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Windows 7 - Any good stories?

Spur
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Spur polycounter lvl 6
Lately I've been reading a lot of discussions about upgrading computers and I am in the same boat and looking to buy a new one. The biggest upgrade I'm looking forward to is going from my old 32 bit XP system to a 64 bit os (mmmm ram). It seems like I've read about lot of problems with Windows 7 and various programs like Maya, Photoshop, etc. So, does anyone have any success stories? Anyone sailing smoothly with Windows 7??

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  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    Eh, I don't know how I wound up in General Discussion. Can I get a mod to drop this down to Technical Talk??
  • Lee3dee
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    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    windows 7 64 bit runs like a workhorse on my laptop with Max, photoshop, Unreal, Adobe Bridge, firefox, etc all running at the same time. Gets a thumbs up from me! compared to XP I think it runs a little faster.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    So far: 7 is to Vista as XP was to ME.
  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks Lee, making me feel better about it! I hate having to deal with buying a new computer and upgrading. It makes my head hurt thinking about it this morning. Plus I've been snowed in and unable to go to the store for 2 days with no form of caffeine in the house.

    Right now I'm looking at an Intel I7 920 processor with a 1.8GB Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 and 8 gig of ram. Huge upgrade from my measly 2 gig I've been running for the last 4 years.
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    The only issues I have had is with the tablet handwriting program popping up. Which there is a thread in 2d/3d Tech telling how to disable.

    Otherwise, smooth except with older versions of some of the programs I use that aren't compatible with Aero. Thus dropping me back to a non transparent desktop. Slight annoyance is all.
  • Clockwork
    Windows 7 is the shit. Not a single issue.
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Awesome, will probably update soon as well. I've heard some really good things about it.
  • Firebert
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    Firebert polycounter lvl 15
    Upgrading to 7 64bit, it really is a good thing. The ONLY issue I've had thus far is Windows Explorer crashes on occasion. It fixes itself right away and starts back up. Not really a problem, but can get annoying at times for simple operations like copying files or renaming them. Well that and the tablet issue, which can be fixed. As far as handling programs, I've had tons of programs running at once and no problems.

    And plugging in new devices and the such is a breeze.
  • DarthNater
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    DarthNater polycounter lvl 10
    I only issue I have seen so far in my IT travels has been that stupid administrator error people used to get in Vista. I tried to install a few programs and it would freak out at the end of installation saying I didn't have admin rights (and I did right click, run as admin). Easy fix though, its just a pain in the ass.

    Other than that, it works great. The homegroups are great, they automagically find each other and asks if you want to join the group. I'm def. going to upgrade to it once I get a mobo that supports more than 4 gigs o ram :)
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Would be great if it were possible to upgrade from Vista to Windows7, while keeping the programs (Etc) intact. But there's no way this is possible, right?

    Making backups, format hard drive, install new windows, install drivers, install programs, configure everything to you taste, etc.
    I've must have done that a few hundred times in the last 10 years or something...
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    I also like my Win7, it's like XP but with more cool features.
  • Tom Ellis
    Nothing but good things to say here too. I've been using the Beta RC for almost a year and can honestly say I've had pretty much no problems at all.

    All the apps in my workflow seem quick and stable, Max 2009 64, UE3, Photoshop CS4.

    As Oxynary mentioned, I too get the handwriting thing pop up when my Wacom is plugged in but it's a minor issue.

    Sounds like you're looking at a similar spec PC to what I'm planning to build, although the GeForce GTX260 you mention is 896MB not 1.8GB, unless you meant something else.

    EDIT: Apparently the GTX is available in 1.8GB as well as 896MB... news to me!
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    [HP] wrote: »
    Would be great if it were possible to upgrade from Vista to Windows7, while keeping the programs (Etc) intact. But there's no way this is possible, right?

    It is. Unless your going from Vista 32bit to Win7 64bit. But really.. why upgrade? Much less headache and potential issues if you do a clean install.

    Look at it this way. Say you do find an issue from upgrading. You would have to reinstall twice, and then install all the programs anyways.
  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    Sounds like you're looking at a similar spec PC to what I'm planning to build, although the GeForce GTX260 you mention is 896MB not 1.8GB, unless you meant something else.

    EDIT: Apparently the GTX is available in 1.8GB as well as 896MB... news to me!

    I'm actually really stoked about the upgrade and hearing all the good comments about Win7 is just icing on the cake. The computer I'm looking at is an HP. I debated building another system but I'd really like to just go with one off the shelf. I figured that system could easily last me 3 or 4 years and not require any kind of upgrades as far as hardware. Especially if my pieced together system made it 4 years only requiring a video card upgrade and that was only due to the fan on the old one failing.

    A few other questions. I have an option between a 1TB HD and a 640GB HD. What would you guys prefer? Do you think a TB is a bit much? Would you rather have a few smaller drives?

    Is there any reason to upgrade from Win7 Premium to Win7 Ultimate? Ultimate seems like overkill to me, but I really don't know that much about it.
  • Tom Ellis
    Spur wrote: »
    A few other questions. I have an option between a 1TB HD and a 640GB HD. What would you guys prefer? Do you think a TB is a bit much? Would you rather have a few smaller drives?

    If you have the option, go for 2 HDDs, one smaller capacity for your OS, one larger one for storage.

    If not, go for the 1TB, unless HP are charging something silly for it.

    1TB is quickly becoming less of a shockingly large amount of space and it's probably safer to grab the extra now rather than wait until you fill the 640 up. Unless you will have the option to add another HDD later, in which case you could maybe just go with the 640.


    In terms of which version of 7 to go for.

    As far as I know, the only difference between Pro and Ultimate is that Ultimate supports something like 30+ languages and the BitLocker encryption which is probably overkill for personal use. Normally you'd only want the extra security in a corporate environment and even then I'm sure there's alternatives.
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    Spur wrote: »
    I'm actually really stoked about the upgrade and hearing all the good comments about Win7 is just icing on the cake. The computer I'm looking at is an HP. I debated building another system but I'd really like to just go with one off the shelf..

    if your not going to make your own. Dont forget to run this with all the bloatware that will come preinstalled.


    http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/
  • carlo_c
    I've had windows 7 64bit for a couple of months now and I have to say it has probably been the most hassle free windows installation I've had (hope that doesn't change!).

    Just does what it needs to do, and fast. Use a variety of apps on it, from 3ds max, photoshop, udk to adobe premiere and also play games on it (latest being mw2).

    The differences between ultimate and pro aren't majot and would only be missed in a business environment like creationtwentytwo said :)

    edit: that tool looks really handy oxynary, thanks for the link! I'm sure a few friends could use this lol
  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    I can't remember having a single compatibility problem or crash that was caused by windows 7 yet
  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    If you have the option, go for 2 HDDs, one smaller capacity for your OS, one larger one for storage.

    If not, go for the 1TB, unless HP are charging something silly for it.

    1TB is quickly becoming less of a shockingly large amount of space and it's probably safer to grab the extra now rather than wait until you fill the 640 up. Unless you will have the option to add another HDD later, in which case you could maybe just go with the 640.

    For $20 more I could go with 1TB RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA HDDs). The 1TB upgrade from the 640GB is free. All together I still have this old system with 500GB HD and another 250 external. My wife's system is an additional 1TB and hers is no where near full and never will be, haha. So I think I have plenty of storage for now. I'm not sure how easily it would be to upgrade the HP system with another HD later. I'm always concerned about the off the shelf power supplies. Since they are usually just the bare min needed.
  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    perna wrote: »
    win7 is very good.
    Here max 2009 and 2010 runs terribly poorly on it. The viewport chugs at a few hundreds of thousands of polies, all operations are followed by a delay. It seems some people haven't "noticed" this as they had the same problems in xp anyway. But I had very fast performance in xp and definitely win7 is unusable for me when it comes to max.

    Has anyone come across these performance issues with max in win7 and managed to fix it?

    Thats one problem I've run into with my current system and Maya. Really high res meshes give me fits. Lets say something like a sculpted mesh imported into Maya from Zbrush. My viewports are really laggy and if I selected the mesh it always took several seconds for the selection to actually happen. I always just wrote all that off as a result of only running 2GB of ram.
  • Gilgamesh
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    Gilgamesh polycounter lvl 12
    Only issue I've run into for win7 is my wireless drivers don't work (and many months on they still haven't released any). Like most other people I've had zero trouble running programs what so ever.
  • Pankake
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    Pankake polycounter lvl 11
    No BSODs, no crashes in general. Been pretty smooth for a good few months now. Can't complain :).
  • slipsius
    havent had issues with any programs. though, i did get a deathly blue screen of death (BSOD) one day... but not the typical one. the screen FILLED with text, and at the bottom said something about memory dump. then i couldnt start it for a good 10 minutes. had to restart like 15 times before it started windows properly. but that may just be my hardware. ive had issues about nto starting before.
  • Tom Ellis
    Ah yeah when I exceed anything like 120k polys in Max it more or less gives up. I can't say how much more noticeable this is in Windows 7 but it's certainly an issue.

    I end up having to decimate the hell out of any characters I've sculpted in ZBrush before I can even consider bringing them into Max.
  • Tom Ellis
    Apologies in advance for hijacking your thread Spur...

    Per, that's interesting you mention you get better performance on an older setup. What is your setup on the older system?

    I've always passed off the poor performance in Max with my exported sculpts as my machines spec, but thinking about it now, I get a perfectly decent framerate in Topogun with OBJ's with polygons in the millions, yet terrible FPS in Max with anything more than about 100k.

    In fact, this problem in itself is what was encouraging me to go for a top end system in the near future in the hope I'd see an increase in Max performance when working with super high poly stuff, but I may hold out a bit if the problem is software related.
  • arrangemonk
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    arrangemonk polycounter lvl 15
    one problem: never uninstall things with drm, crippled my flash player
  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    Apologies in advance for hijacking your thread Spur...

    No worries. Its actually pretty interesting as I've had similar problems on my current system with Maya. Like I said, I always just chalked it up to lack of ram. I think view port problems are the most prominent ones I have had with my current set up other than my batch render lockups. I just recently realized that those are more than likely being caused by my CPU running hot.

    As far as the topic, I think I've seen more than enough good stories to make me feel better about making the change to Win7x64.
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    So far: 7 is to Vista as XP was to ME.


    ^ THIS!
  • Tom Ellis
    Ah nice one thanks, I'd definitely be keen to hear your results.

    I'm running a Core Duo too, but on a GeForce 9600M GT, fairly old but as I said, it's only really Max that's struggling.
  • makecg
    I got beta of windows 7 but I had alot of blue screens in the beta.

    not sure how it is now.
  • Clockwork
    Also, most blue screens are due to shitty drivers or shitty hardware. Often RAM. W7, Vista or XP.
  • DarthNater
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    DarthNater polycounter lvl 10
    perna wrote: »
    creation: It's a GF 6600 GT I think, on a dual core intel. I'm going to run various multi-boot tests to check things further

    Dude, that card is fucking epic! I loved that thing, the price to performance ratio was top notch. I would take that over my 8500GTS anyday...


    Anyway, that was completely off topic hehe
  • muppo
    try a fresh o.s installation with a format perna , i had about your same issue (example: undo @ 5 secs delay each time) 2 months ago or smt, a fresh install with newer up to date drivers fixed the thing.
    my hardware spec: amd 955/8gb ddr3/8800 gtx. my best bet at your problem is just a driver issue, prolly the chipset drivers or the vid card one. Also try to get your drivers from chipset/hardware manifacturer and not from your motherboard brand site (manufacturer got newer drivers)..
    now max runs really good with no 300k poly limit and such problems. max 2k10/win7 x64
    gl
  • vcool
    Stable as all hell, runs everything, the only problem with me is that I can't seem to be able to upload stuff on the internet - my speed goes insanely high but it gives me errors in the end (this is not a singular problem, I've seen people have it but they had some kind of antivirus that I don't have that fixed it). The other problem is WTClient, the windows tablet driver, seems to load my proc after hibernating, but those are my tablet issues, if I don't have it plugged in it works normal.
  • r4ptur3
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    r4ptur3 polycounter lvl 10
    I've been on WIndows 7 x64 since the beta was available ... it is a pretty amazing OS. I gave it a whirl to upgrade from a 32 bit system as well. It runs PS, Maya and other essentials flawlessly. The auto-driver features are truly amazing. They also focused on making networking and CD authoring easier (oh thank god).

    One HUUUGE thing to watch out for:

    Windows 7 64x has major problems with Nvidia drivers. It is not uncommon to have games crash or a driver failure if you have an Nvidia motherboard/card combo. I happen to have both (womp womp). Windows 7 very rarely BSODs but it does like to crash heavy hitting programs out to a black screen for a few moments and then recover from driver failure.

    Other than that it is pretty amazing. The benefits far outweigh the Nvidia driver issues.

    As always ... if anyone figures out how to overcome the mystery driver failure issue I will personally give you a massive cookie :P Good luck with the upgrade!
  • Progg
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    Progg polycounter lvl 11
    I love it. Haven't had one problem at all. I've always been an Nvidia person but I tried the 4870 HD with this new computer and I love it so far. It has some weird problems with OpenGL in Maya's viewport but nothing that is terrible or annoying.
  • nick2730
    ive been using 7 since the beta, i love it. Best OS by far, everything runs great for me in 64 bit, i have not had a single problem. I love the instant driver support and the overall structure
  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    Thanks for all the comments guys! You've really helped me feel a lot better about making the plunge. New system ordered with Win7x64 Premium and will be here in a few days. Man I cant wait to have all that ram!!!
  • nick2730
    Spur wrote: »
    Thanks for all the comments guys! You've really helped me feel a lot better about making the plunge. New system ordered with Win7x64 Premium and will be here in a few days. Man I cant wait to have all that ram!!!

    how much did you get? When i built my old system is was a core 2 duo w/ 2g ram

    Now i build a quad with 4 gig, holy hell massive difference
  • Spur
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    Spur polycounter lvl 6
    nick2730 wrote: »
    how much did you get? When i built my old system is was a core 2 duo w/ 2g ram

    Now i build a quad with 4 gig, holy hell massive difference

    I'm currently running

    AMD 64x2 5400
    2GB of ram
    Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT
    running 32bit XP

    I'm upgrading to:
    Intel i7 920 quad core
    8GB of ram
    1.8GB NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260
    Win7

    I know this is going to be a big upgrade for me but I cant wrap my head around exactly how much to expect. I mean as shitty as my old system is, its really been great. I haven't had many complaints at all.
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    win 7 x64 is rock solid for me. on my system (dell xps 720, 8800gtx sli) the nvidia drivers work flawlessly. only sometimes SLI turns itself off, but I had the same issue on XP.

    Same story on my thinkpad - rock solid win 7 x32 home premium.

    Only on my netbook win 7 crashes if you use HP drive guard and daemon tools together - so beware if you have a HP laptop.
  • fiveways
    I used the beta RC for a while and I recently just did a clean install of win7 x64. It's been working pretty well for me, no major problems or anything, even in the beta. I didn't have a lot of problems with Vista when I was using that either, but this experience has definitely been a lot more trouble free.

    Just out of curiosity perna, what cards and mobo are you running with your setup??

    Edit just to chime in with the upgrade stories above, I went from:

    amd athlon 64 x2 4200 (2.4ghz?) dual core
    2gb ram
    2x 7900gs @ 256mb

    to

    intel core2 quad q6600 oc'd to 3.0ghz
    xfx nforce 780i sli mobo
    8gb ram
    4x 320gb sata ii
    and 2 8800gt's (512)
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Maybe we could start some kind a performance/benchmark threads, with folks posting their workstation specs and their performance with a given test model in differenet apps ... that would be kinda cool! And that would help hardware/software purchase decisions too, I'm sure.
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