Solved From vista to what? W7? or W8?

[pappi]

Partly because I am itching to install IE10, Vista Home Premium now feels "outdated".

I am not sure what to upgrade to: W7 or W8? Guys, any pros and cons opinions will be greatly appreciated.

Also, I plan to play high speed games. I have 4GB on my 64 bit OS. Do I need more RAM? (I am maximizable to 8GB).

BTW, which forum is better, W7 or W8?

 

[MilesAhead]

Such choices are always tempered by stuff like the availability of drivers etc.. It's better to check that out before investing a lot of time only to find the choice is made for you by the hardware.


edit: whichever way you go you're way better off with 8 GB than 4, barring some weird compatibility issue.

 

[pappi]

Such choices are always tempered by stuff like the availability of drivers etc.. It's better to check that out before investing a lot of time only to find the choice is made for you by the hardware.

I do not know what you meant, Miles. What has availability of drivers got to do with choice of OS.


"edit: whichever way you go you're way better off with 8 GB than 4, barring some weird compatibility issue".
Well, partly thanks to your edited comment, I went ahead and purchased from ebay a used 2x2GB RAM pulled out from a Pavilion dv7-1170us, exactly my laptop for $30.00(I thought that was a bargain)

 

[LMiller7]

What has availability of drivers got to do with choice of OS.

Everything.

You need to determine if either Windows 7 or Windows 8 drivers are available for your computer. If for example only Windows 7 drivers are available then your choice is made.

When installing any new OS it is best to use the appropriate upgrade advisor, even if doing a clean install. This will warn you about most incompatibilities before proceeding. Taking the time to do this may save you hours of grief.

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - Download - Microsoft Windows
Upgrade to Windows 8 - Microsoft Windows

 

[pappi]

Aaah...thanks for spelling it out, Miller.

I had done both advisor scans. My 5 yr old Pavilion met all minimum requirements except for touch screen with W8 for obvious reason.

Now I still need to read pros and cons opinions to help me decide to be or not to be W7... or 8, especially that I am maximizing to 8GB RAM.

Either case, I know I will regret leaving Vista Forum.

 

[ilikefree]

Windows 8 is very different from 7 and Vista
First time I used 8 I missed the start button and found closing it down was harder than it needed to be.

 

[townsbg]

I hate windows 8. IMO go to 7 unless you have a tablet pc. 8 will be more useful to you then.

 

[pappi]

Ooops....I reviewed W8 assistant and I am glad to realize I do not want it because it does not support Windows Media Center(unless I buy and install it) which means I cannot watch and record live TV shows with my TV tuner. So...as Miles and Miller pointed out, the decision was made for me by the hardware. No W8 for me.

I hope W7 forum is as good as Vista.

 

[pappi]

A cursory internet checking on W7 upgrading indicates upgrading is not as simple as I anticipated. There is a whole lengthy article on W7 upgrade how-to for HP users. It presents two options: online upgrading and DVD clean install....the latter being simpler except it erases all data from the HD.

So now I am reconsidering to NOT upgrade. I probably shall stay with Vista and install a second browser like FF to compensate for the "outdated" IE9. And not leave Vista Forum.

 

[z3r010]

TBH you will be better doing the upgrade sooner rather than later as Vista didn't have too much market share to start with so support with drivers and software will drop off a lot quicker than it has for XP or will for Windows 7.

 

[pappi]

Oh no...upgrading looks like rocket science. Unless I do clean install with DVD. Now I have to know how to transfer all HD data to an external storage. DVD's or external HD? Or flash? And how do I put them back to cleanly installed W7?

It's time for more internet checks for how-to's. My initial perusals have been daunting. I'm already flustered. Any comforting advice? Should I call for professional service?

 

[MilesAhead]

The first thing is to make an image backup to an external drive. There are free programs that make it easy. Macrium Reflect Free and Easus ToDo Backup are a couple of the more popular examples. I had no problem doing a "custom install" of Windows Seven 32 bit over Vista 32 bit. Everything worked well. But I had less luck with a custom install of 64 bit Windows Seven over Vista 64 bit. Of course that doesn't mean it won't work on your machine.

What happens with a custom install, if successful, all your old programs are gathered into a folder called Windows.old. But if you have stand-alone programs that were not installed under Program Files, usually they only require making a shortcut to the exe to run them. These are programs such as single exe files and scripts that don't need an install procedure. I tend to have many under a folder C:\Utils. When I did the custom install, I could quickly use all those programs such as hotkey utilities that made using Window easier. This takes a lot of the drudgery out of customizing a new system. You don't have to start completely from scratch.

If it doesn't install and work smoothly, then you may have to resort to the clean install. But it only takes an hour or so to try the Custom Install since you don't format the drive. It's one thing to consider.

 

[pappi]

Hmmm...I happen to have 64 bit. I am almost convinced I should do clean install. Customized anything almost always requires customizing user is savvy to what and how to install and not to...which I certainly am not. I had factory- image re-installed Vista a few times from both 3 recovery dvd's I created and the 2 dvd's from HP. It took several hours each time. At those times I did not bother saving data and files because I did not have important ones worth saving.

Currently I do have must-keep files. So now I have to learn how to back up data and files from Vista to external media or do the third party stuff Miles suggested...and how to restore them back to W7.

For some reason I do not like keeping recovery partitions. I have always deleted them to recover GB's of space.

 

[MilesAhead]

Also if you make an image backup of the entire Windows partition the advatage is, if the new OS is all messed up, you can restore the system to the way it was from the external drive in a short time. I kept my system partitions at about 70% free space when I was ready to do a backup image. I could restore from a USB 2.0 drive in about 45 minutes. I never had to restore from USB 3.0 or Esata but that would be even faster. It's always good to be able to get back to where you started when changing the whole system or adding an OS etc..

 

[wither 3]

ilikefree- there are numerous free apps that provide the familiar start button in Win 8. You've probably discovered them by now.

 

[pappi]

The director of our computer dept. at the university has told me to stick with vista and just install either FF or GC as an alternate on- demand browser. But he refused to recommend one over the other.

So, guys can you oblige me and help me decide: FF vs GC. Deciding features being size, speed, safety and surfing maneuveribility. And non-dependence on Java(I do not mean Javascript)

 

[townsbg]

I prefer FF. For your consideration here is an interesting thread posted recently. http://www.vistax64.com/vista-news/301018-web-browser-crashes-most.html

As for your java related question no browser to my knowledge requires java. It is the website that might require java and if so it will need java on any browser that you use. There is no browser related dependency only a website dependency. Does that make sense?

 

[pappi]

It does make sense, albeit beyond my capacity to understand. So FF it is. Now I am all settled.

 

[townsbg]

It does make sense, albeit beyond my capacity to understand. So FF it is. Now I am all settled.

Well I suppose that you'd be able to understand it best if you where a programmer. I'm not even sure why (because I'm not a programmer) but sometimes websites use java on the server side whereas others depend upon it being on the client side. Perhaps there are others here who can explain the reasoning but I can't. Regardless if a website is designed to use java from your system it doesn't matter which browser you are using you will still have to have java installed. Personally I have one website I use occasionally that requires java for full functionality so I have it installed on my vista virtual machine but I keep it disabled.

 

[pappi]

I understand formats of many programs are dependent on Java, notably high speed games, chat rooms and business operations. I also heard of apple's safari heavily dependent on Java before Java security holes discovery. I was told apple has totally rid itself of Java (gossips)..

Because my grandson plays those unbelievably realistic 3D games, I have Java installed and just have it disabled or un-installed between baby sittings.

Intriguingly, Java when installed has its prominent Icon on its own folder in Control Panel along with others of sine-qua-non importance.

One downside of having multiple browses is duplicity of downloading some softwares. Example: FF's updated version of Flash Player is different from IE.