Need Help on buying a Windows License

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I did run ubuntu on their computer for a short time.... until I got, "Dad, How come Age of Mythology doesn't work"

You ever try: http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/

?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

You ever try: http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/

?

I did actually try it once with limited success... but in the end, it's just easier for me to run windows on the box.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I have 4 gigs now, so I'm good there.

Not sure if you've purchased your copy of windows yet, but, just a belated point of clarification for others that may be reading this:

You need the 64bit version of windows to make use of anything over 3GB of ram. In this case, with 4GB of ram, you will want the 64bit version of windows.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by brainbone

Not sure if you've purchased your copy of windows yet, but, just a belated point of clarification for others that may be reading this:

You need the 64bit version of windows to make use of anything over 3GB of ram. In this case, with 4GB of ram, you will want the 64bit version of windows.

Ok... Well, I now have my fresh copy of Win7... so the next question, is do I simply upgrade or do a full install. I'm leaning towards a full install, but I'm not looking forward to spending a full day installing and rebooting windows (at least the reboots are faster, from what i hear).

I'm banking on a full day, since installing the OS will be fairly quick, but then I'll need windows updates, and reboots. I also have several games that need to be installed as well, so each of those will be a reboot etc. I'll also need to backup the existing data (mainly bookmarks that the kids use). I am thinking with the upgrade approach, it should just install the OS and preserve my apps, configurations, etc.

What do I do? ... if this were Linux, I'd just reinstall and be up and running in about an hour... (I don't have much on my linux machine, except dev tools, which are all installable via the package manager)

[PLUCKYHD]

I always like fresh installs if that is the license you have. they seem to give better overall results and performance in most cases. Also you can use the file and settings transfer to transfer some of your stuff over (although I never use that)

hope you went 64 bit


Also don't run live virus scanning talk about slowing everything down errr

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I always like fresh installs if that is the license you have. they seem to give better overall results and performance in most cases. Also you can use the file and settings transfer to transfer some of your stuff over (although I never use that)

hope you went 64 bit


Also don't run live virus scanning talk about slowing everything down errr

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think I'm going with the fresh install, 64bit, and no virus real time scanner

I miss the Windows 3.0 days... It was a pretty novel concept that you can install apps simply by extracting them... any configurations that they needed where either stored with the app install, or in a separate file in a central location.... Reinstalling windows was a simple as backing up the apps dir, installing windows, and then laying down the apps dir again..... ah, those were the days....

I should point out that the last version of Windows that I actually installed myself was XP, alhtough I do have Vista on the current machine. XP was horrible to isntall, so it'll be interesting to see how much better the install experience for Win7 will be... I've heard good things... so my hopes are high.

[Spectrum]

Windows 7 installs are actually pretty painless. MS has finally gotten the installer to where linux installers were about 5 years ago Well if you don't count configuration of linux 5 years ago....

[PLUCKYHD]

Yeah w7 isn't to bad on the installer and it finally has most all drivers. On all w7 installs I did inner had to install the mb drivers which was a nice change

Still no where near Linux or apple though.

[Ken C]

If you can wait a month, Microsoft will be re-introducing the so-called "Family Pack" early in October. Three Win 7 Home Premium upgrade licenses for $150. Actually one license key which can be used 3 times. Both 32 and 64 bit versions are included. Such a deal ...

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Ken C

If you can wait a month, Microsoft will be re-introducing the so-called "Family Pack" early in October. Three Win 7 Home Premium upgrade licenses for $150. Actually one license key which can be used 3 times. Both 32 and 64 bit versions are included. Such a deal ...

Really great news I have been wanting a license to run parallel on my mac as well as update a couple of clients from vista. I missed the first run of this so glad to see it coming back...that must mean windows 8 is close...

[stuckless]

I Finally installed Windows 7. I have to admit, so far, I like Windows 7 way better than Vista, and even better than XP in some areas.

I was impressed that it gave me an option to do a full install and yet preserve my main partition (backs ups the program files, documents and settings, and windows directories to a new location). I took a complete backup of the harddrive to begin with because i thought it would just wipe the partition.

I also liked the install process. It's more like what I'm used to with linux... just ask a few questions up front, and then let it go do it's thing until it done.

The UAC in 7 also appears to be much better... and more like what I'm used to with linux as well. Just ask me once, when I'm installing software for my credentials, instead of the 5-10 times that Vista would do.

All in all, my experience has been quite good. I still wouldn't use it for my main desktop... but it's pretty good. (the kids have made a few comments about how much better it is... so that's good too)

Thanks to everyone for your help and guidance.