Windows 7 question...
By
Cien_Fuegos,
Posted on: 2011-11-25 19:44 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Pretty sure you gotta get the whole thing. I tried upgrading from XP to 7 and it told me that 7 can only upgrade Vista. But if someone a little more tech savvy can come in here to verify that'd be great.
In my opinion, upgrading any os to another os is folly. I've done both, and I've given up the upgrade thing. All the garbage (and there's plenty, no matter how clean your system may be, even a FRESH install of the previous) that messes up the old operating system gets to come along for the ride on the upgrade OS.
And no, you cannot go straight upgrade from Windows XP to 7. 7 is, basically, an image they throw on the drive. XP can't survive that. Not sure how Vista manages to survive the process... and frankly, I just won't bother to learn. Won't be happening if I'm dealin' with it.
And they just won't let you do it anyway. They have a tutorial, but it's more about how to save your files to an external drive, then make sure you can put 7 on the computer. Then do that, then move your files back. All using the FAST, I think. No wait, it's called Windows Easy Transfer. Meh, same thing. Here it is:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...p-to-windows-7
After readin' about it, the obvious choice is to buy Win7 OEM full install and start over on a fresh drive. It's actually less work, and you wind up with your files already backed up on the old drive. 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...64-bit&x=0&y=0
There they all are, top three in the list, in their awesome glory. OEM, Full Retail, upgrade. I know which one I'm gettin'.
/not upgrade
//not retail.
///Although, I may get Win7 Ultimate 64Bit OEM instead. Usin' Pro at the work... It's niiiccee....
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Now, that above was about upgrading from XP to Win7.
This post is about speed increase by upgrading a computer to Win7. The answer is... probably not.
I've not run any real tests on this specific to Co*, but given my experiences at work with changing out operating systems on computers (same computers, and Win2000, WinXP, WinVista[only one machine, and I retired that crappy OS this month], and Win7) it is interesting to note that of these operating systems, all full, fresh installs, the Win7 is by far the fastest operationally, that is to say, booting, searches, program starting, that sort of thing.
HOWEVER... the actual PROGRAM speeds did not change between 2000, XP and Win7. Whatever they ran, they ran about the same across the board.
Only in the case of Vista would I recommend getting out of it. The others all have no program effect. I therefore do not recommend you upgrade from XP to Win7 solely because of Co*, as it is money not well spent for that reason.
This assumes that you are moving from 32 bit to 32 bit, or 64 bit (XP? No way...) to 64 bit, and NOT moving from 32 bit to 64 bit, which isn't easily done with an upgrade, barring the impossiblity of doing an XP->7 upgrade anyway.
I *do* recommend changing out to Win7 because it's simply awesomer than any of the previous.
Oh, and disclaimer: These are my results (so far). Others may vary. Everyone will have an opinion, or may actually have factual results, that may counter some/all of my results/opinions/guesses/theories/whatevers.
/Figured the CYA might be needed, just in case...
//a Linux distro might probably speed things up more than any Windows upgrade, I'd guess...
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Windows 7 has a higher memory footprint/overhead so on an identical system/upgrading you'll end up with less available memory/resources after moving to 7. If you haven't used it already, then you'll have quite a few things to figure out once it's installed. I 'think' you can still trick windows 7 into doing a clean install from the upgrade disc, but it requires doing it like a repair when booting from the DVD. IE: you'd want to do your backup first as you'll end up wiping the drive.
I'm assuming the OP is looking to install Win 7 64-bit so they can access all the memory they installed in the system already, in the case of 4GB, adding a 1GB video card, or is looking to expand his memory beyond 4GB.
Since more system memory is always a good thing and can reduce the need to "simulate" additional memory with the swap file on the hard drive. In that case it can improve performance.
Bite the bullet, buy a tube of blank DVDs and start backing up all the stuff you want to keep. You will want to reinstall any programs so the new Windows registry is built correctly but you will at least have a copy of all your data.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Quote:
As a side note, you can use the upgrade to do a clean install. They've got (if you have multiple pcs) the Win7 "family pack." 3 licenses, $150. |
Originally Posted by houtex
There they all are, top three in the list, in their awesome glory. OEM, Full Retail, upgrade. I know which one I'm gettin'.
/not upgrade //not retail. ///Although, I may get Win7 Ultimate 64Bit OEM instead. Usin' Pro at the work... It's niiiccee.... |
Also, yes, you *can* upgrade from XP to 7 kinda-sorta directly, in some situations. However, it's a messy process and I generally agree with "Just format the drive and start from scratch." The "upgrade" wastes space, wastes time, and a clean install is just better overall. Going to 64 bit, you need a clean install anyway.
As far as ultimate, you should really ask yourself "why." For most people, there's little if any reason to move past Pro. Ultimate doesn't give the average person very much. "XP Mode" (Pro) runs on Home as well - or you can use (for the OP) your existing XP disks and a free VM like Virtualbox to run it. Pro lets you join domains - not needed on most home systems, but if you head back and forth to a domain environment, it may be what you need. Pro lets you do backups to a network drive. Pro lets you access up to 192 Gb instead of 16 Gb RAM (Home Premium's limit.)
Ultimate gives you Bitlocker and switch languages on the fly... not worth the premium Ultimate costs, IMHO.
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.
But... It's... ULTIMATE. That's... better, right?
Heh.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...oducts/compare
There's a couple of other items... the BranchCache is interesting sounding... but yeah, if that's it, then Pro is all I'll need. I withdraw the Ultimate statement.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Is there any realistic chance of finding a legit copy of XP 64 bit? I'm tempted to go for 7 64 bit (since I've got 8gb of RAM, but my XP only sees about 3.5gb - yes, it's 32 bit), but I like XP dangnabit.
/git off mah lawn
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You can buy just the upgrade. But what you're going to wind up with, regardless of whether it's the full or upgrade version, is a clean install of Window7. The Windows 7 installer will basically move the entirety of your existing C:\ partition into a subdirectory and clean install over everything.|
Originally Posted by Cien_Fuegos
If i have windows xp and i buy windows 7 do i have to buy the entire windows 7 or just upgrade?
sorry i know not the windows store but cant seem to find answer on their website and i think game would play better on windows 7 =) |
If you want to know how to do a clean install with upgrade media, head here: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/...-upgrade-media
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Wasn't there was much angst re:video drivers and XP64...? Somethin' like that... I dunno. Maybe I remember wrongly, and XP64 is peachy keen... been known to happen, my wrongly remembering things...
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Quote:
from what little I've heard about XPx64 it's a bit unstable
|
Originally Posted by Dark One
Is there any realistic chance of finding a legit copy of XP 64 bit? I'm tempted to go for 7 64 bit (since I've got 8gb of RAM, but my XP only sees about 3.5gb - yes, it's 32 bit), but I like XP dangnabit.
/git off mah lawn |
Quote:
Honestly, I ran about 2 years on XP-64. Only hardware issues and one instance of my AV false-positive'ing my Windows logon files ever gave me problems. And when I reinstalled I just went Win7 because. Most of my clients were on it and a good chunk of the nastiness that was in Vista had been fixed or worked around by that time.
|
Originally Posted by WanderingAries
from what little I've heard about XPx64 it's a bit unstable
|
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
Yeah, but Branchcache requires the supporting infrastructure to be set up wherever you want to use it - and while I may just not have been listening in the right places, I haven't heard a lot about it being used. Either you're going to have to have Windows Server 2008R2 set up (Hosted) or a fair number of Win7 machines set up (Distributed,) and it only kicks in with a >80ms latency... and what it helps also depends on what clients are online and what they've accessed. It probably sounds more useful than it would be to most people. |
Originally Posted by houtex
But... It's... ULTIMATE. That's... better, right?
Heh. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...oducts/compare There's a couple of other items... the BranchCache is interesting sounding... but yeah, if that's it, then Pro is all I'll need. I withdraw the Ultimate statement. |
About the only thing that peaked my interest momentarily was the ability to boot from VHD - then I realized I'd never use it.
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.
Quote:
In relation to what? I mean, is it Windows ME bad?
|
Originally Posted by WanderingAries
from what little I've heard about XPx64 it's a bit unstable
|
My only problem with XP 64bit was limited driver support from manufacturers.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Quote:
That has been my experience with XP 64 as well. I've done work on some friends computers that had XP 64 installed and never seen any other problems that would be specific to that OS version.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
My only problem with XP 64bit was limited driver support from manufacturers.
|
I've not heard any reports of it being unstable as WanderingAries suggests.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
Quote:
It's been a long time since I've even had an actual XPx64 discussion, but basically it came out to something like trying to run games on a business laptop. It works great for IT stuff, but not multimedia. So in that respect more like NT4 than ME, but we don't discuss that particular M$FT mistake around these parts. ;-)
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Originally Posted by Dark One
In relation to what? I mean, is it Windows ME bad?
|
Quote:
Like I said. I never had problems outside of looking for compatible drivers every now and again.|
Originally Posted by WanderingAries
It's been a long time since I've even had an actual XPx64 discussion, but basically it came out to something like trying to run games on a business laptop. It works great for IT stuff, but not multimedia. So in that respect more like NT4 than ME, but we don't discuss that particular M$FT mistake around these parts. ;-)
|
The install was rock solid and lasted several years before I had to reload due to an AV false-positive nuking GINA (the graphical login component for Windows).
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
ok u do not have to buy another windows 7 full version u can use the upgrade heres how before using windows 7 wipe your hard drive completely ( blank it) put in windows 7 upgrade disk and tell it to do a clean install when it it ask for seriel leave blank do not put in sereal it will tell u what version u bought put your version ( ie preuim,ultimate) after the install is complete go back and put win 7 disk back and pc and tell it to upgrade this time use serieal as normal blam a complete clean full version of windows 7 if any prob u can reach me at pharohawk@sbcglobal.net thts my email i have a degree in computers and work at a local computer store i upgrade pcs and refurbish them all the time and build them on the side thank u
Quote:
I've known of several people playing CoH on an XP 64 machine with no problems. I also know a few others that play some other MMOs and FPS games with no problems on XP 64.|
Originally Posted by WanderingAries
It's been a long time since I've even had an actual XPx64 discussion, but basically it came out to something like trying to run games on a business laptop. It works great for IT stuff, but not multimedia. So in that respect more like NT4 than ME, but we don't discuss that particular M$FT mistake around these parts. ;-)
|
As for Windows ME, if you knew what tweaks to make, it was stable and handled networking better than Win 98 did. I know a few people that ran it with no issues for several years and one even used it as a gaming server for testing network hardware performance when needed.
Of course, if you didn't tweak it and did a standard install it was only a matter of time until it started having problems.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
Quote:
Wow. You have a degree in computers? Shenannigans. There's no way you passed your test with such atrocious typing skills. And it's 'serial', which should NEVER have been misspelled by any computer technician. Fail. Do it over, and do it right. This hurt to read.|
Originally Posted by pharohawkixi
ok u do not have to buy another windows 7 full version u can use the upgrade heres how before using windows 7 wipe your hard drive completely ( blank it) put in windows 7 upgrade disk and tell it to do a clean install when it it ask for seriel leave blank do not put in sereal it will tell u what version u bought put your version ( ie preuim,ultimate) after the install is complete go back and put win 7 disk back and pc and tell it to upgrade this time use serieal as normal blam a complete clean full version of windows 7 if any prob u can reach me at pharohawk@sbcglobal.net thts my email i have a degree in computers and work at a local computer store i upgrade pcs and refurbish them all the time and build them on the side thank u
|
/I understand this is correct, but man... if you can get OEM vs Upgrade, just get the OEM and be done with it.
//No computer tech worth his salt should type this badly. There is no excuse for it.
///*I* say so, being the computer tech I am. And something about a lawn while I'm at it.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
*pretty much agrees with houtex*
*also, punctuation, learn it, use it*
houtex, it's spelled shenanigans.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
thanks for replies i got answer ty
as Ood Sigma said....We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will sing you to your sleep. This song is ending. But the story never ends.
Quote:
/agrees. |
Originally Posted by houtex
Wow. You have a degree in computers? Shenannigans. There's no way you passed your test with such atrocious typing skills. And it's 'serial', which should NEVER have been misspelled by any computer technician. Fail. Do it over, and do it right. This hurt to read.
/I understand this is correct, but man... if you can get OEM vs Upgrade, just get the OEM and be done with it. //No computer tech worth his salt should type this badly. There is no excuse for it. ///*I* say so, being the computer tech I am. And something about a lawn while I'm at it. |
Plus:
1. Well, if you're doing multiple computers, get the family pack. Yes, it's upgrade, but three licenses for $150 vs one for $90-100ish... no brainer.
2. No, you don't have to double-install to install the upgrade and activate it on a blank drive.
//also finds "degree in computers" amusing. Nobody awards a "degree in computers," and I can't think of a single tech that would declare they have one.
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.
If i have windows xp and i buy windows 7 do i have to buy the entire windows 7 or just upgrade?
sorry i know not the windows store but cant seem to find answer on their website
and i think game would play better on windows 7 =)
as Ood Sigma said....We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will sing you to your sleep. This song is ending. But the story never ends.