Is it worth it to upgrade to Win 7?

[munch2477]

I have about a 5-6 year old computer (Inspiron 6000) with 2 gigs ram, 60gb 5400 rpm hard drive, 128 mb ati radeon x300 graphics, 15.4 WSXGA+ screen, Pentium M, 1.86GHZ - 2 MEGB - 533FSB.

I am currently running xp pro.

Would it be worth it for me to wipe out my system and install windows 7 or will it be better to just sit with xp until my system dies? Will I benefit from having windows 7 or is my system not good enough to get the full benefits? Thanks

 

[SNGX1275]

Unless you can get it for $30 (was student price when it released) I'd just stick with XP. I don't think it is worth spending money on for that machine.

If you turn features off and slim it down it will run fine, but then you miss some of the things about 7 that distinguish it from XP. So I'd just stick with XP.

 

[munch2477]

That's what I was thinking. I'm just gonna ride it out til this bad boy dies

 

[bazz2004]

Windows 7 boots up much faster but apart from that I haven't found my experience improved much. Also, some XP programs won't run properly under Windows 7 which can be a real nuisance.

 

[Leeky]

Windows 7 boots up much faster but apart from that I haven't found my experience improved much. Also, some XP programs won't run properly under Windows 7 which can be a real nuisance.

I don't think you'd see any improvement in boot times with older hardware, but I could be wrong.

Also, some issues with XP compatability can be resolved by using XP mode, available with Professional and Ultimate editions of Windows 7.

Another way around it is to use a virtual OS, using something like Vmware, or Sun's Virtualbox. I use the latter to great effect with my automotive diagnostic software that will only run on XP on previous installations. It works a treat!

If you can get student discount (or know a student!) then you can get a genuine copy of Windows 7 Professional (Ultimate was also offered here in UK) for under £40 delivered (or $30 ish USD). This would be well worth getting at such a low pricepoint, its what I use myself.

 

[nismo91]

i doubt the X300 gonna work with 7's aero, cause ati didn't release a specific driver that makes it work. it works with vista aero though.

 

[DjKraid]

#Leeky - everything can't be fixed with the compatibility mode, for ex. PunkBuster doesn't work properly in w7...no mater what you do you can't get it to work...

#bazz2004 - one more improvement is that you don't need to run disk defragmenter as often as in WinXP

Personally I like w7, it's fast, easy to use / user friendly, it doesn't eat up all the ram that the computer has, it doesn't ask if you are sure about that you are sure about that you are sure (like vista) and it looks rly good

but to the point...I wouldn't upgrade to w7, it's not worth it...

 

[Leeky]

#Leeky - everything can't be fixed with the compatibility mode, for ex. PunkBuster doesn't work properly in w7...no mater what you do you can't get it to work...

Nope, thats why I run Virtualbox with a Virtual XP machine, which doesn't really seem any slower than physically running it from my experiences.

 

[captaincranky]

I think you'd run into with issues getting drivers for your machine. I have a 6 year old computer on which I ran the "Vista Upgrade Advisor". That told me It would be unlikely the drivers would be made available for Vista. (In hindsight, that was a stroke of good fortune).

If you must persist in this venture, there is an upgrade advisor program for Windows 7 also;

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx

 

[bazz2004]

Upgrading to Windows 7 Professional for XP mode was a big mistake for me. After reverting to Home Premium I found VMware Player, which is freeware, to be brilliant. It runs XP as a virtual OS within Windows 7. Good point about not needing to defrag much. I do wonder if that happens in the background because mine never seems to need doing.

 

[DjKraid]

Nope, thats why I run Virtualbox with a Virtual XP machine, which doesn't really seem any slower than physically running it from my experiences.

then again I don't think that my computer can handle that :/ but we will just have to wait and see, I get a new rig today