Thread: Don't buy windows 7 yet.

I didn't want to hyjack the Windows 7 pre-sale thread, but I really wanted to comment on the subject. So, here it goes.

I have a short list of reasons NOT to buy Windows 7. (or at least not yet) None of these are political or MS bashing, but good honest tips that people should consider. Feel free to comment, complain or add to my list.

1. New releases of Windows always have problems. (True for any OS) Waiting 6 months after release will help most users avoid most probblems.
2. If you have ever considered Ubuntu or some other flavor of linux, why not try it first? I know that linux isn't for everyone, but if you're going to be formatting your hard drive and installing a new OS anyway, why not give it a shot? It's completely free, so if you don't like it, you're only out the time you spent setting it up. Get it at Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu and get help at ubuntuforums.org
3. Your PC probably can't run it. A great many of problems people had with Vista were the result of running it older hardware. In the PC world, 1 year is outdated, and 2 years is ancient. Review the minimum AND recommended system requirements first, and don't upgrade if you don't meet at LEAST the minimum. The closer you are to the recommended, the better.
4. If it aint broke, don't fix it. Regardless of what you're using, whether it's Vista, or Windows95, if it works for you, why spend the money on an upgrade? Before upgrading systems, think seriously about what you expect to gain from the upgrade, and whether or not it's realistic.

I also have a short list of tips for those who will upgrade anyway. If you're highly tech savy, you can pretty easily skip the rest of this post, but for those doing their first OS upgrade, these tips may be helpful

1. Back-up everything that matters to you, even if you do an "upgrade" install rather than a full format. Upgrades have a nasty habit of failing, and you don't want to find yourself with a computer that won't boot, and no way to access your data to back it up.
2. All of your hardware works now, but it may not after you upgrade. Take time to research each piece of hardware on your system BEFORE you upgrade, and download drivers for anything that won't work out of the box with W7 BEFORE you upgrade, then back those drivers up on a disk. W7 may have a compatability wizard built into the disk. If it does, USE IT and make sure you have a plan to resolve all issue before you begin the upgrade.
3. If there is software that is really important to you or your business, make sure it will work with W7 first.
4. Head into the project assuming that things will go terribly wrong, and you'll be without your desktop for a few days. Most OS installs take only a few hours including setting up basic software, but they CAN go very badly, and you should be prepared for that, especially if you use your computer for working.

I'm running Linux mint at home and at work now. I was running K-Ubuntu at home but I prefer Mint with the KDE format. Anyhow, I have heard, don't know if it is true or MS bashing, that where Linux tests their OS upgrades throughly before release Microsoft uses the public to work out the bugs in their new releases.

I've run 95, 98 and XP and they were alright but I vastly prefer Linux. I hope I never have to run a Windows OS again. Pity that so many programs are MS proprietary based.

As far as MS not testing, that's "sort of" true, sort of not true.

Having previously beta tested for them (Windows XP to be exact) I can tell you that there is in fact a very long period of testing before release.

The problem is that because it is the "default" OS, Windows is expected to run on absolutely every conceivable hardware configuration that meets the minimum requirements, and that's a tall order.

Most commercial software these days is released before all bugs are fixed, with the justification that it's not possible to find and fix all bugs before release, but a good feedback system will let us patch remaining bugs quickly.



The biggest difference between linux and windows in terms of pre-release testing comes from the fact that there is less to test with linux.

Ubuntu (and most popular flavors of linux for that matter) are on a 6-month release cycle. That means that each release is incremental, rather than monumental.

Thanks for clearing that up for me Steve. I'd always wondered if there was any truth to that.

Yeah, mostly anti-MS hype, and I say that as an AVID linux user who has used some flavor of linux as their primary home OS since some time around 2000. When I beta tested XP, I was dual booting Mandrake Linux, which was renamed to mandriva a few years ago because of a copyright infringment lawsuit.

I started with Fedora 5 a couple of years ago. I have a friend who is a sys ad and very familiar with Unix based systems of the past 25 years and he has made it possible. I am not sure that I could swing it on my own although I am a lot more savvy than I was. I would really like to master the command line but it is like learning another language. Getting there slowly but surely.

You know, I've got a good friend who's a Linux Madhat, and I've been toying with the idea for a bit. I have a LInux Handheld (a Zaurus) and it's generally awesome, but sometimes a PITA when it comes to adding new software. New hardware is...not really an option.

What, in you guys' experience, are the real limitations of Linux distributions? Meaning--what can it not do, that you actually wish it could?

JimR, I have tried hard to find something that Linux can't do and it has been a struggle. And to put this into perspective, I hijacked the home PC and put only linux on there. My wife is so comfortable using it, and likes some of the small little usability features so much, that she asked her work to install ubuntu on her machine there.

Now, on to the subject of the thread. The real reason to NOT run out and buy the latest flavor of the OS is why spend the money if what you have is working. This is different than updating to the latest edition of fedora or whatever. If you have Windows XP and then go and buy Windows Vista, just cause, you have thrown away money . . . just cause.

There's really two different answers to that question, and their both true.

The direct and technically correct answer is that the only limit to what you can do with linux is your patience. Linux, and virtually all apps for it are open source code, which means that if you are willing and able to invest the time and effort into learning to program, and learning the in&outs of linux applications, you can do anything.



The more realistic answer is that Linux is bad for a very small set of highly specialized pieces of commercial software and an equally small set of specialized hardware components.

The vast majority of Windows applications either have a native linux version, a native linux equivilent program that will do the same thing for free, or the ability to get the windows program running with compatibility software such as Wine or Cedega.

These days, even most major new-release PC games can be played on linux with minimal effort, and some older games play better than they do on current windows releases.


I have a second income as a professional photographer. I do all of my shooting in digital, and the only two pieces of commercial software I run on my system (other than commercial video games)

Bibble Pro, which is for processing raw files from higher-end digital cameras, and an old version of photoshop.

Bibble Pro, despite being commercial software, actually comes in a native linux version, and the old copy of photoshop I have is RARELY used. I only pull it out when making covers for Vision Artbooks, because their covers must be submitted as a layered .psd file, and the linux app I use for the rest of my image editing (the Gimp) doesn't have the best support for layered .psd files.



Just a few years ago, I'd have had a fairly long list of things you couldn't do with linux, but that list shrinks more and more all the time. Thanks to the growth of linux over the last few years, it has gotten to the point where it's really just as user friendly as windows, and so much more smooth and stable, unless of course, you happen to run one of the ever shrinking pieces of software/hardware that just won't work.

Oh, and dial-up modems in linux still suck.

JimR, I have tried hard to find something that Linux can't do and it has been a struggle. And to put this into perspective, I hijacked the home PC and put only linux on there. My wife is so comfortable using it, and likes some of the small little usability features so much, that she asked her work to install ubuntu on her machine there.

Now, on to the subject of the thread. The real reason to NOT run out and buy the latest flavor of the OS is why spend the money if what you have is working. This is different than updating to the latest edition of fedora or whatever. If you have Windows XP and then go and buy Windows Vista, just cause, you have thrown away money . . . just cause.