I recently upgraded tp Windows 7. Since I did my upgrade from Vista Home Premium it was a piece of cake. Kept all my settings, programs and files.

It is such an improvement from Vista and XP. I feel I have a new computer. It runs so much faster. The response opening and closing or from the sleep mode is quite rapid. In fact, everything I have is running so much better I can't believe it.

My opinion only, if you are still running XP, go buy a new system. My feeling is what you have to go through to change to Win7 is just not worth it. Win 7 came prepared with appropriate drivers, etc. Unlike the other Windows systems.

Hope I am not the only one happy with Win &.

lilbees

Quote::

My feeling is what you have to go through to change to Win7 is just not worth it.

I'm assuming you are referring to updating from XP. I don't believe XP can be updated to Win 7. You have to do a fresh install of Win 7 and then migrate whatever data and programs you have backed up to the new OS. Buying a completely new system and peripherals may be the easiest path but using older programs, etc. may prove to be a bit of a chore depending on what you have and want to retain. Of course, as far a genealogy is concerned, a GEDCOM file is a GEDCOM file.

You are right Tom. I was only referring to upgrading from Vista to Win7. That is why I mentioned it would be easier to buy new computer rather than move up from XP to Win7. There are so many newer programs that I don't worry too much about the older ones. Of course they usually can be run in "compatibility mode" if needed. If they can't then it is time to change.

lilbees

I am running VISTA now..is it expensive to upgrade to Windows 7?

I think I paid about $119 (preorder) for the upgrade. But money well spent for me. I am sure there are offers for less somewhere.

Forgot to add: The best part of all this is just putting the DVD in and going about your business until the install is complete. Only suggest if you like your wallpaper from Vista try to save it to a file of yours otherwise you will have new wallpapers you have to pick from. Its a small thing but for some important.

lilbees

Thanks..

I may just look into this. I have gotten used to VISTA but there are a few features I still am not too crazy about so it never hurts to look into other options.

At least with Win 7 you are not driven crazy with 50 million permissions.

lilbees

lilbees wrote:

At least with Win 7 you are not driven crazy with 50 million permissions. lilbees

For that reason alone I will probably order it up. This permission thing with Vista is kind of sophomoric.

JoeB

Hey Joe, it is not to say there is never permissions. It only seems when a change is going to be made to a program. Not real intrusive or pesty. In other words "not a pain in the ass"

lilbees

So far I'm not a fan.....my old laptop is ready to die, so I saw a good deal on a new laptop and I bought it, complete with Windows 7 64bit. Most of the data tranfer went pretty well with Easy Transfer. There seems to be some bugs in IE8 as I have been getting quite a few error messages (including a comapatibility warning for the Gente site). I am still trying to get Thunderbird working for my work email (I'm semi-retired, but I work from home).

There have been number of software casualties along the way: my FTM2006 is not compatible along with my MS Picture It! (with no new versions available that work with Windows 7 64bit); Microsoft also dumped my Windows Mail which I liked for my primary personal email account (hopefully I can transfer my archived email into Outlook). For some reason it took me about 3 hours to get my Canon 830MP printer to work (with the new driver for Win7/64).

I know that Technology has to move along (I have worked in IT since college), but Microsoft always seems to make it painful.

Any other recommendations for an email program? I like TBIRD, but I don't want to use the same product for business and personal use; I downloaded Eudora 8.0, but it is now based on TBIRD and glommed onto the TBIRD account and pulled all my business email archives into it without asking first.......I'm hoping that I can transfer my email client into Outlook which came with my MS-OFFICE 2010, but I'm not sure that it will work (I'll find out tommorow). I want to store my email locally.
[b]

My son upgraded to Windows 7 a few months ago and has had nothing but problems. Now his computer doesn't work at all and so once again mine has become the "Go to" PC. I do not want to upgrade and I won't. I have too much info on this computer to afford it and so I spend most of my time backing it up "just in case".

The only email I now use is gmail. I love it. But if you're interested in having a local one and gmail isn't for you, let me know and I can create one for you from Gente.

Good morning! When I upgraded to Win7 ot was to the 32 bit version. I had heard of some problems with the 64 bit version. Also, like with Vista, some older programs will not run under this version unless it is run in "compatibility mode". But, some that are so old will not run at all. Also under Vista much of my equipment would not work because they were no longer supported by the companies that made them so no new drivers.

Prior to upgrading I did read what may or may not work under not only Vista but also Win 7, including some of my favorite programs. Sadly, I had to give up many I had. Since I use MSN Mail I was not too concerned about the other mail programs. The one pain in the rear I think is that they are really promoting Windows Live programs and mail. I will say that the Windows Live Photo Gallery is great with some editing features. I had also had Picture It but lost it soon after the conversion to Vista.

So, along the way in upgrading I have had more successes than losses. I knew I needed to replace my printer/scanner and some of my other equipment but in the end it was all worth it for me. Having been an old Wordstar fan for years working in MS Office 2007 has been great and will upgrade to MS ?? when affordable.

ALL I KNOW, IS EVERYTHING IS WORKING SO MUCH BETTER UNDER WIN7 I WOULD NEVER GO BACK! AND I DO LOVE ALL MY NEWER PROGRAMS AS WELL. TOOK SOME GETTING USED TO BUT MOST HAVE FEATURES I HAVE ALWAYS LONGED FOR IN THE OLDER PROGRAMS.

lilbees

nuccia wrote:

My son upgraded to Windows 7 a few months ago and has had nothing but problems. Now his computer doesn't work at all and so once again mine has become the "Go to" PC. I do not want to upgrade and I won't. I have too much info on this computer to afford it and so I spend most of my time backing it up "just in case". The only email I now use is gmail. I love it. But if you're interested in having a local one and gmail isn't for you, let me know and I can create one for you from Gente.

I am now making some progress as I was able to download IncrediMail which seems to be a decent replacement for Windows Mail...I was able to transfer all my messages along with my address book.....the data resides on my PC; I can receive work email into TBIRD, but I need to find what causes the outbound memail to fail......

I have also downloaded Picasso and Windows Live Photo Gallery to see if they would replace MS Picture It! (which I really like); I also need to see what I need to do about replacing FTM2006; I have both FTM2009 (hate it) and Legacy (didn't really get into it) ----- FTM2010 only works with the 32 bit version of WIN7. Maybe they will have a 64 bit version??

Still a lot of error messages with IE8

Picasso and Windows Live Photo are not bad. Carole used to love Picasso and I think emmy uses it as well. I know many people who use it for pics for their blogs and it has some good features.

I still use FTM 2006. I know I really need to upgrade because with VISTA I can't use all the features the program offers. Why do you dislike 2009?

nuccia wrote:

Picasso and Windows Live Photo are not bad. Carole used to love Picasso and I think emmy uses it as well. I know many people who use it for pics for their blogs and it has some good features. I still use FTM 2006. I know I really need to upgrade because with VISTA I can't use all the features the program offers. Why do you dislike 2009?

I haven't touched FTM2009 for a couple of years, but I found it to be awkward to use and it seemed to be incomplete (like they had a release deadline and started shipping even though the coding was not complete).

It seemed to have less features than FTM2006. I installed it and tried it a few times and went back to FTM2006. I also purchased Legacy which was recommended as a better alternative to FTM2009 ---- I think it is probably OK, just a big "learning curve" after FTM. The FTM2010 version is probably much better than FTM2009, but It does not support the 64 bit version of WIN7. You will see a lot of negative comments if you search for FTM2009.

MS Picture It! had some unique formats for saving pictures (.PNG) so I hope that I can convert the files......although now, my old laptop has stopped giving me the display problems that prompted the move to a new PC (plus kept getting memory errors all the time too).