Finding I'm not a fan of Windows 7.

[John Schmidt]

I haven't yet transferred anything over to the new computer which has Win-7 from the old with XP.  The more I use the new one, the less I like 7, so I'm considering removing it from the new machine and installing XP in its place. Do any of you computer gurus out there see any reason XP wouldn't work on the new unit? Is there limitations within that OS that would prevent it from working on the much more powerful new unit? I don't really care for Windows 7 at all and it's really driving my wife up the wall...she wants me to fix the old one which has XP and let her use it. I'm really tempted to simply replace the 7 OS with XP. Any thoughts or opinions?

[Oss]

i like 3.1 which I have on one of my machines at work

my wife thinks I am nuts but it lets me play my DOS based games like chuck yeagers air combat

I have the xp on my desktop at work but only use word processing and email

why is 7 no good? is it a memory thing?

[Colin]

You should be OK with XP. It will be supported by M$ for a little while longer. BUT you may have problems finding XP drivers for some of the hardware in the machine such as motherboard, chipset or video card. Check the manufacturers of these items websites to make sure that they are available before you blow Win7 away or you may end up with a brick instead of a PC.  XP will only use just over 3gig of the ram so if you have more than 4 gig in it then it won't be of use to XP.

[9Ball]

FWIW, if you had the displeasure of having a computer with Windows Vista then you would be a BIG fan of Windows 7.

[x]

There is a learning curve to Win 7, and if you will travel that curve, in the end you will be happy to be using Win 7 instead of XP.  It really is better in many ways.

[Jess Tolbirt]

make sure you make yourself a restore disk BEFORE you trash win 7....
or better yet,,, take the hard drive you have now and slave it... install a new hard drive as the master and put XP on it,,,dont even plug the win7 hard drive in until you are up and running with xp on the new drive,,,then slave the original....if anythiong goes wrong you will at least still have the original OS on the original drive....

[FLAVALK]

Hang in there John, you'll get over the hump soon. I've always liked Win-XP but would not install it now because it's not going to be supported by MS much longer.

Currently I'm using Vista and just don't se why so many people dislike it. Granted, I'm not a power user but it does everything I want it to do just fine.

[BonS]

Having been through DOS 1.0 to Win 7 I have to say that I've never enjoyed as stable an operating system (from Microsoft) as Win 7. You will find everything is there but the deck has been shuffled. Who knows why they do it is such useless ways - seems like busy work. You'll be a month downloading all the patches needed for XP SP3+. I regularly turn off the annoyance features in Win 7 such as User Account Control (UAC) and always use a solid state drive (SSD) for the operating system. All together it makes any pc run 10x faster. It's much cheaper than buying a new pc. Cheers.

[Titan]

Stick with 7. Personally, I dislike Windows immensely and have been a Mac user since 1984. I'm actually in the business of supporting Macintosh. However, I'll agree with what Strong Eagle posted earlier. Stick it out with new system and you'll like it. Since it's the latest operating system you will be able to run any new software that comes out because some will require it. Go back to XP and you're at a dead end until one day when you no longer have that choice.

I've found that a lot of people hate change with a passion and have a hard time switching to something different after years of the same old thing. I've also found that most of those people get past the change very quickly and really like the new thing.

I have a friend who's in the business of supporting Windows users and he tells me that Win 7 is superior to XP and he wouldn't go back.

I think you'll be better off if you'll sit with the machine, maybe with a simple "help" kind of book, and play around with the new features. Kick the tires! Poke around in the thing and see what you can find. Whatever you do, don't try to change things to make it work like the old one. It's new. Enjoy it and get the most out of it just like you would anything else new. It's what you're going to be using for a long time.

[John Schmidt]

There is a learning curve to Win 7, and if you will travel that curve, in the end you will be happy to be using Win 7 instead of XP.  It really is better in many ways.

Wayne, I know you're right on that. When I first cranked it up I took one look and it was "what the heck!"  To quote my wife....seems a bit too busy, and I don't find things as easy, at least so far. I am concerned about MS not supporting XP much longer so I'll probably stick with what I have.

One thing that bugs my wife (she just LOVES using AOL for email) is the print on AOL is small, very difficult for her to read. But is much larger when the email is opened. I haven't figured out how to enlarge the print on the email listing so it's the same as when it's opened. I've experimented with Display, so far no joy. I've tried to get her to simply go to IE where she can use the Magnifier and make the print bigger or smaller just holding Ctrl+rolling the mouse wheel. It was a suggestion that didn't "take." I still love her. 

[Robert]

John I agree with the posts here its a learning curve but in 7 you can turn off all the fancy aero garbage and turn off the warnings and then its very much a updated XP. I bought one computer and it was Vista got rid of that and put in XP which is what is running in the shop. Some of my special software doesn't say it will work with 7 otherwise I would make them all 7. You would have no trouble reformatting the thing and running on XP but dont do it. Get familiar with 7 you can even make it look like XP in the way it presents and all the screens. I dont like all the warnings and the Aero look it takes resources and time so I chose one of the desktops that didn't run that. Fading and translucent boxes just didnt cut it for me plus there is a speed savings if you shut all that off. If you go to control panel>system properties>advanced>performance> visual effects you can change the appearance settings. Uncheck all those boxes and see what it looks like. Display will give you the desktop choices and you can either go with aero or with the standard look.

[sugerbear]

#1 i like vista have never had a crash or problem.
#2 i prefer windows mail, really dislike windows live.
#3 run what your happy with and work around what you don't like

[Quicksilver]

I used windows 2000 for the longest time until it crashed completely, likely a reaction to power outages and restarting so often. I have had similar problems with windows 7 on my new computer. Power goes out and reboot many times, crashed 7 had to reinstall. I just can't seem to get it working well with explorer 8, explorer crashes on me. So now I have 3 copies of windows 7 on my machine. The beta version plus the 2 installs. It's taking a lot of patience, but what choice is there when you run a 64 bit machine.

[therapist]

Stick with 7. Personally, I dislike Windows immensely and have been a Mac user since 1984. I'm actually in the business of supporting Macintosh.  that Win 7 is superior to XP and he wouldn't go back. {quote}

I just had my PC crash...it's not the first time...going to an IMAC.  I am told I will have a difficult time adjusting to the different operating system and the other unique Apple programs/desktop.  I am also told, once I get used to it, I most likely will never want to return to a PC.  So, I am going in expecting a transition period.  I sure hope it works out, because these things are expensive!!!   

[bassman]

There is a learning curve to Win 7, and if you will travel that curve, in the end you will be happy to be using Win 7 instead of XP.  It really is better in many ways.

Wayne, I know you're right on that. When I first cranked it up I took one look and it was "what the heck!"  To quote my wife....seems a bit too busy, and I don't find things as easy, at least so far. I am concerned about MS not supporting XP much longer so I'll probably stick with what I have.

One thing that bugs my wife (she just LOVES using AOL for email) is the print on AOL is small, very difficult for her to read. But is much larger when the email is opened. I haven't figured out how to enlarge the print on the email listing so it's the same as when it's opened. I've experimented with Display, so far no joy. I've tried to get her to simply go to IE where she can use the Magnifier and make the print bigger or smaller just holding Ctrl+rolling the mouse wheel. It was a suggestion that didn't "take." I still love her. 

John, don't know if it will help or not but have you checked the lower right hand corner of the screen -  the little box just above the time and date there's a drop down box that allow you to change the font on the screen...mine is at 100% but I can change it smaller or larger within the dropdown box,  I found this by "accident" after our new kitten walked all over the keyboard and hit a bunch of keys which ultimately changed our font adn displays to all different sizes....I tripped over the info above and it resolved all of my problems and hopefully yours as well....good luck !!

[Bob E.]

I upgraded my new laptop, which came with Win 7 Home Premium, to Win 7 Professional so that I could run Win XP in virtual operating systems mode.  I had to do this so that I could run my old version of AutoCAD and my Garmin Mapsource software.  Neither of those would work with Win 7.  The upgrade to Win 7 Professional cost about $90, but the XP download was free.