Adventures into Windows 7 x64

I wont sit here and write you a review, but I'll share my adventure with you. Lets just say I was surprized. Bottom line: "Whoa... I like it"

So lets take a look at my test bed:

Socket 939 AMD 64 4000+
2GB DDR
Asus Mobo (The last generation of socket 939)
XFX 9800 GT 512mb PCI-e Graphics.

I know, I know... "Wtf man... No AM2?"
I just see no huge need right now to upgrade.

BUT anyways. I have a ton of clients who still run first Generation P4's and I rarely see home users having a gammer rig. So this would give me an idea how W7 would perform on its minimum requirements for the x64 release.

Getting started with the install was easy. Burn the ISO, reboot, and install. Thats easy.
Of course I did a fresh install seeing as how my system was still a x86 OS (WinXP).
During the install one of the many things I was worried about was driver support. I'm running off of wireless with one of those SMC cards that use the Atheros(?) chips. SMC didnt have support for x64, but I found some generic drivers that claimed to work.
Besides network support, sound support was a nail bitter too. (I needs my music!)

Well, the install went great. It was like a breath of fresh air. When I'm out repairing computers or refurbishing thrown out desktops... I've must have seen the WinXP install screen at least 1-2 times a day.I was surprized at how fast the install went. Then comes setting up personal prefrences, which went fast too.

As expected, W7 loaded some HD audio drivers on its own. It was an easy fix after loading the correct drivers. The SMC card wasn't detected for some odd reason and didn't show up in the hardware list as an 'Unknown PCI' or 'Ethernet Device.' I installed the generic drivers anyways and rebooted. Worked just fine.

The W7 x64 release is great and supports way more hardware in the past than older x64 systems had supported. Really made me feel the software companies are going to start picking up support for 64-Bit hardware soon. Seeing as how we should already be taking advantage of the 64Bit world W7 seems to fill in the pot holes previouse 64Bit operating systems left behind.

Remember UAC? Well, Microsoft must have gave it some digital xanax. It's not in my face every 5-10 seconds. As for other security messures, BitLocker is still here and allows you to lock Flash Drives as well. You can then use the Flash drive on XP or Vista systems if you have the correct password, but you wont be able to change the password or files unless your on your W7 system.
This is excellent for me because I depend on flash drives(On my keychain) to save drivers, programs, and pictures for my clients. Say one of my clients had a worm or virus... Bitlocker wouldn't allow any changes keeping my drive safer.

ReadyBoost is even better. Allowing for more than 4gb this time. You can expect to use your ultra fast USB 2.0 Flash Drives up to 16GB for more cache on systems with slower memory. I felt that it "Kinda helps," but I feel it promises way more than it can really do for you. It may even slow you down in cases where I've seen people with no need to use readyboost on vista systems using it and hurting thier startup times. My system kinda coughs a bit when starting up with a 2gb drive on readyboost. Windows do the lil jerky thing when moving across the screen. After about 30-45 seconds and the system has booted, everything will feel solid. I didn't run any tests to see if there was a performance boost. From what I can tell you though is that I noticed really nothing except for a slower boot up.

W7 Felt snappy compaired to Vista, and even XP! Everything felt solid and moved smoothly. The new taskbar felt natural to me and I adore it. Bottom line: I like it.
Like I said I wont sit here and review W7. So go google that kind of stuff.
From my personal experience I think once they finish W7 it'll be something worth looking into.

e-JunkPunK

Let's just say this is my first real time blogging. Whatever that is.
I like to share my own opinions, and projects with people. My projects are all... let us say... lost... except for the computer's I've customized. I've been moving a lot so I've had to leave my junk behind.
So I guess this is my big hello to the world of blogging. I'll appologize right now for my horrible spelling and my poor quality photos I'll be using. You'll get the point whenever I talk about something, I promise.

Do Untill then. Hi Everyone!