Software

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Dragon Age: Origins

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Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition

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to find out for yourself! Have fun!

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Dragon Age: Origins

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of flames to believe them. Nevertheless, what really stands out is the gameplay. Every battle is a puzzle to be solved, pausing ever so often to reallocate enemies to the best suited party members (a feature I loved in BG!). Of course one can always turn off the autopause feature and let the AI take over the rest of your party and turn the game into an hack&slash action RPG (not exactly my cup of tea but, hey, it's still nice to know it's there). Finally, this is a game made just like the classics in many ways, including duration. I am now playing the game for over 20 hours and I feel that I barely scraped the surface! DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS is one satisfying RPG! My only gripe is this: I did not appreciate such short dialogue options. Most fit a single line and more often than not they consist of a couple of words. I like my RPGs to be wordy and challenging to my verbal imagination as well - and I want my characters to participate in the humor, not just provoke it or react to it. Remember the long dialogue options in BG? Well, expect to find DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS much more laconic. I guess 10 years of fast-paced FPS and blitzkrieging RTS do take their toll... The blood sprays, the swords clang and the spells explode. The animations are beautifully made and add a lot to both enjoyment and immersion. There is a verse in Homer's Iliad I love: "the warrior fell and his armor echoed around him" - and I was reminded of it many a times throughout the game. This game will stay with you. Do not miss on it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

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Crysis DVD ( Windows )

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of flames to believe them. Nevertheless, what really stands out is the gameplay. Every battle is a puzzle to be solved, pausing ever so often to reallocate enemies to the best suited party members (a feature I loved in BG!). Of course one can always turn off the autopause feature and let the AI take over the rest of your party and turn the game into an hack&slash action RPG (not exactly my cup of tea but, hey, it's still nice to know it's there). Finally, this is a game made just like the classics in many ways, including duration. I am now playing the game for over 20 hours and I feel that I barely scraped the surface! DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS is one satisfying RPG! My only gripe is this: I did not appreciate such short dialogue options. Most fit a single line and more often than not they consist of a couple of words. I like my RPGs to be wordy and challenging to my verbal imagination as well - and I want my characters to participate in the humor, not just provoke it or react to it. Remember the long dialogue options in BG? Well, expect to find DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS much more laconic. I guess 10 years of fast-paced FPS and blitzkrieging RTS do take their toll... The blood sprays, the swords clang and the spells explode. The animations are beautifully made and add a lot to both enjoyment and immersion. There is a verse in Homer's Iliad I love: "the warrior fell and his armor echoed around him" - and I was reminded of it many a times throughout the game. This game will stay with you. Do not miss on it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

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Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade from Windows XP or Vista-None

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away with releasing such untested software. Networking among Win7 computers is totally different from the Workgroup networking of 98 and XP. You will have to forget all you figured out over the last decade and start over. Vista concepts may be carried forward, but as I studiously avoided Vista, I don't know how Vista to Vista networking works. If you understand and are competent with XP, you will find Microsoft support clueless. They can help first-time computer users set up Win7, but beyond the basics they are lost. Good, friendly people, eager to help, but in over their heads. And second-tier (higher level) technical support is buried. Not a good sign. After 30 hours of trying to get Win7 to do what I could do with XP, I reloaded XP. This review is typed on XP. I'll wait for Win 7 service pack (SP) 2 in a year or so. I suggest you do the same. More details and explanation I had Win 7 Beta in a heterogeneous network with XP. When I upgraded my XP computer to Win 7 things changed - particularly networking. I've been using Microsoft products since the beginning, and have advanced through Win 95, Win 98, and XP, with home networks since networking became native with Win98. For me a computer is a tool to do work. Computers are not hobbies, entertainment, nor my profession. I try to get computers and networks to do what I want (sharing printers and files, backing each other up) and have generally succeeded, but fiddling with them is not entertaining. Win 7 is a big improvement over Vista. But then, XP is a big improvement over Vista. I replaced Vista with XP on my laptop when I realized the 3gigaherz dual-core laptop with 2 gig of memory running Vista was slower than my desktop which had a 500 megaherz Pentium, half a gig of memory, and ran XP. Eight times the processing power, 4 times the memory, and slower. Vista is a pig. But then, Win 98 is an improvement over Vista, as was DOS 6 and Windows 3.0. Overall Approach. Windows 98 was for personal computers - your computer, you managed it, you (and only you) used it. It was your computer with your OS, your configuration, your file structure, your networking, and your software. Windows NT and Win 2000 were for corporate PCs. The computer belonged to corporate IT. Corporate IT managed and controlled the computer: its configuration, networking, software, available services, etc. A Windows 2000 computer was just a terminal into the big distributed corporate computer, a terminal that had local storage for your personal work, but you, the user, were not to control it. An environment (and need) that emerged about 10 years ago was the multi-user PC: your spouse, your kids (of varying ages), the baby sitter, your brother, and anybody else who happened to be in your house would use your PC, surf the web (porn sites), download software, introduce malware, and make changes that messed forced you to rebuild. XP adapted to the multi-user PC environment, giving you, the owner, some control and giving each user his own logon and file structure. This changed where files were stored, even if you were the only user, pretending that the file system actually began with the Desktop (a la Apple; Bill Gates has a serious envy problem relative to Steven Jobs) rather than with the hard drive, the actual root. XP wants to force all your work into the "My Documents" folder which is OK, I guess, unless you want to put your work on a hard drive or partition other than C:\. My Documents is, of course, actually located at C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents, right next to where the Desktop actually is: C:\Documents and Settings\\Desktop. Everything Windows Explorer (Microsoft used to call this program "File Manager", when you were expected to manage files rather than simply explore) shows above "My Computer" is a fiction. Win 7 combines the Win 98, WinXP, and Win 2000 approaches into one single package. Now, its may be your persona PC you bought from Dell, you may be the only user, but there are some things you can't do unless you are the Administrator. This is to protect you from people who won't be using your computer anyway and to ensure you use the PC in a corporate-approved way. If you follow Microsoft's advice and set up an Administrator account in addition to your user account, you will discover that, when you turned the computer on while you were making coffee, it didn't boot all the way up, but only half-way and waited for you to tell it who was going to use the computer: you or the Administrator (which is, of course, you). After you give it an answer, Win 7 will finish launching while you waste time watching it. If you want your laptop to be ready to do work when you come back with coffee, don't set up an Administrator account. Just make sure you have all administrative privileges (easy to do) when you set up your user account during install. Or straighten everything out with the Users program in Control Panel. Vista is the same way, so if you've been suffering with Vista you already know about it. Operating without full privileges actually makes sense in Linux, where you can accidentally do some serious damage very quickly, and when IT doesn't want you do change your PC, but it is unnecessary for a personal PC. (It's sad when PC no longer means "Personal Computer," so you have Corporate Personal Computers and Personal Personal Computers.) Still, you will regularly be told you can't do things you want to do unless the Administrator approves. Click a button to approve (or turn the protection off, I don't remember how) as it is an opportunity to think twice before doing something really stupid - like installing and running eatsyourdiskforlunch.exe which you accidently downloaded). When upgraded from XP, I discovered that I didn't have permission to install some of the utility programs I'd downloaded (and paid for). The upgrade conveniently saved the install files, but I couldn't run them. Changing the file ownership (file ownership - another new "feature") didn't help. Fortunately I'd copied all these programs to another disk and I could run them from there. Why Win7 would save an exe file then not let you run it is another entry in the growing list of Redmond Mysteries. Networking Somewhere along the way (98 or XP) Windows made networking a native feature of the OS and introduced the concept of Workgroups. Workgroups allowed you to set up logical subnets on your router so I could keep my computers and their associated storage and printers separate from my kids computers. You can give your workgroup any name you want, though the default was "Workgroup". You added individual computers to one workgroup or another. Certain resources could be shared among workgroups. Each computer selected files and folders for sharing, with or without passwords, and it was all pretty powerful; at least it did everything I ever wanted it to. Firewalls on individual computers provided added protection and flexibility. Rather than building on the familiar, Win7 introduces a totally new concept: Homegroup. In a heterogeneous network (e.g., Win 7 and XP on different computers) Workgroups still exist, but became inoperative when I upgraded my XP to Win7. Now everything is "Homegroup". All homegroups are named "Homegroup". You can put in security and passwords, but you can't change the name. Perhaps that's not true, but Microsoft support doesn't know how to do it. If it is possible to set up separate logical subnets on a router - with different passwords and sharing - and I'm not convinced it is - all the homegroups will have the same name: "Homegroup." Worthless. Support. The Microsoft website is about as organized as a library with all the books misfiled. There is a support Chat function, if you have the Win7 ID number (the one that appears in Computer Properties, not the unlock key that comes with the disk) you can "chat" with friendly, responsive people who seem to know less about Win7 than I do. I've been into chat 3 times, each time it took me 30 minutes to find it, and each time I somehow got there a different way. It isn't easy and obvious like other support sites like Dell and Computer Associates. Like much that comes from Microsoft, the web site makes sense only if you already know so much that you don't need to go to the web site. I spent 4 hours with three different first-level support people (nice folks) doing goofy things as they tried to figure out how Win7 networking worked. Microsoft is so inundated with Win7 problems that the second-level technical support is backlogged at least 24 hours. When support is buried, you know the product has lots of problems.

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Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade from Windows XP or Vista-None

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with respect to the minimum hardware requirements needed for Windows 7....my computer has a Quad core Intel processor-2.4 GHz, 4 GB of Ram, 500 GB hard drive, a significantly upgraded video card, etc. When will Microsoft learn that their customers are quickly growing weary of just throwing good money at bad. In summary, upgraders from XP, please BEWARE!!!! unless of course you have about 30 extra hours of time that you are willing to waste, at least a couple hundred dollars to buy new printers, hardware, applications, etc., and are able to stomach constant re-boots and constant restores, constant loss of access to the internet and your email, constant calls to #800# number technical support, etc., etc., etc. #and to boot, they now want me to pay for technical support before they'll even talk to me) I've learned the very hard way, I should have waited at least 6 more months to another year before jumping on the Windows 7 bandwagon. Microsoft, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Please be honest with your loyal customers about what an upgrade from XP to Windows 7 actually entails.

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Borderlands

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with respect to the minimum hardware requirements needed for Windows 7....my computer has a Quad core Intel processor-2.4 GHz, 4 GB of Ram, 500 GB hard drive, a significantly upgraded video card, etc. When will Microsoft learn that their customers are quickly growing weary of just throwing good money at bad. In summary, upgraders from XP, please BEWARE!!!! unless of course you have about 30 extra hours of time that you are willing to waste, at least a couple hundred dollars to buy new printers, hardware, applications, etc., and are able to stomach constant re-boots and constant restores, constant loss of access to the internet and your email, constant calls to #800# number technical support, etc., etc., etc. #and to boot, they now want me to pay for technical support before they'll even talk to me) I've learned the very hard way, I should have waited at least 6 more months to another year before jumping on the Windows 7 bandwagon. Microsoft, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Please be honest with your loyal customers about what an upgrade from XP to Windows 7 actually entails.

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Borderlands

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customizable skill points tied to a level-up system. For me, Borderlands can be summed up by describing it as Fallout 3 with less story and dialogue traded for significantly more pure carnage and loot. If the lack of a deep storyline doesn't bother you as long as you get to blow up shotgun-wielding midgets, this is definitely the game for you.

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Borderlands

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customizable skill points tied to a level-up system. For me, Borderlands can be summed up by describing it as Fallout 3 with less story and dialogue traded for significantly more pure carnage and loot. If the lack of a deep storyline doesn't bother you as long as you get to blow up shotgun-wielding midgets, this is definitely the game for you.

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Borderlands

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customizable skill points tied to a level-up system. For me, Borderlands can be summed up by describing it as Fallout 3 with less story and dialogue traded for significantly more pure carnage and loot. If the lack of a deep storyline doesn't bother you as long as you get to blow up shotgun-wielding midgets, this is definitely the game for you.

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Roxio Creator 2010

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customizable skill points tied to a level-up system. For me, Borderlands can be summed up by describing it as Fallout 3 with less story and dialogue traded for significantly more pure carnage and loot. If the lack of a deep storyline doesn't bother you as long as you get to blow up shotgun-wielding midgets, this is definitely the game for you.

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Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

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customizable skill points tied to a level-up system. For me, Borderlands can be summed up by describing it as Fallout 3 with less story and dialogue traded for significantly more pure carnage and loot. If the lack of a deep storyline doesn't bother you as long as you get to blow up shotgun-wielding midgets, this is definitely the game for you.

+ 0 likes

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

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customizable skill points tied to a level-up system. For me, Borderlands can be summed up by describing it as Fallout 3 with less story and dialogue traded for significantly more pure carnage and loot. If the lack of a deep storyline doesn't bother you as long as you get to blow up shotgun-wielding midgets, this is definitely the game for you.

+ 0 likes

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

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customizable skill points tied to a level-up system. For me, Borderlands can be summed up by describing it as Fallout 3 with less story and dialogue traded for significantly more pure carnage and loot. If the lack of a deep storyline doesn't bother you as long as you get to blow up shotgun-wielding midgets, this is definitely the game for you.

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Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade

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AT THE TOP (BILL GATES RETIRING). My advice is: DON'T UPGRADE! ITS NOT WORTH THE AGGRAVATION! THE INSTALLATION SOFTWARE IS APPARANTLY BUGGY FROM MY EXPERIENCE.

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Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade from Windows XP or Vista-None

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seamlessly move from XP or Vista without having to reinstall anything. This is not always the case depending on what OS you are upgrading from. Here 'upgrade' means that you are 'upgrading' from one OS to another. The retail versions are being sold for systems that have no OS in place at all--for example a new system build. I agree that Microsoft (and Amazon for that matter) could and should have been explicit about this--unfortunately they were not, and that's left a sour taste in the mouths of many, which I totally understand. Adding to the confusion is that you can seamlessly upgrade from Vista Professional with this version, but NOT Visa Home Premium, NOR Vista Ultimate. Microsoft did not do a good job of making the seamless upgrade paths clear, so here they are: If you are upgrading from XP (any version) you MUST do a clean install of Windows 7. No seamless upgrade route is available. However, you CAN do a dual boot installation that will allow you to keep XP and run it in tandem with Windows 7. This is a great route if you have programs that may not run on Windows 7 (I've yet to find one myself--everything I have runs perfectly). If you have XP, you should do a clean install. Even if it is time consuming, it bears a multitude of benefits for you and your computer in the long run. If you're dead set on upgrading from XP and keeping your programs, you could try Laplink Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant but I would NOT recommend it. If you are upgrading from Vista, here is what you need for a seamless upgraded: Vista Home Premium: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Vista Professional: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade Vista Ultimate: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade Keep in mind that you MUST install the same system type (32-bit or 64-bit) as your current version of Vista to have a seamless upgrade route available! You cannot upgrade from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system and keep your programs (well actually you can keep some of them, but more on that later). Since you are provided both 32-bit and 64-bit installation disks, you can choose which version you want to run. If you have newer hardware, 64-bit is probably the way to go as it is faster and will allow you to take advantage of more than 3.5gb of system RAM. The silliest part of the upgrade scheme is that you CANNOT do a downgrade 'upgrade.' In other words, you cannot downgrade from Visa Ultimate to Windows 7 Professional through the seamless route! This defies logic and explanation from Microsoft, and is the reason I've knocked a star off an otherwise nearly perfect OS. Personally I did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit over a Vista 64-bit system (I chose the clean install method because I believe it represents the best route to a trouble free and 'clean' feeling system). I installed over my old Windows directory (which I had backed up by creating a disk image using Acronis True Image Home just in case anything went wrong. Installation took about 30 minutes, actually much faster than any other OS install I've ever done. All of my hardware was recognized and drivers were installed without a hitch. The old windows files are moved to a windows.old file which contains all of your user accounts, program files, and old Windows files. It is possible to open the programs file (in windows.old) and copy over many programs into your new programs file and some of them will work perfectly fine. I was able to do with with all my web browsers, a few computer games, and some random applications. Not EVERYTHING will work, but many will and it's worth at least testing it out. I've since upgraded several other computers (my wife's laptop, a few computers at work). My wife's was a simple streamline upgrade from vista home to Windows 7 home (32-bit to 32-bit). It took a bit longer, probably about an hour, but managed to keep all programs and settings from Vista. The others were clean install upgrades. The only one that I had an issue with was upgrading a 32-bit system to a 64-bit system. I installed to a different hard drive and booted up to W7 just fine. However, I could not delete the old windows files from the previous installation. I followed various Googled help pages on taking ownership of files, etc., but was unable to get all the files to delete no matter what I did. Ultimately I was forced to physically remove the hard drive, put it into an enclosure, and delete the files using a separate computer. The UAC (User Account Control) system that prevents system files from being deleted was in this case out of control and impossible to overcome--even for an middle-advanced computer user who knows how to troubleshoot/problem solve using online resources. For someone with less experience, it would have been even more frustrating I am sure. Many others have gone into great detail about the feature set of Windows 7 and the various improvements from Vista, so I will not spend much time running through all of them again. Suffice it to say that Aero works wonderfully, QuickSnap is amazing, especially on a larger monitor, and that all of the visual tweaks are nicely done and very welcome. The reorganization of the start menu is wonderful and makes the W7 task bar nearly perfect. Add a simple dock program to the mix like RocketDock (google it) and this OS is hands down better than even Snow Leopard--which is pretty awesome. Performance is also great. My boot time went from 1:47 to :56! Nearly a minute faster! (Hardware: E8500, P45 Asus Striker MB, 8GB ram, Hd4870 x2 in crossfire). Overall the OS just 'feels' faster, snappier, and easier to use. Everything Vista wasn't, W7 is. I'm very pleased with W7, and aside from some miserable communication from Microsoft about what upgrade means and what can upgrade to what, it's nearly flawless. If you want a stable, fast, visually appealing and advances OS, W7 will not disappoint. Just make sure you know what you're buying so that you don't end up dissatisfied. 4/5 Stars.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum

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seamlessly move from XP or Vista without having to reinstall anything. This is not always the case depending on what OS you are upgrading from. Here 'upgrade' means that you are 'upgrading' from one OS to another. The retail versions are being sold for systems that have no OS in place at all--for example a new system build. I agree that Microsoft (and Amazon for that matter) could and should have been explicit about this--unfortunately they were not, and that's left a sour taste in the mouths of many, which I totally understand. Adding to the confusion is that you can seamlessly upgrade from Vista Professional with this version, but NOT Visa Home Premium, NOR Vista Ultimate. Microsoft did not do a good job of making the seamless upgrade paths clear, so here they are: If you are upgrading from XP (any version) you MUST do a clean install of Windows 7. No seamless upgrade route is available. However, you CAN do a dual boot installation that will allow you to keep XP and run it in tandem with Windows 7. This is a great route if you have programs that may not run on Windows 7 (I've yet to find one myself--everything I have runs perfectly). If you have XP, you should do a clean install. Even if it is time consuming, it bears a multitude of benefits for you and your computer in the long run. If you're dead set on upgrading from XP and keeping your programs, you could try Laplink Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant but I would NOT recommend it. If you are upgrading from Vista, here is what you need for a seamless upgraded: Vista Home Premium: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Vista Professional: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade Vista Ultimate: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade Keep in mind that you MUST install the same system type (32-bit or 64-bit) as your current version of Vista to have a seamless upgrade route available! You cannot upgrade from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system and keep your programs (well actually you can keep some of them, but more on that later). Since you are provided both 32-bit and 64-bit installation disks, you can choose which version you want to run. If you have newer hardware, 64-bit is probably the way to go as it is faster and will allow you to take advantage of more than 3.5gb of system RAM. The silliest part of the upgrade scheme is that you CANNOT do a downgrade 'upgrade.' In other words, you cannot downgrade from Visa Ultimate to Windows 7 Professional through the seamless route! This defies logic and explanation from Microsoft, and is the reason I've knocked a star off an otherwise nearly perfect OS. Personally I did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit over a Vista 64-bit system (I chose the clean install method because I believe it represents the best route to a trouble free and 'clean' feeling system). I installed over my old Windows directory (which I had backed up by creating a disk image using Acronis True Image Home just in case anything went wrong. Installation took about 30 minutes, actually much faster than any other OS install I've ever done. All of my hardware was recognized and drivers were installed without a hitch. The old windows files are moved to a windows.old file which contains all of your user accounts, program files, and old Windows files. It is possible to open the programs file (in windows.old) and copy over many programs into your new programs file and some of them will work perfectly fine. I was able to do with with all my web browsers, a few computer games, and some random applications. Not EVERYTHING will work, but many will and it's worth at least testing it out. I've since upgraded several other computers (my wife's laptop, a few computers at work). My wife's was a simple streamline upgrade from vista home to Windows 7 home (32-bit to 32-bit). It took a bit longer, probably about an hour, but managed to keep all programs and settings from Vista. The others were clean install upgrades. The only one that I had an issue with was upgrading a 32-bit system to a 64-bit system. I installed to a different hard drive and booted up to W7 just fine. However, I could not delete the old windows files from the previous installation. I followed various Googled help pages on taking ownership of files, etc., but was unable to get all the files to delete no matter what I did. Ultimately I was forced to physically remove the hard drive, put it into an enclosure, and delete the files using a separate computer. The UAC (User Account Control) system that prevents system files from being deleted was in this case out of control and impossible to overcome--even for an middle-advanced computer user who knows how to troubleshoot/problem solve using online resources. For someone with less experience, it would have been even more frustrating I am sure. Many others have gone into great detail about the feature set of Windows 7 and the various improvements from Vista, so I will not spend much time running through all of them again. Suffice it to say that Aero works wonderfully, QuickSnap is amazing, especially on a larger monitor, and that all of the visual tweaks are nicely done and very welcome. The reorganization of the start menu is wonderful and makes the W7 task bar nearly perfect. Add a simple dock program to the mix like RocketDock (google it) and this OS is hands down better than even Snow Leopard--which is pretty awesome. Performance is also great. My boot time went from 1:47 to :56! Nearly a minute faster! (Hardware: E8500, P45 Asus Striker MB, 8GB ram, Hd4870 x2 in crossfire). Overall the OS just 'feels' faster, snappier, and easier to use. Everything Vista wasn't, W7 is. I'm very pleased with W7, and aside from some miserable communication from Microsoft about what upgrade means and what can upgrade to what, it's nearly flawless. If you want a stable, fast, visually appealing and advances OS, W7 will not disappoint. Just make sure you know what you're buying so that you don't end up dissatisfied. 4/5 Stars.

+ 0 likes

Warhammer Dawn of War II

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seamlessly move from XP or Vista without having to reinstall anything. This is not always the case depending on what OS you are upgrading from. Here 'upgrade' means that you are 'upgrading' from one OS to another. The retail versions are being sold for systems that have no OS in place at all--for example a new system build. I agree that Microsoft (and Amazon for that matter) could and should have been explicit about this--unfortunately they were not, and that's left a sour taste in the mouths of many, which I totally understand. Adding to the confusion is that you can seamlessly upgrade from Vista Professional with this version, but NOT Visa Home Premium, NOR Vista Ultimate. Microsoft did not do a good job of making the seamless upgrade paths clear, so here they are: If you are upgrading from XP (any version) you MUST do a clean install of Windows 7. No seamless upgrade route is available. However, you CAN do a dual boot installation that will allow you to keep XP and run it in tandem with Windows 7. This is a great route if you have programs that may not run on Windows 7 (I've yet to find one myself--everything I have runs perfectly). If you have XP, you should do a clean install. Even if it is time consuming, it bears a multitude of benefits for you and your computer in the long run. If you're dead set on upgrading from XP and keeping your programs, you could try Laplink Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant but I would NOT recommend it. If you are upgrading from Vista, here is what you need for a seamless upgraded: Vista Home Premium: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Vista Professional: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade Vista Ultimate: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade Keep in mind that you MUST install the same system type (32-bit or 64-bit) as your current version of Vista to have a seamless upgrade route available! You cannot upgrade from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system and keep your programs (well actually you can keep some of them, but more on that later). Since you are provided both 32-bit and 64-bit installation disks, you can choose which version you want to run. If you have newer hardware, 64-bit is probably the way to go as it is faster and will allow you to take advantage of more than 3.5gb of system RAM. The silliest part of the upgrade scheme is that you CANNOT do a downgrade 'upgrade.' In other words, you cannot downgrade from Visa Ultimate to Windows 7 Professional through the seamless route! This defies logic and explanation from Microsoft, and is the reason I've knocked a star off an otherwise nearly perfect OS. Personally I did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit over a Vista 64-bit system (I chose the clean install method because I believe it represents the best route to a trouble free and 'clean' feeling system). I installed over my old Windows directory (which I had backed up by creating a disk image using Acronis True Image Home just in case anything went wrong. Installation took about 30 minutes, actually much faster than any other OS install I've ever done. All of my hardware was recognized and drivers were installed without a hitch. The old windows files are moved to a windows.old file which contains all of your user accounts, program files, and old Windows files. It is possible to open the programs file (in windows.old) and copy over many programs into your new programs file and some of them will work perfectly fine. I was able to do with with all my web browsers, a few computer games, and some random applications. Not EVERYTHING will work, but many will and it's worth at least testing it out. I've since upgraded several other computers (my wife's laptop, a few computers at work). My wife's was a simple streamline upgrade from vista home to Windows 7 home (32-bit to 32-bit). It took a bit longer, probably about an hour, but managed to keep all programs and settings from Vista. The others were clean install upgrades. The only one that I had an issue with was upgrading a 32-bit system to a 64-bit system. I installed to a different hard drive and booted up to W7 just fine. However, I could not delete the old windows files from the previous installation. I followed various Googled help pages on taking ownership of files, etc., but was unable to get all the files to delete no matter what I did. Ultimately I was forced to physically remove the hard drive, put it into an enclosure, and delete the files using a separate computer. The UAC (User Account Control) system that prevents system files from being deleted was in this case out of control and impossible to overcome--even for an middle-advanced computer user who knows how to troubleshoot/problem solve using online resources. For someone with less experience, it would have been even more frustrating I am sure. Many others have gone into great detail about the feature set of Windows 7 and the various improvements from Vista, so I will not spend much time running through all of them again. Suffice it to say that Aero works wonderfully, QuickSnap is amazing, especially on a larger monitor, and that all of the visual tweaks are nicely done and very welcome. The reorganization of the start menu is wonderful and makes the W7 task bar nearly perfect. Add a simple dock program to the mix like RocketDock (google it) and this OS is hands down better than even Snow Leopard--which is pretty awesome. Performance is also great. My boot time went from 1:47 to :56! Nearly a minute faster! (Hardware: E8500, P45 Asus Striker MB, 8GB ram, Hd4870 x2 in crossfire). Overall the OS just 'feels' faster, snappier, and easier to use. Everything Vista wasn't, W7 is. I'm very pleased with W7, and aside from some miserable communication from Microsoft about what upgrade means and what can upgrade to what, it's nearly flawless. If you want a stable, fast, visually appealing and advances OS, W7 will not disappoint. Just make sure you know what you're buying so that you don't end up dissatisfied. 4/5 Stars.

+ 0 likes

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade from Windows XP or Vista-None

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able to do these things from Windows 7 Home: check with your company's techie to be sure. Some very important things you need to know about upgrading: 1) There are two types of upgrade: "in-place" (where a Vista machine upgrades to 7 and you get to keep all your programs) and "clean" (where you lose all your old programs and settings). 2) Anyone going from XP to 7 will have to go "clean". 3) Anyone going from a different Vista to 7 (for example, Vista Home to 7 Pro, or Vista Ultimate to 7 Home) will also have to go "clean". If you have to do 2) or 3), all is not lost--I'll explain in a moment. Before you even buy 7 for your machine, stop by Microsoft's website for two things: a) download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. Run it with every device connected to the machine that you'll ever want to use in 7. It'll thoroughly examine your machine for any roadblocks and give you good advice about upgrading. b) Go to the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and double-check anything that came up negative in the Upgrade Advisor (or didn't show up at all). This site lists detailed compatibility info on a LOT of different devices. Anything major, like a video card or sound card driver, I'd recommend double-checking with the manufacturer's website to be sure. This almost burned me on two of the machines that I upgraded. Last, make a backup. There's a free tool called Macrium Reflect that can do this for you. Do you have to do a "clean" install, but just want to carry over your user accounts and settings? Microsoft makes a program called Windows Easy Transfer that's already in Vista (and can be downloaded from Microsoft for XP) that will export your accounts and settings and let you import them back again. It's very easy to use and does a good job of putting your accounts back together again, even going from XP to 7. Do you have to do the "clean" install, and you don't want to reinstall all your programs? Laplink has an offer for $19.95 that will let you use a special version of their program "PC Mover" to upgrade one machine one time. Read the documentation in detail. The most important thing to doing a "clean" install is that in the Upgrade setup you choose "Custom". Windows will take all of your major files and place them in a folder called "Windows.old". PC Mover and the Easy Transfer program will use this folder to reconstruct your system from, so this is VERY important. I wish I had more space to go into detail here...bottom line is, if you plan ahead a bit, upgrading to 7 will go very easily (and if it doesn't, you'll have something to fall back on).

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Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

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possible solutions and found Adobe has no patch for this. As a matter of fact they are not expected to address the issue until CS5 is built. By which time Windows 7 will be old.
If this is the sort of mis-aligned thinking at MS, I'm eagerly awaiting the Google operating system due out next year.
Yes I can hear you all now telling me to go buy a Mac if I am going to use anything Adobe. I do not subscribe to this theory. Properly tweeked a PC can do everything a Mac can. In the past windows has been more affordable, flexible and democratic than Mac. This experience makes me start to reconsider.