loved what it does. If nothing else, being able to go up to 8 gigs of ram and fully utilizing my 64 bit processor has been tons of fun. The OS has also been incredibly stable. Not a single crash yet, and the new UI features are really awesome. I haven't loaded up my XP partition for more than 10 minutes since I got Windows 7.

[Fionavar]

Is anyone gaming on it and have some impressions they might have time to share?

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Is anyone gaming on it and have some impressions they might have time to share?

 

The Hutt is and he likes it.

[Bokishi]

^True dat.

 

Also forgot to mention that the My Documents / My Music / Pictures folders can now have multiple Hard Drives associated with them, which is useful for people like me who prefer to keep their media junk on separate drives

[Deraldin]

Is anyone gaming on it and have some impressions they might have time to share?

 

The Hutt is and he likes it.

 

*raises hand as well*

 

No problems here yet. Certainly haven't noticed any issues with it yet. I've currently installed and tested Simcity 4, Baldur's Gate 1+2 and a couple newer games like Overlord 2 and Left 4 Dead. All work just fine and I'm not sure whether it's just different default settings but it seems to like my front audio ports a little better than Vista did. It switches between them and my speakers more accurately now.