Windows 7

[Pedro Teixeira]

I know there's already a thread about this. But windows 7 is about to come out in less than a month or so... There are already laptops being sold with it in... Has anyone been running it for audio and being successful? VST's/Plugins speaking, is everything working in order? I have an Intel Q9450 so I thought I'd buy the x64 version... but am afraid it will fuck up everything in terms of plugins compatibility

 

[Jind]

While I have not tried it yet, their are several people over at the Sonar support forums that have been running it and say it runs great with very few if any problems with both Sonar and the plugins they have been using.

 

[kev]

Im an IT engineer and despise windows 7 already. I've been using it @ work for sometime now and can safely say I have no reason to use it over XP.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

:O Why?

 

[Morgan C]

I've been using it with Sonar 8 and almost no problems. Nick Crow's plugins don't work very well (crash a lot) but I think that's a Sonar problem rather than a Windows 7 problem. Some plugins install to C drive even if you specify a different drive (just move the .dll's), apart from that its awesome.

@Kev; Yeah they really oversimplified it a lot. Things are harder to find and they removed basic things (I can't change the brightness on my laptop - wtf?), which would suck for an IT engineer or someone who needs to use complex options a lot, but for most people I think it'd be an improvement.

 

[ApolloSpeed]

ive been running windows7 32bit for a while....been good to me so far.

 

[Metaltastic]

I don't mean to sound provocative, but what possible reason would any PC-user have to use anything other than XP? I have yet to discover any compatibility issues, and as I understand it going to Vista/W7 doesn't allow you to use any larger amount of RAM unless you have them at 64-bit operation (and that's where the compatibility issues really rear their heads from what I've heard). I dunno, maybe the newer OS's are coded more efficiently so there's better performance, but speed has never been an issue for me on my XP-Pro equipped laptop! Oh, and gaming, I guess (DX10), though the only thing I play on my PC is Deus Ex, so that's not an issue

 

[P-E]

1 - Search is fast, fast, fast and simple. Way better than XP and I can find anything I want in seconds. (I use this A LOT -> Windows key, writing what I want, Enter.)
2 - Pretiness and the way it just "works", to me. I mean some things are a bit buried, but I can find 'em in seconds with a quick search (and if I can't find it in Windows I'll find where it's buried with Google).
3 - 7 is almost as fast as XP on a decent computer for normal use, crawls less than Vista.
4 - Probably more secure, but I haven't got crap on my computer for years, whether it was with XP, Vista or 7 so I can't really say.

XP seems like a PITA to me now.

 

[Metaltastic]

1 - I rarely need to search, and when I do the XP search works fine
2 - An OS is a utilitarian thing to me, if I want prettiness I minimize my windows and look at whatever desktop background I have
3 - So 7 is almost as fast as XP...that's a compelling argument
4 - Security isn't an issue in XP for me either

Use whatever you want and be happy of course - I'm just trying to understand why people see the need to upgrade!

 

[FIXXXER]

I know there's already a thread about this. But windows 7 is about to come out in less than a month or so... There are already laptops being sold with it in... Has anyone been running it for audio and being successful? VST's/Plugins speaking, is everything working in order? I have an Intel Q9450 so I thought I'd buy the x64 version... but am afraid it will fuck up everything in terms of plugins compatibility

the OS has NO effect on plugins!!!!
32 bit plugins will work on a 64bit OS but maybe not on a 64bit sequencer. there is development going on, cubase for example has "vst bridge". vst bridge is some kind of 32 to 64 plugin converter. it works not really good ATM. sonar 64 seems to have no problems with 32 bit plugins.

cheers
S.

 

[Jaekae]

i have the retail version of it from MSDNA (microsofts student thingy) and ive had zero problem with it,and all plugins ive tried has worked fine, i had more crashes in win xp than ive had with this so far (since ive had zero crashes),
but my soundcard drivers havent been updated for it yet 44khz mode doesnt work at all, only 48, but thats the soundcard companys fault and not win7

 

[jrt12]

until ProTools comes out with a 64bit version that allows me to utilize more RAM, i'm sticking with XP. i mean, without a true reason to upgrade, i dont see why i to change OS yet

 

[Pot]

1 - I rarely need to search, and when I do the XP search works fine
2 - An OS is a utilitarian thing to me, if I want prettiness I minimize my windows and look at whatever desktop background I have
3 - So 7 is almost as fast as XP...that's a compelling argument
4 - Security isn't an issue in XP for me either

Use whatever you want and be happy of course - I'm just trying to understand why people see the need to upgrade!

i totally subscribe + i dont have funds to upgrade to a new pc, so i´m sticking with xp and it works fine

 

[joelplagues]

Well I just had my first audio pc built and the guy doing it was adamant about using nothing else but windows 7 unless I had the dosh to go mac(which I didn't)

I run 32 bit on my quadcore system and find it fine for what I am doing. I have had trouble with plug ins but I'm not sure whether thats a pro tools 8 issue or windows 7.

anyone got waves plug ins running on PT 8 because I used to have them running on my other computer with PT8 but that was after they were already installed during my time with PT 7.4

 

[updog]

the only thing I play on my PC is Deus Ex, so that's not an issue

Best game ever alongside Fallout 2.

I haven't had a computer that it'd work well on for years, which fucking sucks. Always compatibility issues with the graphics cards on newer machines. I really miss playing that game.

 

[Metaltastic]

Which, DE or FO2? I've never had a problem running DE on my current computer or the last one I had, though I have the Game of the Year Edition, which probably comes pre-patched...worth a try though dude, as I agree, it's in my top-5 games of all time without a doubt! (even started a thread about it some time ago, though it got hijacked by Fallout fans I guess I should play those games sometime!)

Oh, but I've always been on XP

 

[updog]

Which, DE or FO2? I've never had a problem running DE on my current computer or the last one I had, though I have the Game of the Year Edition, which probably comes pre-patched...worth a try though dude, as I agree, it's in my top-5 games of all time without a doubt! (even started a thread about it some time ago, though it got hijacked by Fallout fans I guess I should play those games sometime!)

Deus Ex, I don't have the GoTY edition, but I got all the patches I could find and it never really worked. It either didn't start at all or caused inbearable problems during gameplay, like pausing the action every few seconds and making the action 10x faster or weird shit like that.

I love FO2 too, but I think DE is more like an adventure than FO2. You can't make as many of your own choices during gameplay but you just can't beat that athmosphere that game can give you, plus the story is awesome.

Never liked the sequel, Invisible War, nearly as much. Never even finished that game. :zombie:

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

I'm currently running XP, XP64 and Windows 7 64, and have been for about 4-5 months.

XP (32bit) is still the best overall, but Windows 7 isn't too far behind for general use. It's a mile ahead on the 64-bit front over XP64, as you'd expect, and it's much friendlier running 32bit programs too. Most of my old software works on it. I've been lucky that all my hardware etc. worked on Windows 7 straight off the bat with no mucking about - that alone has saved me from a lot of the problems most people seem to have with it.

My sound card in particular has worked incredibly well - if you can actually find the W7 sound options, you can make it run at different bit depths and sample rates by default and they all work flawlessly on my PC, though I have to change the sound card controls as well as the Windows ones (if they mismatch you get no sound at all). Given that pro/semi-pro audio gear blatantly wouldn't be a priority, I'm amazed how well it has worked.

Sonar works perfectly on everything. I use 6 and 8, and they both run on all three OS. I haven't had too many 32 bit VST/64 bit OS issues, though I haven't done much recording with W7 so don't hold me to that.

The problems are obvious though - W7 is still far slower than XP, even with all the non-vital services, programs and Aero junk turned off, which is completely retarded. The registry on W7 (with less than half the programs installed) is more than twice the size of the XP one, so I can only assume that there's lots of stuff going on behind the scenes - unfortunately, as someone mentioned, the interface is so incredibly obtuse you can never find any of this stuff. It's clearly aimed at the Media Centre/gaming worlds and not anyone seriously into computing or people who don't care about the OS (graphic designers, audio engineers etc.)

Although program crashes don't take out the whole of Windows now, I get a ridiculous amount of them, seemingly at random (some of this can obviously be put down to them being 32 bit programs/non-Vista or Windows 7 versions, but not all of them). It refuses to remember the layout of icons on my desktop, which sounds like nothing but is so frustrating it's untrue. They also still haven't sorted out issues with the taskbar - I run mine at the top of the screen, and programs still start with their menu bar behind it (so you can't even move the Window easily to get to the menu bar). Most oddly of all, the picture from my TV card looks terrible on Windows 7 but fine on XP, even though they're using the same drivers.

The simple fact is that Windows 7 is slower than XP, uses more resources and is very unfriendly to more experienced users. The areas where it is better than XP are things that didn't need to be made better - it's looks, media capabilities etc.

Steve