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Opinions wanted on Windows 7

One final question, has anyone used Open Office, if so is it any good? I need an office program, but MS Office ???? is quite expensive and I have to watch the pennies now.

Go for OpenOffice.

Been using it for years; no problems at all.
 
Another Office option that should be coming up soon is MS's move to the free versions of Microsoft Office 2010 Word, Excel and Power Point. They are going to be some sort of online access type setup. Not exactly sure how that's going to work.

I'm currently running the full beta Office 2010 suite with W7. I like it quite a bit. The only thing that "bothers" me and I say that with a smile, is that Office 2010 blends into W7 so well I sometimes have to stop and double check what window/application it is that I actually have open.

One of the other reasons I'm going for this early test drive on Office 2010 is that it will be available as a 64bit app which will prompt me even more to finally move to a 64bit system.

FAC
 
I have 2 XP Pro computers and 1- 32 bit windows 7 and and 1- 64 bit ultra win 7, vista really sucked.
I am really happy with windows 7.
Note I did an update on the windows 7 32 bit and it took about 8 hours fo get it perfect.
I did a fresh install of the ultra 64 windows 7 and it took about 1 hour.
 
How does W7 play with DOS proggies ? I have alot of emulators (going back to the 8 bit days) and XP does a nice job keeping them stable even when stacking emulators. Was curious how W7 would fare.
 
How does W7 play with DOS proggies ? I have alot of emulators (going back to the 8 bit days) and XP does a nice job keeping them stable even when stacking emulators. Was curious how W7 would fare.

So far, I've not had too many problems with little command-line DOS apps.
If you do get a problem one (usually 64-bit systems will give the most problems), give DOSbox a try. It's a nice little open-source DOS/x86 emulator.
http://www.windowsreference.com/fre...pensource-dos-x86-emulator-for-windows-linux/

Other than that, to the OP...
I'm happy with Win7 on my new system.
I don't know if I would upgrade an old system from XP to 7...all depends on the age of the hardware I suppose. Older hardware I'm content with sticking to XP.

OpenOffice works just fine for me on Win 7. I decided to stick with that since I use it quite a bit on Linux anyway.
I also have my old copy of MSOffice 2002 installed for those odd-few XLS worksheets with macros (like the AvHistory FDE spreadsheets) since Oo_Org doesn't play well with most MSOffice macros.
(7 does have some issues with Outlook2002 too...but I haven't used that for email in quite a while).
 
So far, I've not had too many problems with little command-line DOS apps.
If you do get a problem one (usually 64-bit systems will give the most problems), give DOSbox a try. It's a nice little open-source DOS/x86 emulator.
http://www.windowsreference.com/fre...pensource-dos-x86-emulator-for-windows-linux/

Other than that, to the OP...
I'm happy with Win7 on my new system.
I don't know if I would upgrade an old system from XP to 7...all depends on the age of the hardware I suppose. Older hardware I'm content with sticking to XP.

OpenOffice works just fine for me on Win 7. I decided to stick with that since I use it quite a bit on Linux anyway.
I also have my old copy of MSOffice 2002 installed for those odd-few XLS worksheets with macros (like the AvHistory FDE spreadsheets) since Oo_Org doesn't play well with most MSOffice macros.
(7 does have some issues with Outlook2002 too...but I haven't used that for email in quite a while).

Thats kinda my question, I run a CD emulator (to setup the faux drive), DOSbox over that to get the atari/commodor emulator up. Atari spartados on the 800xl emulator sees the faux drive and I load my 8bit ware from the faux drive- ALL under XP, and all very stable.

Can W7 do that ?
 
Thats kinda my question, I run a CD emulator (to setup the faux drive), DOSbox over that to get the atari/commodor emulator up. Atari spartados on the 800xl emulator sees the faux drive and I load my 8bit ware from the faux drive- ALL under XP, and all very stable.

Can W7 do that ?

I can tell you I could not run Wolfenstien 3D, Dangerousdave in the Haunted Mansion, or Bards Tale 1 on W7. It does not like 16 bit games in windowed mode. Which is something XP would do.

The other side of that coin is Castle of the Winds which was an old dos game runs fine but it loads up in full screen mode.

I have not tested Dosbox under W7 yet but their site claims Vista is still in the works which mean W7 might not work either.
 
Hey folks,
I have been away and just caught this thread, I am running Win 7 /64 and dual boot with Vista (which always worked fine for me so I was never a Vista hater) and I have had no real issues to speak of. I have one driver problem - Dazzle DVD90 - no 64 bit driver which is why I have the Vista partition.

I also set up an XP Pro Virtual Machine with the XPMode in Win 7 for several very old Dos games - Leisure Suite Larry (yes I still have it..lol) and Wing Commander 3, 4 & 5, they all work just fine. If you have the compatible hardware XPMode in Win 7 works extremely well, just make sure to enable Virtual Machine support in your BIOS and have at it.

I also tried a little experiment just for the heck of it and I have been pleasently surprised. I am running most of my apps on both Vista and Win 7 from single installs, what I mean is I set up Win 7 and installed Open Office, FSX, X3, MS Digital Imaging Pro and several Video editing apps, etc... on a seperate drive (E:\Program files\appname...) and tricked Vista and Win 7 into using the same installitation. It was tricky to set up and took some time but it works flawlessly. Here are the steps;

1) Install Vista on small partition as C: (I did this first because the last OS installed will be the default when you power up so I wanted Win 7 as my first choise)

2) Install Win 7 using Dual Boot method so Vista installation is kept, Win 7 also assumes C: when you boot into that OS. I used a larger Partition for Win 7 as well.

3) Installed my main apps in Win 7 to the E: drive (I just accept all install paths except the drive letter I change it to E: )

4) Once everything is running fine and tested in Win 7 I shut down and booted to the Vista Partition.

5) Now I navigate to the E: Drive and simply added an X to the start of the Apps folder I used so it was now e:\XProgram files\...

6) Repeat the install of the apps and games I wanted so Vista set the Reg entries properly and tested each app and game - all worked just fine.

7) Now the fun part, I left everything as is for a few weeks going back and forth between the 2 OS's and not touching my XProgram Files folder (just in case) and I was able to boot to either Win 7 or Vista and use every program I had installed on that e: drive, the Registry in both partitions had the proper entries and I was only using one install of each program so I blew away the E:\XProgram Files\ folder and recovered over 80 gig of space (X3 and all the mods was just over 30 gig alone).

I am not sure how useful this information is, but it was a fun experiment and for me I do need Vista to use my Dazzle for converting the home movies I have on VHS. I have a year or more work to do on that little project.

Just a short side note to this, I did also try one app on the E:\Program Files\ folder from the XP VM and it worked just fine, although XP Mode treats the hard drives as Network shares so you have to map each one, it makes a little more work but it is functional.

Overall I would not recommend this to everyone but if you like to tinker it can be interesting and for me it works just fine. Oh and BTW I also share a common My Documents, My Pictures etc on a 3rd Hard drive between all 3 OS's so that is not an issue.

If you get Win 7 and do not need to pop for the Ultimate version which includes XP Mode, it is a free download from MS so unless you need to spend the extra for BitLocker stick with Win 7 Pro and save the $20.00 or better yet send the $20.00 to Ickie we can use it for the new server... hint, hint, hint...lol
 
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