Should I upgrade from Vista to Windows 7?

[StripeyKnickersSpottySocks]

Got my new laptop last week and it has Vista. Was a bit put off as everyone says its crap but Comet said I'd be able to get Windows 7 for postage costs. Turns out postage costs are £27. Is it worth it?

I haven't noticed anything bad about Vista yet but its early days. Whats better about Windows 7?

I think the biggest differences are meant to be hidden away inside. Vista seems to be pretty poorly written and very bloated. With Windows 7 they've reworked a lot of the internal plumbing to make something that should both load and run a lot faster than Vista would on the same machine.

There have also been some tweaks to the security to make it less obtrusive, so if you notice a lot of boxes popping up asking for your user details in Vista they should ease of in 7.

I suspect that that's about it...

A lot of people feel that Windows 7 is really just an upgrade of Vista that they've given a new name too to try and get away from the debacle that was Vista.

Personally I'd be tempted to go for it.

However I'd also wait a while to hear some stories of how Windows 7 is actually working in the real world and how reliable the upgrade process is.

In the past a good rule of thumb was to wait for a Service Pack before installing Windows and that the upgrade was pretty poor and it was better to blank the whole machine and start again.

I'm hearing good things about Windows 7, but I'd still recommend waiting before actually doing the upgrade.

Do you pay to upgrade? DS1 is having trouble doing his homework online and I think it's because I don't have windows 7?

I would but I hate Vista with a deep and consuming passion
waiting for a service pack sounds sensible

Curiousmama I think lack of Windows 7 is unlikely to be the problem - which operating system and browser are you running at the moment?

And yes upgrades can cost megabucks so £27 is an unusually good deal

I was going to ask this exact same question. I thought it was a free upgrade when I bought my laptop and now they want £27. I have had a few glitches with Vista and have had to change to Firefox to access my Uni site (though Firefox is fab and I wish I had changed that ages ago).
I can't get some flashplayer stuff to load properly and today my Vista security centre couldn't recognise my AVG that seemed to be running perfectly.

If I upgrade and install it do I lose any of the stuff on my laptop already???

Yours, a confused VanillaPumpkin....

I got an email back from his school and apparently it's windows office 2007 home and student version. Looks like it's expensive

Not expensive
You can get it for him for £35 on Software4students.
I know £35 is alot if you don'ty have £35 but it is a huge saving .

Look here
I ordered from them and the product is genuine, just doesn't come in a box .

Thanks VP That's much cheaper than I'd found.

If his school isn't registered on that site they may be with another one. Ask them and make them register if they aren't. My dd's school uses another provider but I can't remember the name of it right now.

So do I buy enterprise or standard?

I went for Enterprise as it was a better deal. I don't use over half the programmes but you never know .
I do use One Note though which is brand new to me and I love for organising my uni notes.

The school's saying you have to have Office 2007?

Can you not use a free alternative?

Curiousmama - are the school saying he has to do his work on Office 2007, or just that he needs it to open files the school creates?
Because if the school has 2007, they can open files he creates in 2003, it just doesn't work the other way round.

But there is a free file converter you can download from here & install at home, which means you can read Office 2007 files.

Yes, although I found you a solution what a bizarre way for the school to work. What about people who don't have a computer??? There are big assumptions being made there....

Hi thanks RustyBear I downloaded it but I still can't open pages?
The school have 500 computers and he can do the work there if he does it in time so they are good that way but of course it's doing it in time.

I think I'll order the enterprise as he would like power point too.

Curiousmama, what version of Office do you have on your machine at the moment?

Personally I'm a little bit annoyed that the School has paid for (or was given free) copies of MS Office, is encouraging parents to buy it (which might explain why MS gives it away free sometimes) and seems to be using the new and not that compatible 2007 formats. This is all the worse given that there are free and standards based alternatives available.

The school that gets my children better not try such things, they'll have at least one informed and annoyed parent on their hands!

I couldn't find it on my computer so wonder if I've deleted it?

I'm using windows 7. I had vista on the laptop but found it rubbish, this is much better. I would go for it

re Windows 7 - I'd certainly wait until December before considering an upgrade because the software is only released for wide use from 22/10 (anyone running it now is using a pre-release version), and once tens of millions of people start upgrading, any problems will be quickly reported and not so quickly fixed.

As for 27 pounds, that's higher than some firms have been reported as charging (12 pounds springs to mind from a friend, but his machine doesn't have a DVD/CD drive, so wonder how the heck he'll upgrade!)

Re MS Office 2007 - I'm with BadgersPaw on it being bad that a school is not using an open source option - it's blinkered and pushes Microsoft into homes on top of too many businesses being stuck with using it...

Schools should be trying OpenOffice and opening the eyes of staff and students to there being 'other' solutions. When I worked in (higher) education in the 80s, there were some students bleating they could not work with Quattro Pro as they 'only knew how to use Lotus 1-2-3' - it's like saying "I cannot use this word processor because it's not Microsoft Word"...

True that needs learning time, to get the best out of any alternative, and indeed, there might be some feature that is missing, but the essentials are in every spreadsheet/ word processor/ database.

Parents ought to query any suggestion that particular software needs to be used (and if it is being suggested, then arrangements need to be in place to have the school get a general licence for it not to cost parents anything extra).

With the Microsoft 'master plan' of requiring large users to sign up to a 'new licence every three years' clause, I'm surprised they'd give it away free to anyone, even schools or charities.

If it is the case, then it might come up against anti-competitive regulation, though to be fair, Apple used to give at least a 50% 'discount' to higher education for systems (in the 80s at least) and Microsoft has reason to be worried about any large-scale switch to OpenOffice, given that is backed by a big name that's not entirely Microsoft-friendly!

Having used most versions of Windows since 3.0 I have to say I was sceptical about Windows 7.
I have been using the Release Candidate (trial version) for a few months now and I love it compared to Vista.
If you can get Win7 as an upgrade for a small fee then I would recommend it.

Or someone thinking of buying a machine could wait 3 weeks and have it with Win 7 already on. No extra costs/ upgrade hassles, and it either works out of the box, or you have good reason for refund/ replacement.