Issue 47 - February 2010
Editorial Intro - Matt Nicholson
Like many, I forewent the upgrade to Windows Vista once I realised the problems it was causing others - although by that time I had bought my wife a new PC, which came with Vista, so I was experiencing those problems for myself. Therefore I stuck resolutely to my old machine until Windows 7 appeared. As a result, by the time I took the plunge, I was upgrading from kit bought in 2006, which gave me a good excuse to get something with Windows 7 already installed, rather than fork out for the software and then go through the hassle of finding drivers for out-of-date hardware.
That said, my old machine did have a reasonable spec, running Windows XP Professional SP3 on a 3GHz hyper-threading Pentium 4 with 1Gb of memory and a 60Gb hard disk. However the hard drive was beginning to chunder for long periods for no apparent reason, and I could go and make a coffee while waiting for Adobe InDesign to load a document.
It was therefore with some excitement that, just a week or so ago, I unpacked and installed a brand new Dell Vostro 430 running 64-bit Windows 7 Professional on a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 connected to 4Gb of memory and a wopping 500Gb of hard drive (ultimately unneccesary because I store everything on the server, but what the heck). Despite a few hiccups, mainly because I'd forgotten exactly how my network is configured, or where I'd put various software registration codes, I managed to get it connected and anti-virus working, and then my 32-bit versions of Adobe CS3 and Office 2007 installed, without major problems. And boy what a difference it made. Office documents load like lightening, and I can move between multiple InDesign and Photoshop documents without a peek out of the hard drive. Generate a PDF and the task bar is gone almost before you see it.
Windows 7 is smooth (although not a great deal different to Windows Vista since the latest updates). It has some nice features, and I've now got some dandy gadgets installed, but I'm not sure I'll ever use Libraries, and I still don't understand why it comes with at least four different accessories for working with images (I suspect four development teams that should have been merged long ago). What is apparent is that it is making good use of the four cores (eight virtual cores) of the i7 processor. Indeed I suspect that is where the new-found speed is coming from - after all, the processor is actually clocked marginally slower than my old Pentium 4.
Compatibility with older applications is a problem, though - which is why I went for the Pro edition as I could then make use of Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode. Getting my Quicken accounting software to run satisfactorily was not easy - but since Intuit abandoned the UK market I have no option.
Nevertheless it is good to be running something that is taking full advantage of modern hardware. It may be some time before I really make use of those 64 bits, but it's nice to have the headroom.
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