Windows 7 vs Windows XP

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I've heard many good things about Windows 7, like that it gets fewer viruses and it's faster. I used it for a few days and found it still has many of the same problems XP has, and in some ways it's a step backward from XP. The interface is a lot less efficient, for one thing. I've found I can't just double click on icons to get them to open in Windows Explorer. Instead, I have to either right click and select Open or select the icon and then click on the button at the top of the window they says "Open".

Another problem I've found is that whenever I have the cursor hovering over an item in a menu for more than about a second, it automatically "clicks" on that item without my permission, as if it knows more about what I want to do than I do. This makes doing anything from the start menu a real pain. And I'm still constantly bombarded with updates (mostly security); every few minutes it seems a dialogue box appears that says it has security updates to install and it will restart in 30 seconds if I don't postpone it. Then I have to do it again ten minutes later. I never had any of these issues with XP.

It does load faster, though, and it has a sexier interface (the windows are even transparent). The improved security probably has more to do with the fact that it simply hasn't gained enough popularity over XP for a lot of people to feel like writing viruses for it. Overall, I don't think it's really better than Windows XP.

A bit of history from me..


xp pro no service packs 2005 until 2007
xp pro sp1 2007 to june 2008
xp pro sp2 June 2008 - jan 2009
xp pro sp3 jan 2009 - present

You'll see a pattern... I'm a very late adopter and stuck in my ways.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Windows 7 is really only win 3.11 sp 100 lol

Yes, its a bit more than that of course, development etc, but I don't need a house with 20 stories, 300 windows, shiny tiles, etc etc.


In all the years with xp pro, i can count the infections on one hand.
I hardly even use easycleaner, its been about 6 months I think
I use nod32 antivirus only
If I do virus scans I usually use an online one so its more up to date, but heuristics are pretty good in nod32, but then I 'm biased........lol

My last scan of 400,000 objects was 0 issues.
I have a hardware/spi firewall router netgear standard.

If windows 7 works for any readers, great. I'm sure its a big step from xp pro, but I certainly don't have a need for it.

I wonder if anyone even knows how much more secure it is than xp pro?

In my opinion, the computer security is only as good as the user.

I also use firefox, that probably helps, but I think that ie 7 and 8 have finally caught up with tabs as well, and they are probably almost virus proof lol.

ER, what was the question???

Last edited by ADHDorASDorBoth on 19 Jun 2010, 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My version was a Win7 upgrade to the Vista that came on my machine, and I don't think it's quite the same as full-blown Win7. There were a few things I wasn't initially crazy about, I don't think the taskbar is quite as attractive and efficient as the one in XP. All in all, I can't say I have any major issues with Win7 so far (knock wood), a couple of my favorite old programs either won't work with Win7 at all (like Musicmatch 7.5 which I kept for years because it was streamlined and simple, not a bloated suite), or certain functions have become disabled (like Cooledit Pro which has stopped recognizing wma files although everything else still works like it always did), which kinda ticks me off, but I suppose that's the price of progress.

I'm very wary of Microsoft's security updates - my experience with XP was that some of those updates would permanently screw up my regular use software. As far as viruses go, in my experience, as long as your antiviral software is up to date, if you don't go where the viruses are, or open email with attached executables, or click on everything that pops up without reading it first, you'll rarely have a problem.

Lol, I terrible for updating, I regularly ran about 3 or 4 months behind on antivirus updates, because I saw no point in doing a 3 hours in depth (including alternate streams) scan unless it was updated and I saw no point doing the scan as I was too busy using my computer..therefore no update......The firewall router held up quite nicely and the heuristics do as well..

I will not leave xp pro until I have no choice. I expect I'll still be running it in about 2014.




Yes, noob action to a pop up box is yes, continue, or self-destruct, they don't read it anyway........

Sometimes, though the alert boxes are so dumbly worded. I'm surprised they don't throw in a few double negatives as well.....

I'm actually running 45 processes these days zomg. I used to do about 34, but I needed a few more programs open.

In fact apart from my 1GB of utilities and sysinternals apps, I only run the following software/hardware.

Firefox with 35 addons (used to be 70, but mostly incorporated nowadays)
Thunderbird
Nod32 antivirus
Easycleaner (not used for 6 months oops)
SPI/firewall Adsl modem router (o.O)
Process explorer - replaces task manager. One of the best sysinternal programs ever.

I don't use.

M$'s monthly updated anti-malware thingy
Or
The MS software firewall.

Simple, not because I like it that way, but because I can't manage complex lol.......

Windows 7 is what Windows should have been for countless years. I would only advise against it if your computer happens to be very, very slow. Like barely running XP slow.

I thank you for the first hearty laugh I have had in quite a while!



... and in my own case, all that light coming in and reflecting all around causes me to have blind spots.

I gave Win7 an honest try, then zeroed my drive just yesterday ... and now I am back to my trusty 98se-2k-XP setup.

Personally, I'm torn between Windows 7's sexy interface and XP's lack of tedium. Fortunately, Linux provides both. But I do still like to use Windows sometimes, not because I like it but because I like using different operating systems. It's a learning experience.

You cant use that for the rest of your life.

Heard of this then? http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html The best of the old world and the new. Free, too!

Yes, you gotta love alternative OS's. I've been looking at the site for Haiku (now in alpha), and I can't wait to use it. AmigaOS and eComStation seem pretty interesting too. There's also this 8-bit OS that works on a certain line of retro computers; I don't remember what it's called, though.

Another way I operate (my computer) is that I don't use system restore at all for the last 3 years.
I also barely run defrag (I think its been a year so far) or scandisk...
NTFS rules.......

Q1) Also, has anyone noticed, regardless of futile attempts at using registry cleaners, ccleaner, "system optimizers", they really make no difference if you follow the basic common sense tips as discussed earlier.

I also note, that the best way to speed up one's pc is usually to reinstall from scratch., The time period is usually about 3-4 years for me. I noticed thatn on win98, and xp pro so far. The registry must get locked up, even though running reg compression tools like erunt do reduce the hive total to about 45MB. Once that "lag" kicks in, I have found it impossible to avoid reinstallation.

Case in point........2 laptops with xp home, about 4-5 years old..........slow as snails.. Once again, I suggested re-install.

Of course, it's possible that there is a perfectly good, unobvious solution to this.
I'm not really bragging about my lack of computer failures, but pointing out how easy it is to survive without following the mainstream "advice"

If only the other computer (me) was not so buggy.

A question for all of you though.

Considering that processing power/advanced Cpu instruction sets indicate that pc's double in raw speed every 18 months (don't know how variable this is for those who want to analyse it) and that new instruction sets every 3? years or so (not going to check lol) increase the cpu potencies, WHY AM I WAITING LONGER FOR THINGS TO HAPPEN ON MY PC EVEN WITH FRESH INSTALL????????

Case in point.

System in 1998
Intel Celeron 400Mhz/ 66Mhz bus speed. 192 MB memory, vanilaa computer. 4GB hard drive.
Window 98.
Using cacheman, I could run my computer for some time, with zero hard drive access, it was all in memory......running in just 192MB. (No hard drive LED activation, maybe a blip every 10-30 seconds.
QUake 2 levels ran smoothly, no hard drive access at all, except in calling up menus, loading something. Office worked fine, everything clicked and responded quickly.


12 years on.

Amd Athlon X2 1.8Ghz cores (5 year old core die size) bus speed 400Mhz.
3GB DDR memory @ PC2700 or 3200 (333, 400Mhz)
140GB hard drive.

Now, hard drive led is flashing mostly all of the time even with CPU usage at 8% or so (ie not much happening)
Games will always grind the drive.
Office 2003 is slow.2008/10 probably really slow.
Seems strange, to have much more power, for the not really much fancier graphics, and yet, general windows use is equal or a bit slower..
I think some of that problem was the switch from GDI to GDI+ , the screen rendering method.

Sure I can! XP is only about 10 years old and I am 60 ...

Who/what is most likely to survive the other?!



Interesting, but I bet it never gets past the stage of novelty.

I was thinking more along the lines of the hardware. Like dos not working on 32/64 bit computers. You need an emulator.



It is certainly developing slowly. I've been watching it for a few years now. There is always a chance that MS shuts them down. Still, the make use of information from the linux WINE project, and that has been around since 1993.

Actually thats pretty amazing. Its only a few years from being 20.

Ah no, I have plenty of old computers and I think even my Win95s might still work online! The real problem, however, is the demise of backwards compatability in software and utilities. For example, my re-newed 2K install needs an older version of Adobe's Flash Player, and the copy I have gives me a message saying it is not the latest ... then closes the installer and disappears! So, some kind of "planned obsolesence" (sp?) must have recently arrived at its date.