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Topic: Windows 7 additional info |
Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 3 Jul 2009 7:37 pm |
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I've been rooting around the Internet for the last few hours and developed the following info regarding Windows 7.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=672
This guy conducted tests on XP Service Pack 3, Vista Ultimate, and Windows 7 Ultimate regarding RAM usage and required drive space.
Here are the stats for with memory usage measured after all update operations had completed and the system had been idle for at least one hour:
XP Service Pack 3: 150 MB RAM and 5.7 GB drive space
Vista Ultimate: 299 MB RAM and 14.3 GB drive space
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit: 216 MB RAM and 8.6 GB drive space
The disk space figures are for clean installs.
Another site reported that Windows 7 32-bit uses around 11 GB and the 64-bit edition, used about 13 GB. Actual usage for you will depend on the amount of RAM installed (which dictates swap file size) and whether you’ve hibernated the machine and thus created a hibernation file, which will be the size of available RAM.
So it seems to require less disk space and RAM than Vista.
Here's some more info on what you get if you upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. Some of these are available in Vista, but most Windows 7 versions have been refined.
Shell/kernel:
Fast User Switching allows you to switch to a second user account without logging off from the first one. Users can connect to multiple monitors. Windows Mobility Center acts as a central location for managing power, display, network, and other settings on a notebook PC.
User interface:
You get the full Aero interface, including themes, glass borders, taskbar previews, Aero Peek, Flip 3D, Aero Shake, and desktop slide shows. Personalization features include a Control Panel to change desktop backgrounds, window colors, and sound schemes. These settings can be saved as a theme (for reuse on the same PC) or a theme pack (which can be shared with other computers).
Hardware support:
Windows 7 Home Premium can address up to 16 GB of RAM (that requires the included 64-bit edition of Home Premium). By comparison, the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 Home Basic is limited to 8 GB of RAM, and the 32-bit Starter edition is limited to 3.5 GB or less, depending on how much RAM is reserved by hardware. Windows 7 Home Premium has full support for multi-touch and Tablet PC features.
The utilities that you get here that aren’t in lesser editions include the Snipping Tool (a nifty little screen-grab utility that debuted in Vista), Sticky Notes, and some premium games (Chess Titans, Hearts, Internet Backgammon, Internet Checkers, Internet Spades, and Mahjong Titans.
Security and reliability:
Action Center, Resource Monitor, Windows Update, Windows Defender, Windows Firewall, Parental Controls, and a less annoying version of User Account Control. The Backup program can create a system image and do file backups to an external hard drive or rewritable media. The Previous Versions feature can recover earlier versions of a file from the automatic system restore points.
Digital media:
This category is where the Premium features really kick in, with Windows 7 Media Center. Premium can stream media from Windows Media Player to other PCs or devices over a local network or over the Internet. Lesser editions can play streamed media but can’t originate a stream. Windows DVD Maker is included in this edition, which also contains an MPEG-2 decoder for DVD playback.
Networking:
The HomeGroup feature requires at least one PC on your network running Home Premium or better. Lesser editions (Starter and Home Basic) can join an existing homegroup but can’t create or manage one.
Home Premium does include some well-hidden advanced networking features, including a full copy of Internet Information Services and Internet Connection Sharing. Home Premium doesn’t do enterprise networks. If you want to join a Windows domain, you’ll need to go up at least one more edition.
All versions include the Remote Desktop client, but only Professional and Ultimate/Enterprise editions can act as a Remote Desktop host.
Every Windows 7 edition can create and mount a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) file using the built-in Disk Management tool. |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Posted 3 Jul 2009 9:08 pm
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Thanks for that research Mitch. You can be our resident Windows 7 features investigator and reporter, if you want the position. It only pays with compliments, but that's not a bad thing these days.
As usual, I will concentrate on security in Windows 7 and compatible security applications, backup solutions and user account privileges.
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
Main web pages: Wiztunes Steel Guitar website | Wiz's Security Blog | My Webmaster Services | Wiz's Security Blog |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 4 Jul 2009 2:49 am
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| One issue. Win7 will not include an e-mail program, as they have done in the past. Unless you have something like Office that includes an e-mail program you will have to download an e-mail program. |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Posted 4 Jul 2009 9:40 am
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| Jack Stoner wrote: |
| One issue. Win7 will not include an e-mail program, as they have done in the past. Unless you have something like Office that includes an e-mail program you will have to download an e-mail program. |
I am using Windows Live Mail on XP and Windows 7. It is a free download from Microsoft and resembles Outlook Express, but has a junk mail learning filter and more advanced features. In fact, it was offered as a replacement for Outlook Express by Microsoft when they announced that Outlook Express would not be able to continue interfacing with the Hotmail servers.
Anybody running a legitimate copy of any version of Windows, from XP onward can download and install Windows Live Mail. It can import all of your exported MS Outlook or Outlook Express messages, settings and user accounts.
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
Main web pages: Wiztunes Steel Guitar website | Wiz's Security Blog | My Webmaster Services | Wiz's Security Blog |
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Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 4 Jul 2009 11:47 am
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I just got rid of Windows Mail and went with Thunderbird and it seems to be working well on Vista SP 1.
It looks very much like Outlook Express also.
All email and configuration files are stored in a single location under C:\Users\......\Roaming\Thunderbird.
If you want to backup the configuration and all email, just copy that entire folder to any other location. After any new installation, just drag your backup back to that location on the new install.
It has a smaller footprint than Windows Mail and my drive thrashing on bootup seems to have declined.
Re Windows 7: the versions to be sold in Europe will not include a browser, due to anti-monopoly court decisions made against Microsoft in the last few years. It should be fun for those folks over there who want to download a browser but don't have a browser to get at the internet to do the download.
Those versions will carry an E suffix, such as 7E. |
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Chip Fossa
From:
Monson, MA, USA (deceased)
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Posted 5 Jul 2009 6:49 pm
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Hi Fellas,
I've been trying to ketchup with yas.
I've been using Thunderbird for my email for the past year or so. It's very much like old Eudora (Qualcomm); which went belly-up.
TB is very simple and concise; and "free" (God, I hate that word - we all know nothing is free, right?)
TB probably doesn't have a lot of the bells and whistles that OE and/or other MS/Windows emails have, but that's fine with me.
Amazon is just getting crazier and harder to make a simple credit card purchase now. I went for Win7 just now, and they charged me for shipping ($5), but said I could go for the 3-5 free shipping if I wanted to.
Well, of course, I checked off the 3-5 day option, but got sent back to a previous start-up page. Plus, Amazon is always trying to list more items than you initially request; forcing you to make the change back to 1 item (ususally).
I know what they're up to.
Ain't trickin' me.
So now, I'm gonna go back to the other Win7 topic, and order Win7 from one of those mentioned places, other than Amazon.
I'm getting just a little tired of their hocus-pocus.
Any of you guys felt this, too, about Amazon; or any other mega-monster outfits? 
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer. |
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Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 5 Jul 2009 11:41 pm
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Here is a list of the retailers that are participating in the discounted offer, good through this coming Saturday, July 11:
Amazon
Best Buy
CostCo
Frys
Office Depot
Office Max
Sam's Club
Staples
Tiger Direct
Walmart
Newegg
Nebraska Furniture Mart
I am not sure if all of them still have stock--some may have already reached their allocation for the offer.
I would guess you would pay tax and postage at many of those places, but Newegg ships at no charge and doesn't charge tax in most states.
The upgrades to Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate were ranked 1, 2, and 4 on Amazon's list of best-sellers last week. Ultimate is not discounted. |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 6 Jul 2009 2:03 am
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| Chip, I pre ordered from Amazon and didn't get any extra charges. They always want to sell you other stuff (that's their business selling things) but I just ignore them. |
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John Cipriano
From:
San Francisco
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Posted 6 Jul 2009 1:43 pm
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OK, this is off-topic, but I am waiting for some things to go down at work and have had a lot of coffee.
Chip, you mentioned "free" with Thunderbird and said nothing's really free. I just wanted to add that, since TB is open source, it really is free. Mozilla Foundation could disappear tomorrow and someone could take the code and keep improving it. They'd just have to change the name.
In fact, there are already various code forks and alternate builds of Firefox and Thunderbird, like IceCat. Free software advocates use the phrase "free as in freedom / free as in beer" to differentiate between the two types of software.
The catch (if you can call it that) with software licensed the way that FF and TB are is that if you make a change, and release your modified software, you have to release your source code as well, under the same license. Open source removes some power from developers but grants it to users, and it also blurs the line between developer and user.
I doubt that Firefox would have gotten as far as it has if it wasn't open source. It was completely rewritten from the original Netscape code at least once, which is quite a large undertaking. I think at this point the only major browsers that aren't open source are IE and Opera.
edit: whoops, it was chip, sorry chip
Last edited by John Cipriano on 7 Jul 2009 10:13 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Chip Fossa
From:
Monson, MA, USA (deceased)
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Posted 7 Jul 2009 4:23 am
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I tried going through NEWEGG just now, and it was sort of a fiasco. First off, the only page you could raise up was to buy Vista with a bundled Windows 7 upgrade.
When I clicked on a menu item (Windows7), in IE, the green timer bar took forever to reach the end and no page appeared. In FF, when I clicked on the same, the usual FF timed-out error page flipped up.
Brick wall.
So I decided to go back to Amazon, seeing how it's a new and sunny day and they already have my info stored.
When I got to the shopping cart they still had me down for 2 copies of W7. So I changed it to 1 copy, and went back to the place order page. Still listed 2 copies. Went back to shopping cart, changed to 1 copy again, and then noticed a teeny UPDATE button.
Who knew you had to "update" this? Wasn't changing the quantity from 2 to 1 an update?
So I'm to blame, yet again, about the percieved Amazon fiasco.
The W7 order went through with no shipping or taxes for the said price of $49.99, and is to be shipped on October 26th.
End of story. 
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer. |
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Chip Fossa
From:
Monson, MA, USA (deceased)
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Posted 10 Jul 2009 1:22 pm
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Thanks John Cipriano.
I was foiled. I was looking for a continuing posting, and then, I noticed your EDIT.
No problem, friend.
I've been called much worse.
And don't forget. You and I have two things in common. You live in New England, and "Chip" is short for my middle name: CIPRIANO.
FWIW: My full name on my birth certificate is: John Cipriano Fossa Jr. 
(Isn't "Chip" a lot more manageable?)
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer. |
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John Cipriano
From:
San Francisco
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Posted 11 Jul 2009 5:04 pm
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I've always been called Cip rather than Chip. I think I'd prefer to be called Chip than Cip but at this point it'd be weird...it's easier just to tell people not to call me Cip since I was never that big on it
But yeah you had mentioned that about our names and while John Cipriano isn't a terribly uncommon name among Italians, us meeting here I consider to be *quite* a coincidence. |
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Chip Fossa
From:
Monson, MA, USA (deceased)
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Posted 12 Jul 2009 3:57 am
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At 1st my grandparents called me Cipri (rolling the 'r').Then it evolved to Chipri, then finally to Chip. Like a lot of immigrant families, they wanted me to sound more 'American'.
Whoops, drifting off topic. Sorry!
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer. |
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Leroy Riggs
From:
Looney Tunes, R.I.P.
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