

Ask HN: Windows 7 worth the upgrade from XP? - Maro

Hi,<p>my PC died recently and I bought a new one, installed SP2 on it and it's working fine now. With the release of Windows 7 I'm wondering whether it would make sense to upgrade, now that I have a PC fast enough? I use a Macbook Pro for work and keep a PC around not to lose touch with the rest of the computing world (and for the occasional Word file). I use it as a "fun" multimedia PC, eg. I play music on it, watch movies, browse the web, no games or Visual Studio right now.<p>Over the years I (like most other "power users" I'm sure) have arrived at a sensible pattern of minimalistic Windows usage (which results in a problem-free system for me): I use the classic Windows look, don't install crap or bloatware, don't run AV software, run it as a non-admin user to keep viruses out, use Firefox instead of IE, use Foxit instead of Adobe, use Total Commander instead of iexplore.exe, occasionaly run sysinternals to clean it out, etc.<p>The question is, does it make sense to upgrade to Windows 7? I don't care about glitter-like features like a redrawn X button. But XP does have annoyances such as user management: I often have to explicitly run programs "as administrator" because the program doens't seem to be aware of different (types of) users.<p>Any insights and Windows 7 experiences are welcome.
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makecheck
It doesn't seem like you are getting anything out of the PC. Why not access
the music/web/movies on the Mac too (which also has 10 different ways to open
your Word files), and either ditch the PC or buy one of the virtualization
programs for the rare need to use Windows?

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conrad
I'm trying to figure out the same thing myself. I love my XP install, but
seven does have some awesome features. Don't go back to mac unless you just
want to do media oriented work.

