Let's talk about our OS(es)! What do you run? What do you like about it? What do you hate about it? What improvements have you noticed from previous versions? What is better/worse when compared to another OS? If it matters, talk about what machine your OS is on and how they work together.

I run Windows Vista SP2 on my personal laptop (Sony Vaio VGN-FW140); and I kinda hate it. I run Windows XP SP3 on my personal computer (fucking old-as/piece-of shit Dell Dimension 3000) and on my work laptop (Dell Latitude D620). XP runs fine on my work laptop and I prefer it over Vista. I experience regular/reoccurring problems on Vista, but then again on my old Dell Dimension, XP no longer is doing too well... that or the computer is about to kick the bucket.
In any case, that should get things started. So what about the other Dollars? What are you running?

I have Windows 7, but I would like to have XP

Win7 Home Premium (64 Bit). It's compatible with most things and not nearly as bloated as Vista. The downside is that some of the things I do with it kill my battery. Planning on dual booting Ubuntu EasyPeasy since it's going to use far less power.

I upgraded to Windows 7 near the end of the summer, and while I loved my previous OS (XP), this is better than it in every way, and I'm glad I skipped Vista (It Sucks!, lol)

I have vista, and I have never had any problems whatsoever. It vary rarely freezes, but name one computer that doesn't

Actually,I use my PS3 Slim,A small toshiba flat screen and a dell usb keyboard and of course. The ps3 controler as my Mouse. So far there aren't any cons other than it's occasional freezing but all else it is awsome.

i have windows 7 but i also have ubuntu 11.10 by using virtualbox :3. my family will never find my anime that way.

my computers settings are in Norwegian!!! it sucks!!!

Dell Inspiron.
Windows 7 Home Premium x64. however it does tend to freeze and buzz sometimes but i turn off the internet when i watch video. and its fast for me to emulate Games like yakuza 2 on PCSX2. I actually love my laptop due to the fact that i have dual-core from intel. and sonic generations runs perfect. and connects to my 50 inch SONY led tv or 23 inch samsung tv in the bedroom. i never really wanted to get mac or ubuntu sorry. cons are still using XP and vista. Pros it actually has a BD-RW Drive. and it connects to my Silver PS3 and black PS3 Slim.

>>10 not many people know this, or care, but windows 7 uses a couple of things from older OS. example: the bootloader is purely the same as vista. the recovery system w/o disc is vista also. :/ basically your getting the ideal windows vista system :3

>>11 true. but this is final product from vista. i already knew that. its just better to have 7 than vista in general.

Dell XPS M1210.
Windows 7 Professional x64. Really like it. Even on this laptop which is from 2006, it runs smoothly, never jams up. What I'm interested in are the Google Chromebooks.

lappy win7...fast~

desktop winxp (somehow cant install win7, maybe low spec?)...reliable

I run a custom built rig (i5-2500k, GTX 470, Blu-ray) with Mac OS X and Win7. I also have multiple Linux and win7 Virtual machines running on it normally.
I've Also got an HP mini 311 (slightly overclocked) running Mac OS X and win7.
Occasionally I use an old business-grade HP desktop as a server.

bumping back to the top!

>>15 A Setup That Doesnt Run XBMC or Beats Audio, A 3D Analyzer,Samsung 3D View,Realtime Benchmarking,Sonic Generations On High (Requires Quad Core For this Mode!). And A BD-RW Drive that has a light-scribe feature.

So this is a really old thread now, but I didn't see much of a point in making a new one. Just wanted to ask what people think of running android OS on an old MSI Wind netbook computer. It runs XP and I don't use it anymore since the screen broke, but the computer itself is fine, just outdated. I'm a fan of android os and love Jelly Bean on my phone. For fun, I wanted to run android on this old laptop, but what do you guys recommend?

>>18 That might be annoying without a touchscreen. Not sure how exactly that would work.
I actually ran XP on my tablet. It has more power than anything that was ever invented during the era of XP.

I'm running 8.1. It's really good when you disable the charms shortcuts and avoid Metro.

From what I understand, running android on pc is still relatively unstable. It might be a fun experiment but I wouldn't expect much from it. Have you considered a lightweight linux distro?

>>20 Or Kali?
Kali's cool.

Its not like I'm gonna use this computer daily. Just a fun project. I'd be open to using any kind of OS (excluding MacOS). I've used Linux on other PC's and loved it. Also,wWould android on PC be stable enough to run internet browsers and flash/ HTML?

I use my samsung phone, thats it own stuff, i use an ipad from school, and i use Win7 for personal uses

Running windows 7 right now. I very much prefer Linux though. My phone runs Android, but I sometimes think about rooting it and running Debian on it.

Windows 7 Enterprise x64. i love my system though whenever i go into problems running older stuff like games made for windows 98, i use my XP Pro on VMWare.

To go against the grain in this thread of Windows users. I run Mac OS X 10.7.5 (Lion) on my '11 Macbook Pro. I run VMWare and bootcamp to switch to windows if needed.

Windows 8. Been working really nicely so far.

>>27 I have 8.1. It's really nice. I like the new file copying window and the new task manager. I also like how right-clicking the hot button serves up all kinds of useful Windows tools.

Im using Zorin os which is pretty nice i also have windows 7 for playing games that don't play nice with wine.

i use windows for my home computer, but at school, i like to use ios (imac) for my school projects.

I'm using Kali Linux on my laptop.
It has a nice suite of programs for network testing built into it, without the need to to download anything at all. Just install and good to go.
It's also good for m@d h@cXX0rZ.

Keeping windows on my laptop to maintain maximum compatibility with everything for now. I prefer linux and plan to switch to arch.

I prefer Linux, simply for quality and just preference.

If not, Windows 7 because 8 sucked.

Unfortunately, I had Windows 8 pre-installed on my computer. It's fast and looks ok but it's hard to find files and stuff. :|

Windows 8.1 on my home desktop. Back track 5 R3 ( I am waiting for Kali R2).
Pros on Win 8: Synthetic design, not much bulk, easy customization.
Cons: Useless touch interface software, background apps are always lurking in those corners.

Backtrack Pros: Useful for school, always fun to use in class, easy to customize (Thank you Linux), always ready to update, Linux is god-teir.

Cons: Issue with installing program architectures, pending on the laptop will have wireless card compatibility issues.

And now I run Windows 8.1. It gets a lot of flak, but, it's a pretty solid OS. I'd run Ubuntu as well, but I'll wait till I get another HDD. However, I do love Android, and on my phone, I'm running Android 4.4.2 KitKat, so... that's me, haha.

And now I run Windows 8.1. It gets a lot of flak, but, it's a pretty solid OS. I'd run Ubuntu as well, but I'll wait till I get another HDD. However, I do love Android, and on my phone, I'm running Android 4.4.2 KitKat, so... that's me, haha.

Got an Alienware M17x from an IT course. Running Windows 8.1 on it and it works like a real beauty. I love Windows 8 on laptops because of the touchpad shortcuts and stuff, and most Windows stuff works great on it, I don't really see why it gets a lot of hate to be honest.

I finally got around to installing Arch Linux. It's a pain in the a$$, but it's awesome in its own ways. I am also dual booting Win7 (In case I need compatibility with something that doesn't support Linux well, or I break arch).

Vista was notorious for problems. XP is end of life. Either computer *should* be compatible with windows 7. Whether they will run it well, is another story.

If you are looking to recessitate an old system, then I recommend Linux Mint. It's easy to use, but still much faster than pretty much any Windows version still in major use.

I'm running Windows 8 on this new laptop. I've updated all the apps but have yet to update to 8.1 because of my internet situation. However, I find that its functionality is like 1/5. Not even. The entire system is extremely difficult to navigate, and the user end is so damn restrictive. You can't even delay an update restart; all you can do is delete the automatic restart function from the machine registry. There are several apps you can't even use if the computer realizes they have an update, regardless of whether or not you're connected to the internet and able to download said update.

I have that same problem with the restart. It forces itself to restart when I have no internet only to realize that it can't download its updates, so it just restarts and then set ups another automatic one when it comes back on. It loops every 15 minutes until I turn the internet on. It just has the stupidest, most restrictive functionality I have ever seen in general. Every little setting I previously took for granted is hidden deep in it, and a lot of features are no longer accessible through the control panel, forcing you to go through loops to get to them (especially certain hardware settings). It's just... so frustrating.

Just because you can get used to navigating it after using it for a few months does NOT make it any less dysfunctional than it seemed when you first bought it.

I also find that, despite having a stronger processor, more RAM, and more general memory than my other laptop, games run like shit on this. My friend has a very similar laptop from the same company with Win7. We set all our game settings the same and played side by side, and you could see that my computer was having a much harder time with it and had a lot more glitches. There's probably some secret section of settings hidden deep inside the non-existent navigation that would fix this, of course. I just don't feel like I should have to find them. It's bad enough that I had to change half the fucking H_KEYs for the touchpad so that I could type and use it at the same time and not have a bunch of giant typing delays because some genius thought it'd be a great idea to set them as defaults and then not have a proper interface to change them. Ugh.

It's probably a lot better with 8.1, but my internet just isn't steady enough for a long enough period of time to download and install it ;=;

And just in case anyone was wondering, the only pro I've found for Win8 is the voice recognition software that came with it.

I was extremely frustrated to find that it was lacking many other basic programs in its place that I previously used religiously, however. Like solitaire. Why the fuck doesn't my computer have any sort of games, etc? And why is it full of all this unnecessary bull like "Music" and "Video" apps that have completely shit functionality when it already comes with the 100000% better WMM? For the sake of setting your documents to automatically open in them and show you the "fun" of really badly made applications? It's easy to change, but there was no point to include them in the first place if they were going to have such poor use and functionality.

\frustrated customer

>>40 8.1 is much better and fixes many problems. I would highly recommend you get that whenever you can.

Turning off all charms and Metro shortcuts and not using Metro at all makes 8.1 like a better 7, which is what they should have done in the first place. Metro is complete shit. Why they tried to make one OS for phones and PCs when they are both used completely differently is beyond me.

It runs much faster for me than 7 did. I now boot in 12 seconds as opposed to 45, and 5 seconds with an SSD. I have not experienced any gaming problems, although I have heard many stories about this.

The next one will be better. Every other OS is shit, so we just need to wait for Windows 9 or ME2 or NTDeluxe or whatever.

>>42 Yeah, I can't wait to update it. And absolutely; the boot time is great on this computer. My only issue with that is that it boots too fast for me to get into the boot menu xD

And I'll see what I can do with the Metro options you mentioned. Hopefully that plus 8.1 will make this shit so much easier to use.

I should put it out there that I have two other laptops, one that runs WinXP and one that runs Win7. Windows XP is sooo reliable and stable, but it came with a ton of bulk. My old desktop that hasn't been touched in years also has Win6, which is still my #1 even though it can't be used for any modern programs. It's pretty quick thanks to its simplicity and didn't come with too many extra programs, though it retained those that were fun and useful (like basic games, image editing programs, document programs, etc). I miss the basics, tbh. As much as I love programming, and as nice as snapping things halfway across the screen is, the simplicity and ease of use (without sacrificing usefulness or reliability) was really naisu.

Windows 7 is fabulous with all of its quirky little features and stronger graphics, and it is fast, but I have my issues with it yet. It's still 1000x better than Win8, ofc.

>>45 I like Windows 8 more. The task manager is now useful. Right clicking the Start Button brings up shortcuts to Computer Management, Services, Device Manager, Command Prompt with Administrator rights, Control Panel, and all kinds of useful stuff. The file copying window now shows information instead of an inaccurate estimate of time till completion. I also dislike the Windows 7 Aero, I like the Win8 window design better.

Of course, Metro is shit enough that I uninstalled every single Metro app on my system. Videos, Music, News, that shitty default picture viewer, all gone. Once you do that, it makes using it much easier.

It's really not a bad OS, if you just use Windows, put back the classic start menu, never use Metro, etc. It just takes a lot of disabling this, setting up that, etc, to make it functional. I think a lot of people jumped on the hate train too soon, myself included. It happens with every OS, though. People hated XP to this extent too, when it first came out.

If 8.1 would just disable all the mobile crap, this would be an excellent OS with close to no problems.

>>46 You could get to all of those by clicking normally before..? I checked on my Win7 computer and have no issues getting to them, so it's not much of an advantage. There are other administrator settings that I, however, could not get to with Win8 until I physically pinned them to the Start menu because navigating Win8 beyond what's default on start is so frustrating when you first use it.

And though the task manager shows more info, it's so bulky to use. They could easily have kept the same amount of information without having it take up half the damn screen. Sure, have an option to change the size so the senile can read what it says, but there's no reason to have it be so large at default with no obvious way to change it. It's just not reasonable to reference while working on anything else as it is. There's no point to even have the option to make it always on top if it's going to literally be half the screen when all the info is expanded.

I also never disliked Aero, and the whole minimalist-style of Win8 (and other recent programs/sites) is unappealing to me. The copying window is nice with its little line graph, but it's not so necessary that I can say it's a huge plus. I do appreciate that things copy faster in general, of course. Those little features are a lot like when Win7 (or was it Vista?) started with being able to snap windows to half the screen. Sure, it's nice, but it's not so amazingly necessary of a feature that I'd list it as an important plus when discussing Win7.

I didn't jump on the hate train too quick at all. There are so many things that I feel absolutely comfortable about hating with this OS even after using it for several months. I don't believe that "getting used to it" is an excuse to say, "Well, maybe my opinion was wrong before." No, fuck that. If you can't use it from the start, or if you have to tweak so many settings and change the entire layout of it to make it "functional," then there are some serious problems. Metro IS the face of Win8 and was the whole appeal of the system in its dev team's eyes. If you have to disable its key features to feel comfortable using your computer, then it's not a good OS, no matter how fast it is or how many other "features" it has.

No matter how much is fixed in 8.1 or how much easier it becomes to use, I'm still going to have an issue with the OS itself and the team that designed it. Windows 9 better not be as much of a disappointment or else I'm getting away from Microsoft completely.

I'm all for change, but don't fix what isn't broken unless it's for the sake of someone other than yourself.

>>47 Someone that has never used a computer before, or always used Linux or MacOSX is going to have to get used to Windows 7, perhaps even change some settings to make it more usable for them. That does not mean it isn't good because it isn't instantly usable. I would say an OS is bad if you can't make it usable. If every person in the world can use the OS, some right away and some after extensive customization, then that makes it a very, very good operating system.

I'm not sure what you mean about Task Manager being bulky. If you liked the old one, there is a 'Details' tab that lays it out the same as 7.

Of course you can navigate to all of those features, but it is the convenience of having them available with one right click on the desktop that makes me like it. You can't do that in Win8.0, but in 8.1 you can right click on the start button and it has a context menu with those features I mentioned. It saves all the time it takes to right click on the computer and wait for UAC to shit itself every time I go to it.

I think you're right that extensive customization is a reason to say an OS is not very good, but I didn't really have to do anything that extensive to make it essentially the same as Windows 7. I'm not sure what features you couldn't get to in Win8, because other than Metro the OS is pretty much the exact same. I used Win7 for a long time (2+ years), and the change was minimal for me. I haven't even installed ClassicStart yet, because I haven't clicked start more than a couple times in the months I've used this computer.

Here's what I want to know: if you don't use any Metro apps, what is wrong with the OS?

I should also just add that you really need to upgrade to 8.1. It solves almost every problem you've mentioned and many, many more.

It's like using XP with no service pack.

I never used an OS besides Windows and Mac :l

Personally, I hate Macs and while Windows isn't great it also isn't terrible. I also have a 7 year old computer tho xD

>>50 Which version of Windows do you have?

>>51 Windows Vista :l

>>52 Hmm.

I'd recommend 7.

I use windows 8.1 for the computers powerful enough to run them, and a super-light Arch Linux for crap netbooks that can't hold themselves together.

Oh and call me weird, but I like Windows 8 more than Windows 7.

I run Windows 8.1 and it's great. Some people who trash on it or say they are having problems then blame the OS are being unreasonable. I've had a GREAT time with my touchscreen Windows 8.1 laptop, and owning a Windows 7 laptop prior to my new one, I have to say it is quite better. But than again it's just my opinion. My only complaint would be that there is two of everything. Two control panels, two email services, two of literally flipping everything, one for Metro and one for Modern. I'm sure this will be fixed in a later update though :P

>>55 I don't think it will, it seems to be by design. If 8.1 didn't, I doubt it will. I just uninstalled all the Metro apps, so no problems there.

bump

metro for your laptop?

in my opinion windows 8 is better is most areas compared to windows 7, of course. but the only problem i really hear from people is that its hard to get used to. which i kinda agree. i find myself not using the start menu as much as i thought i would

>>58 It's time-consuming to set up. If you spend a solid day, it becomes the same as Windows 7, with over-all improvements and some extra useful features. You have to slog through all the Metro crap, uninstalling all of it, installing a Classic start menu, removing the charms shortcuts, updating to 8.1, etc. That just should have been an option right from the beginning, but wasn't. Actually, that should have been the entire OS, but wasn't. Despite this, I wouldn't really use 7 over 8.1 unless it was an older machine. It's better in enough ways I would go through all that setup. I would not recommend it to a costumer, though, or anyone that isn't very good with computers. I still recommend 7.

As far as I have used it, I haven't noticed anything they've removed from 7 aside for the WEI.

>>59 is the metro that nero crap? i just overlook it. that update did take kinda forever too. i forgot about that. 8.1 does better the experience from the original 8.

I also thought that having a computer with windows 8 would make more use of the app store, but it doesn't. it still sucks.

>>60 It's the apps that pop up when you hit start, that go full screen whether you want it or not. They're pretty terrible to use alongside the regular OS. It doesn't go well between them.

I figured this was the best place to post it, but what would you guys say are the pros/cons to Linux? I've been thinking about using it for the computer I'm building since I heard it's super customizable but I also heard it's not that great with video games, which is basically what I want my computer to be good for. I looked through this thread and saw that lots of people liked it but they didn't really talk about what it's actually like or what it does (unless I missed a post) and I'm completely clueless on this kind of stuff. So. Yeah.

>>62 It's not great for compatibility with programs in general. People have to spend time and money making their program compatible with Linux, and a lot of them don't. There are very few programs that work on Linux when compared to Windows, especially video games. More and more are becoming Linux-friendly, but there are still a lot that aren't. Granted, there are enough programs available for Linux that it can be used effectively, but they'll be different than what you've used before. Same thing applies to video games, some of the games you play may not work on Linux.

Generally, I would not recommend Linux to people that aren't great with computers. I don't know if you've used a lot of command line processes in Windows, but there's a lot more usage of the terminal in Linux. There are still graphical programs of course, but a lot of stuff is only accessible through the terminal, whereas in Windows there was a graphical and command line option for doing most tasks.

You could get used to Linux pretty quickly, of course. It's not as if you must be Linux+ certified to use Linux. However, it is pretty notorious for being needlessly complicated.

I consider myself very computer literate. I have not used Linux extensively, but from what I have used it was a lot of research and a lot of terminal to do basic things that would take me 2 minutes in Windows. It's not a bad OS, it just seems to be complicated for no apparent reason.

You can always install it on your current computer alongside Windows to try it out. It is free, after all. There are guides online for how to install it with Windows so that you can keep Windows and choose whether to boot into Windows or Linux.

I have some experience with Linux too. I've had Linux Mint on my small work/school laptop for a couple of years now and for all the simple everyday stuff you do on a computer it's no problem at all. Internet browsing, chatting, watching video/playing music, reading comics, writing text documents etc etc. And all the programs you need for all of that stuff are pre-installed and are often a lot more useful than what comes with Windows. Like how Windows Media Player doesn't really know all that many file types, MPlayer or whatever can play almost anything off the bat.

You keep hearing Linux can be difficult, but I think it has to do with what distribution you choose too. Some are more user friendly and some aren't. There's quizzes out there to help you figure out which one's for you though! Ubuntu, Mint and OpenSUSE seem to be the most beginner friendly.

Linux also has a huge and thriving community so you can basically find simple instructions and help with almost anything you want to do/any problem you have to solve.

That being said, when it comes to gaming I really don't think it's recommended. Since most of them are made for Windows, you'd have to get an emulator and probably tinker with stuff and even though google will get you guides on how to do that it might be more trouble than it's worth :/

But like Inu said >>63 you can try installing it alongside Windows to try it out or you could try a live CD (which means you download the installer, write it on a CD/DVD, then boot from it and you've got the operating system without changing anything on your computer)

>>64 Aw that quiz hasn't been updated since 2011, things might have changed since then.

>>63>>64 Thank you so much for replying. Yeah, I know a bit of code and stuff with command prompt etc but otherwise (especially with the more "physical" aspects of a computer) I'm pretty clueless. The idea of learning through error and the customization of Linux sounds interesting to me, but I couldn't survive without video games. Also I can't mess so much with this computer because I'm afraid of accidentally deleting any files or something (it's a family computer) so I might do the Windows 7 while also trying Linux out thing on the new computer. Thanks you guys :3

I have the latest Ubuntu installed on my personal laptop. It's just as efficient as Windows in most areas, but it sucks that you can't play any video games on it easily.
On my school laptop I have Windows 7 Enterprise 3 Bit. It's a pretty crap laptop that I can't really game on (only 2.8GB usuable ram, Intel I3 Processor 1.3GHZ). But Windows is alright. It doesn't do anything particularly grand, but it works.
I also have an old IBM with Windows XP that I haven't used in a few years. Ah, the old XP days...

^

Windows 7. I tried different kinds of Linux, but it was too complicated for me, so I stick to Windows. :)

>>69 The story of Linux in a nutshell.

>>69
>just as efficient as Windows
That's why Ubuntu is not efficient at all and the shame of GNU/Linux.

I personally run on Archlinux but I'd recommend Debian/OpenSUSE to anyone who wants to switch to GNU/Linux.

>>71 What are the advantages to Archlinux? It looks like it has almost (or maybe even literally) zero GUI support for the entire OS.

Almost everyone I know that uses any GNU OS uses Ubuntu.
They don't really know any better, I guess.

>>72 I've used Archlinux. Its not really meant to be used by people who don't know anything about programming. The whole point of Arch is that, since its CLI biased, you can literally do whatever you want with it. If you know how to program in Linux they you can customize it however you want.
As for GUI support you can easily download and install various GUI shells for it. Obviously its harder to do compared to other Linux distributions, but once you get the hang of it - like I said you can customize it to your hearts desire.
You do have to be careful when programming Arch though because it doesn't have the sort of safety features that other OS have - It's easy to accidentally overwrite a bunch of critical operating files if your not paying attention when playing around in the root account. I've had to re install the whole OS more than once because of a mistyped command.

>>73 I know programming, but I don't know GNU. Probably best to stick with Debian for now.
Thanks for the response.

>>73

This. Except for the security thing. How the fuck did you broke your system by simply mistyping a command ? First time I hear of such thing. Unless you're playing with rm -rf / while in root. Also that's why there's sudo.

Archlinux is known to often break things with updates though, and that's the thing actually making it non-user friendly. Anyone can learn how to use it, there's an extremely well written documentation on their wiki, but once you get something to solve then you're screwed if you can't figure it out yourself or through the forums.

>>74

>I don't know GNU
Is this a joke or something ? Are you implying Debian is not GNU/Linux ?

>>76 I know programming, but I don't know very much about GNU/Linux operating systems.
I don't know very much about Debian, either.

>>77

Debian is one of them and the most popular too. Almost everything is except the BSD systems which always have BSD in their names ( freeBSD, openBSD, etcætera ).

An update for you guys. i have Windows 7 Enterprise now. and as for that VMWare i had i dont use windows 98 anymore, i use 2000 now. it uses Direct3D support.

Pros: It runs solid. haven't ran into any problems lately.
Cons: there isn't really much to say except for windows forcing my PC to restart when i update (Which i was able to turn off.)

Win7 Ultimate x64



It runs pretty smooth without any problems for me. Easy to use by everyday persons. Best for personal use. RAM usage sometimes can be a problem if you run the PC for days, or you don't have enough RAM. But a quick restart can fix that.

Also, beautiful GUI can be customized by 3rd party softwares like Rainmeter

>>80 You don't really customize the GUI with Rainmeter, you're just adding widgets.

>>81 How is that not customizing a GUI?

cus·tom·ize - verb - modify (something) to suit a particular individual or task.

GUI - A graphical user interface (GUI) is a human-computer interface (i.e., a way for humans to interact with computers) that uses windows, icons and menus and which can be manipulated by a mouse (and often to a limited extent by a keyboard as well).

Adding features to a display is the same as customizing it.
-----
Anyway, if anyone cares, I use a cellphone running Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). I use Holo Launcher as my UI customizer. I have it set up so swiping up on my main Home Screen brings up the dialpad, like if my phone were an old slider phone. My second home screen shows a widget of my calendar.

>>82 Technically, you are creating and modifying an external GUI on top of the Windows GUI. And technically, this could be less efficient than editing the Windows GUI itself (ie, use more resources to display). However, I'm not the sure the effects are really that bad.

>>83 That's what I meant. It's not bad but it's just adding things rather than customizing what's present. It can slow down the computer in a noticeable way though.

win7, i love everything about it, except for this "TrustedInstaller" that owns some stuff on my system and wont let me delete it without claiming everything here as my own, which will sever some links to software i have

Thought this was the best place to put this.

So I have a computer from around 2007-2008, so it's at least 7 years old. It's OS is Windows Vista, and I found a Windows 7 CD that I can use to possibly install a new OS on the computer with.

Is there a chance, even a slight one, that if I change the OS from Vista to 7 will it erase ANYTHING on my computer? There's no way we can back it up and we have 7 years worth of family pictures we don't want to erase, so I'm scared to update the OS but I want to but not if it'll erase anything >.<

>>86 "Upgrading is the most convenient way to get Windows 7 on your computer, because it keeps your files, settings, and programs from Windows Vista in place.

If your current edition of Windows Vista can't be upgraded to the edition of Windows 7 that you want to use, you can still install Windows 7 by using the Custom installation option instead. However, the Custom option doesn't preserve your files, programs, or settings."

There are rules surrounding upgrades. If your 7 edition is lower than your Vista install (Professional Vista vs. Home Premium 7), you cannot upgrade. Vista Home Basic is the most likely to be able to upgrade, and if you have Windows 7 Ultimate you can upgrade any version of Vista. Here is a chart, from Microsoft.

If you can't use the 'upgrade' feature within Windows Vista, all of your data and programs will be completely erased. How exactly is there no possible way to back it up? If you want to keep those files and you have no access to any other hard drive, you will have to buy another one. Burn everything to CDs or DVD if you have to. Not backing up files during an OS change, even if it's supposedly 'safe', is dangerous.

If you can upgrade, it's as easy as inserting the 7 CD and clicking 'Upgrade'.

>>87 Oh idk the specific version of Vista, but I know it's Windows 7 Home Premium.

And it's hard to back up this computer because why we have flash drives and CDs, this computer has 7 years worth of lots of information we don't want to loose and it'd take way more than just a few of either medium so :l

I'm probably just not gonna upgrade it to be safe then and save this CD till I finally get to build my own computer. Thanks :3

i was on Windows xp when i was little then straight too windows 7 but then i got a macbook pro while i was in college and by far i am in love with OS X

>>88 If you can find out the version of Vista (should be right-lick Computer, Properties), and it matches that chart, then it's safe to upgrade. But, if the data is really important, and it can't be backed up, it is probably best to wait as you say.

You could always acquire Ultimate.

I'm currently on Windows 7 and it's great I mean all I need it for is gaming and everyday use! It's really annoying that you need to pay for the operating system but yeah it's sort of worth it. I would prefer OSX but that would be illegal and my wifi card wouldn't be supported.

I'm on windows 8 😄

Linux Ubuntu is best

I really want to use Debian in a VM within Windows 8.1, but I can't get it to recognize a WiFi expansion card I have in my desktop. Does anyone have any knowledge about that.

Linux Ubuntu :D

>>93 >>95 Haha sure is the best :D

>>94 Shouldn't you be trying to make it recognise a virtual card rather than your real one ? I don't have any experience with VMs but that's how I thought it worked.

>>96 That's how it's supposed to work, but I can't seem to find any kind of options to have expansion cards aside from floppies.

Also, I somehow got this working without VMs, and without destroying my MBR like it used to. I installed GRUB manually on the primary hard drive, instead of saying 'Yes, overwrite MBR', even though I thought that did the same thing. It works fine now.

I run Debian GNU/Linux on all of my systems.

Just upgraded my laptop to the latest Debian, Wheezy. Unfortunately GNOME3 sucks, so I've been using GNOME Classic.

>>94 What model is it? You're most likely missing drivers, though I can help if you post the model number and your OS version and stuff.

I use Windows 7 and Kali Linux. Windows 8 sucks... :/

>>98 If I boot directly into Debian, it picks it up perfectly fine and uses it correctly (like 8.1), but if I boot Debian from a VM, it does not. So, I think the problem is something to do with VMware and me not knowing how to set that up. It seems like Debian doesn't need additional drivers to use the card.

I've got a Surface from Microsoft, so that's got Windows 8.1 on it. Great OS paired with a touchscreen, and I'm the 1% that actually likes the Start screen even with a mouse & keyboard. I also have Windows 10 installed on a separate partition, and I'm excited with all the improvements and changes it has over Windows 8.

I've got a Raspberry Pi with wheezy, which is just a distro of Debian. I don't use it much, though, because I also have an iPhone that's jailbroken. Root access and SSH on it pretty much give me all I need for a Debian-based system, in my pocket.

I'm currently dual-booting Ubuntu 14.04 Linux with Windows 7. I like the linux more than the Windows,
but honestly Ubuntu is my least favorite Linux. I switched to it because I wanted steam support, but
it breaks other software such as linphone, and it is not as fast or minimal as my previous distro,
Arch Linux. Arch is one of my favorites thus far, but it's not for the faint of heart. I reccommend
starting with a relatively easy distro before swtiching to one that defaults to command line only.

My next distro for myself will probably be Centos, since I hear that the latest one might be steam-capable,
yet still be as stable its previous editions.

For my phone: Cyanogenmod (Modified Android)
For my rasp-pi: Raspbian (Basically Debian)

>>1
I highly reccommend that you install Fedora on your laptop. It's a newbie-oriented distro, without Ubuntu's
built in privacy concerns (Desktop search also searches amazon), and it is a very up to date distro with
support for the majority of new hardware and software.

8.1

^