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Installed Windows 7 on an older rig - my thoughts

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Ben333

Folding for Team 32!
Joined
Feb 18, 2007
So with my main rig down again, I've been using an XP 2000+ (1.7 GHz) with 512 MB of RAM and a GeForce 4 64 MB card. This was running XP MEC 2005 as my HTPC but I wanted to give 7 a try so I installed it. I wasn't happy to see that I couldn't do a dual boot option without making another partition, and because of many problems trying to repartition and keep XP on I decided to just install 7 anyway. It installed fine and runs fairly snappy. Even works with the Aero interface on a fairly old system which surprised me. Everything works sleek and quick but I have some things I didn't like too. First off, no built in pop/smtp mail client. I guess a lot of people are using web mail these days, but I'm used to every OS having a built in mail program. Solved this by downloading windows live mail, which had some other neat things too. It came with a nice app for connecting to a blog and editing it from your computer. I'm not the blogging type, but I like this way of publishing much better than say the web based wordpress editor.

Also, I know MS probably wants things to be easier and better looking but the changes to the GUI like where settings are is bugging me. (They did this in vista too) To change display settings, you now have a new window where you can select say Screensaver or wallpaper and they appear in the old way like every other version of windows, but without the other settings in the next tab over. Why? Why not just have it like it was in XP and every other version and if they are going to change it, why not completely redo it rather than just making a new menu and otherwise leaving things the same.

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So with my main rig down again, I've been using an XP 2000+ (1.7 GHz) with 512 MB of RAM and a GeForce 4 64 MB card. This was running XP MEC 2005 as my HTPC but I wanted to give 7 a try so I installed it. I wasn't happy to see that I couldn't do a dual boot option without making another partition, and because of many problems trying to repartition and keep XP on I decided to just install 7 anyway. It installed fine and runs fairly snappy. Even works with the Aero interface on a fairly old system which surprised me. Everything works sleek and quick but I have some things I didn't like too. First off, no built in pop/smtp mail client. I guess a lot of people are using web mail these days, but I'm used to every OS having a built in mail program. Solved this by downloading windows live mail, which had some other neat things too. It came with a nice app for connecting to a blog and editing it from your computer. I'm not the blogging type, but I like this way of publishing much better than say the web based wordpress editor.

Also, I know MS probably wants things to be easier and better looking but the changes to the GUI like where settings are is bugging me. (They did this in vista too) To change display settings, you now have a new window where you can select say Screensaver or wallpaper and they appear in the old way like every other version of windows, but without the other settings in the next tab over. Why? Why not just have it like it was in XP and every other version and if they are going to change it, why not completely redo it rather than just making a new menu and otherwise leaving things the same.

Sounds like you need to submit this to microsoft.... lol Or make a commercial about how it was your idea to remove the things we love(d)...

ha ha

EDIT: I was ticked off too... Maybe Vista version of Express if its there will work with W7? If not, I use Thunderbird now...
 
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