Results of the Windows 7 upgrade poll
Over the weekend, CNET ran an unscientific poll inquiring about the level of difficulty in your Windows 7 upgrade experience, and the response we received was undoubtedly strong. Nearly 11,000 people voted, and more than 50 percent of you said your Windows 7 upgrade experience was as easy as pie. (And who doesn't love pie?)
We asked people to rate their upgrade experience from one to five, with one being the easiest and five being the hardest. A total of 5,492 people evaluated the upgrade experience as a one, but the second-most popular answer, at 16 percent, was five, indicating an unnecessarily hard upgrade. Sticking with the pie analogy, that's basically having to do all the cleaning up without getting to eat any.
The third-most popular answer was two, indicating a fairly easy but not flawless upgrade process for 14 percent of voters. The three answer garnered 8 percent of the vote, with 927 votes, and four scored 809 votes, for 7 percent.
Combining the two extremes, then, we can see that more than two-thirds of voters said upgrading was easy or fairly easy, while less than a quarter said the process was hard or unnecessarily difficult. Compared to what most people remember from their Vista experience, that's a dramatic, if anecdotal, change.
If you're planning on upgrading but haven't yet, there are several tools and links that Microsoft has provided to make the change easier. Microsoft has published guides to upgrading from XP to Windows 7 and from Vista to Windows 7, and it has also rounded up its upgrade and installation FAQs onto one convenient page.
The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor is a useful tool for evaluating your current hardware situation, and it gives you a "Windows experience" rating so you can decide whether it can handle Windows 7 before you buy. Windows Easy Transfer will help most users migrate their files and settings, though there have been reports of not all settings getting moved smoothly. It won't migrate programs.
Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2. You can follow him on Twitter.
IQ does not guarantee specific technical skills, knowledge, or experience. There are just as many brain surgeons out there who would not know how to repartition a laptop hard disk, as there are IT admins who would not know where exactly a person's Dura Mater is - at least without Googling it first.
I wouldn't call "replacing each piece of hardware individually to find out why it would error out" methodical.
It could be that the hardware was really acting up but 40 hours is a "crazy" amount of time to spend on an upgrade. He should have just bought a new PC and be over with it.
Besides, some IT admins don't have a clue as to what they're doing. Sometimes a surgeon would be able to figure it out faster - yes even IT/technical issues... Having better grasp of "common sense" does matter.
The big test isn't now though - its later, when these brave early adopters report their successes and failures with Windows 7 during routine operations.
After all - it is supposed to do more than just install - right?
I seem to have picked up collecting computers in the past couple three years. I'm becoming adept at reformatting the things and getting all the drivers going etc. Vista was the worst of the bunch. My old 95 machine. No problem. Xp, perfect. 98, 3.5 all good. Linux great. Apple on a hackintosh? Ok that's harder than Vista but that's a square peg in a round hole. It's only when the OEM posts the wrong drivers that I have to step back and figure things out using some IQ points and Google.
I seem to have picked up collecting computers in the past couple three years. I'm becoming adept at reformatting the things and getting all the drivers going etc. Vista was the worst of the bunch. My old 95 machine. No problem. Xp, perfect. 98, 3.5 all good. Linux great. Apple on a hackintosh? Ok that's harder than Vista but that's a square peg in a round hole. It's only when the OEM posts the wrong drivers that I have to step back and figure things out using some IQ points and Google.
@solitare_pax
"After all - it is supposed to do more than just install - right? "
Heck yes. My most pressing install problem is with Snow Leopard. It disconnects from the net now after a short while. Using Google that has proven to be a bug with no fix except by hapstanance. Apple tech pretty much follows the standard operating prodecure for windows. "remove all the kludgy bits and start over". That doesn't work. My favorite is where they have you remove the battery. "Um, Apple Tech Dude, It's the new Pro. It doesn't come out".
And the results of the poll just show that only trolls and fanboys voted.
You answered your own question. It's working great for you. I find the Vista interface is an improvment over XP and better than OS X for what I use a computer for. Getting it working like it should has been difficult in most all of my installs. In most cases it means live with the issue.
Upgraded my laptop to Windows 7, no issues, very few prompts, over all the best Windows install yet, though I never did the 95/98/ME route (thankfully!) as I was using Windows NT versions instead.
No, it's a valid question. The poll was unscientific and there were no restrictions on who could vote, so it's very possible that some people voted 5 just to skew the vote, as people do with controversial polls (Technology, politics, religion, etc) all the time. Also, ad hominem attacks aren't a very good way to make your point.
an equally valid point, but it's your point, not jaybee75's
yes, the poll should be how easy was it to upgrade from different versions of Windows.
that to me is not the issue... it's having to upgrade hardware that still works well...
as for apple zealots... they probably exist as much as the windows fan boi...
"Next poll: How easy was it to upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard?"
LMAO! Oh you mean that simple in place upgrade from 32 to 64 bit code which took less than a half hour? You mean that upgrade? Priceless.
I love my Mac!
It's a JOKE. Lighten the EFF up.
Or they had that 7-year old girl from the commercials do the install for them.
Yours Truly.
Apple Fan Boy
Ubuntu is a community developed operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers.
What does Ubuntu mean?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.
See some amazing case studies here www (dot) ubuntu (dot) com/products/casestudies
Starting a new fan-club, ey?
After destroying my XP install the 7 install went well. So I'd rate it as "problimatic". In that I lost data, time, and effort that I should not have lost.
No I haven't upgraded to 7 yet, probably months if not a year away from that. I run Ubunto, XP, and Vista 64bit and in the past have used everything from an apple IIc to a Mac 8600AV, the last of the power PC 604e chips. OS installation is always just as hard as your lack of understanding of your current hardware and failure to pre-download drivers and updates makes it. But a brand new OS? Why? The one you have suddenly stopped working? Or is it that you need to consume in order to feel emotionally healthy? Buying makes you feel more in control.
In response to a few posts:
1) Windows 7 did not make your computer generate less noise, period. It can't, so stop with that nonsense already. Your fans did not sense a new OS and suddenly become more efficiently designed. Good god, do you know anything about hardware?
2) Macs aren't better. This sudden fascination is a laughable reaction to using well designed aluminum extruded and parts in Apples personal electronics brands, and then bringing that look to the notebook and desktop brands they market.
I will take my water cooled 4.5ghz PC that I hand built to personal specifications over any mac any day. Wanna have a Photoshop filter race? What, your not done loading the file? The only way a mac is better is if one does not understand and never intends to learn how a computer functions. You can get the same reliability from a PC if not better, but they don't come with expiration dates on the style after which you must purchase newer or be shamed.
What I like about PC's the most? I send my old ones to 3rd world countries school systems and they can actually use them, as opposed to the mac that is proprietary and landfill bound. Apple is not a green company in any way shape or form, they support the 1950's model of Americans as consumption machines.
Apple is worse then Microsoft in one HUGE way, Redmond may be lazy and put out bad updates occasionally, but they never stereotyped people the way the new Apple adds do. This is so sleazy I wonder if Jobs is a neo-conservative racist sexist monster sometimes. Those adds are offensive. I do not understand why Apple would encourage people to judge each other on looks and taste in personal electronics. They would like people to feel the emotion of shame, and to feel less then their fellow man, in order to sell stuff. I am so sick of that crap. The whole attitude is very San Fransisco hipsterish negativism. I live in the heart of Apple country and its style over substance to the extreme.
PC user, 5.11d sport climber, Artist and Designer, former Mac user. Somehow I am never represented in those apple adds... In shape, computer savvy, already been there done that with mac, and able to make a PC jump through hoops while recording the NBA, rendering of textures to a 3d environment, and making marketing material with Adobe, all at speeds beyond a macs wildest fantasies.
I've had a PC since Dos. so what?
Not everyone can afford A cryogenic cooling system with afterburners and an ejection seat.
Most people don't know or want to know how a computer works.They just want it to work.
They do not want to have to keep track of drivers, and keep a running list of "oh yeh, the model number of that card was..." they want ease of install, ease of use.
Most people dont know about hardware I.O conflicts, and don't want to know.
I have 9 different pc's now and a mac. I turn the mac on and less than 30 seconds it is on. I turn on the pc, and depending on what is installed, well could be a while...
Trust me I have to fix peoples computers (er, P.C's) all the time.
when I delete a program on a mac, it is just delete. There is no worrying about some uninstall program, and OH! I have to do a registry edit because of all the crud left over that the uninstall didn't get rid of!
I can run 10 programs at once on the 4 year old mac. On the new PC? I don't think so. Try doing music on a pc. Ha.
As far as the rendering goes, I think you are full of it. At least not on a "Normal" PC. Not a chance.
Sure If you want to dump 5 Grand on a pc, and add a bunch of cards Etc. Etc. then , sure, go download all those drivers, waste a bunch of time screwing with it. Done that too. It is just lame. You could just buy A Mac.
Now days, I want it to work, out of the box, no 'tweaking' necessary. I want it to start in less than a minute, and run solidly. So do most people, I think. Mac's do just that. Period.
I lost A disk the other day, so I called apple support. 1 min on hold, 5 min talking to the rep and done, new disk on the way.Try THAT with Microsoft. Been ther done that. not a pleasant experience.
So am I a Fanboy? I guess if actually LIKING a product that you have purchased, and being SATISFIED with it means that, then sure. It just works.
Remember I also have 9 P.C.s In the House. I may HAVE to use a P.C. but I LIKE using a mac. Large Difference, HA!
DIR C:\*.* /O:N /S
Now rename the extension from .txt to .bat (batch file) and then run it. Run it and watch what happens. Your CPU usage will jump to 100% and stay there for several minutes. Stress test indeed! If your fans are variable speed, they will kick up full throttle. One guy swore there was a jet engine starting up inside his case when he heard it. So... if you reduce the load on the processors, you can make a computer more quiet. Not a myth.
That being said, I was running W7 release candidate which meant that I was forced to do a clean install of vista using my recovery cds and then install W7.
SURPRISINGLY (sarcasm intended) I had an issue with my Vista install, it just kept having random issues. It literally took me 3 hours to install Vista properly and about 45 minutes to upgrade to W7.
All in all, it took me about 3 hours for backing up my files, 3 hours to install vista and 45-1 hour to upgrade to W7. It was about 2 more hours than I would have liked.
It would have been much nicer if Microsoft had found a way to migrate W7 RC users to a legal copy of W7... but oh well.. Very glad I put in the effort, W7 is so much better than XP and I'm thrilled I never had to use Vista (XP laptop was replaced post release of W7RC!)
I suspect that a large number of business customers that are on XP (that would be the vast majority of Microsoft's business customers) are going to stay with XP for the foreseeable future. It is almost like Microsoft is spitefully trying to punish those who stayed with XP, but the move - whatever the reason - is likely to backfire as the difficulty upgrading from XP directly to 7 will lose Microsoft (and many PC vendors) critical business.
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by SkateNY
October 27, 2009 8:44 PM PDT
- There is something to be said for the fact that almost every Windows upgrade spawns dozens of polls, hundreds of comments, and a "let's-get-right-next-time" campaign including, but not limited to, hiring washed-up comedians to push one's product.
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