Dx10

Hi

Dx10 was never developed for XP and never will be back ported, while the rough hack of it on the net may work for some it doesn't for many. DX10 for Vista or as in your question for Win 7 will add touch screen compatability function but does not need a touch screen for you to be able to install Win 7 as it works fine, I have it on 3 pcs and runs ok in this beta, should be better in RC version

 

Hi

Unless you are in the managed beta ( Microsoft Connect ) of folk that where invited to this test and just using it via the public download then no sorry, if you are in the managed beta which is the Microsoft Connect beta group then its never mentioned that you will get anything although in previous ones it has been given out to some, but wont tell you what you have to do to get it, apart from you need to actively test it.

Have asked on Windows 7 pricing and will post in new thread when I find out but maybe sometime before they work out the pricing structure.

 

Hi

TBH, Vista is and has been very stable for me since day one, the current PC I'm typing on now has had Vista installed originally since Nov 06 with no re-installs or major issues, SP1 did add more speed and compatability, but if you tend to wait for SP2s to be released or dont like the look and feel of Vista, then Windows 7 is not going to be to your liking. So if your hardware has current Vista drivers, you should be fine and your specs seem upto the job.

SP2 for Vista is in test and should be released soon as I'm finding no issues with it at all and neither are many others testing it.

 

Hi

Not really too heavy at all, depends on your specs if your running a PC designed for Vista then its fine, if you have underpowered PC then Vista will just be wrong choice for specs... is an issue with many OEM PCs which are in the cheap end of the scale they come with Vista but sadly are a tab underpowerd with OEM parts to run it effectively, not Windows fault but the OEMs as the same issue was aroudn from the jump to XP from WinME/98SE, I find it quicker than XP in opening and multitasking general applications than XP, but I would agree that if you have Aero and the Sidebar on that more cpu and Ram will be used, but turning off the Sidebar (now not a big thing in Win7) and CPU % is no different, actually I find that by default Vista loads less services than XP did by default, which is why BlaskVipers service tweak list appeared to disable un-needed services to make XP run quicker.

Only also need to review the top running PCs at 3DMarks ORB list for 3DMark 06 and Vantage, to see what folk are using.

IF some folk are making references to Ram usage then sadly they dont have an idea how ram and Windows works to make your system quicker and responsive as their is not need to have 4GB ram and 3.5GB of that free, free ram is doing nothing so your just wasting the available ram resource, it needs to be put to work and in Vista hands ram better than XP will, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.03.vistakernel.aspx

If you have a pre-concieved idea you will not like it then you wont, need to go in with open eyes and try it out for a month (many who do this end up liking it alot), check all your hardware has Vista drivers and your software is Vista compatible for a smooth ride. One thing is if you dont like Vista, forget Window 7 as its the next generation up from Vista so has same menus and feel.

One thing you wont like is UAC in Vista, as its alerts pop up whe you are doing admin tasks a fair bit, you get used to them, but after you have palyed around with Vista and its settings and have the OS setup as you want, you dont notice them as much as your not going into theose menus to have UAC popup and these are pretty much gone in Windows 7 and only minimal UAC popups evident.

 

Mmmmm toughy, personally I feel its better but more int he sense that it does things differently in certain areas, like UAC is not as invasive, Aero is much more well designed and rescaling windows if you wish to have two on screen at once to compare is simple, troubleshooting and non-techspeak errors are a welcome addition in Action Center as this will over time allow many common issues to be searched for on a scan and fixed automatically (tried a scenario out on this when I disabled Audio and its service and ran the troubleshooter for Audio and it fixed it easily, many folk have issues with audio and this is a quick fix to try first, memory managment is better as it uses as much as possible to speed up tasks and gives ram back when you need it.

Windows Update is redesigned and now allows you to read what the update actually is in the side pane of the WU window, good for deciding if you wish to install or not.

Search is much better as when you type in a search work it searched on the fly so the more you type of a word the more the files are narrowed down and the text is highlighted for easy of finding.

finding battery life on laptop is good and wireless is much more stable that XP or Vista.

There is more when you delve deeper, maybe small things but things to make your usage quicker

Subjective question as I could throw the question back at you and say what does XP do better than Win98, personally they all do nothing vastly different as they will all surf the internet ok and run Office applications ok, the difference is more what you wish to gain from the new OS, in many cases its moving to being allowed to use newer applciations that are much more powerful, as over time many 3rd party developers stop development for older OSs.

Home Networks are much easier to setup.

The main move for me will be that x64 is more mainstream now and much more stable in Win7 over Vista and XP x64, although for Vista x64 the drivers are now available and matured as they are same ones that can be used in Win7.

Yes 32bit is 2.5gb and 64bit is 3.15gb ISO files, so DVD is needed to burn to, but Windows 7 beta download is not closed http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ maybe another soon for an RC (Release Candidate) version so maybe worth waiting for that one or if friend has the beta then copy it from them.