Thanks for that however I don't have an Inspiron 530 to hand it was Huge that was asking about RAM for that. And I am sure he doesn't run Windows at all.
Although replying to TNP I was (sort of) 'talking' about Huge's system .
Well, kinda. This whole thread arose out of the fact that I commented that Windows 7 runs like a dog under VirtualBox on my Ubuntu Linux machine, which is the aforementioned Inspiron 530. I had assumed it's because I don't have enough memory; Ubuntu reports 3.2 GiB;
huge@amun:~$ free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3275 3143 132 0 139 364
-/+ buffers/cache: 2639 636 Swap: 3216 0 3216
This is with the W7 VBox fired up. VBox warns that there may not be enough memory left for the host after assigning 1735 MB to the guest VM. But, I notice that the CPU load is enormous - one core is pinned at 100% with the other running at 30%, all the time, so I wonder if the problem is CPU rather than memory? (It's a 3GHz Core2 Duo)
[snip]
Could be Virtualbox - I run MacOS on a Macbook that is over 5 years old and has a 2.0GHz Core2duo. With 4GB of RAM in the laptop I can run windows7 in a VM under Vmware fusion it's ok (not swift, but usable for project and visio which are the two things I want). Under virtualbox it's far less responsive. Not used Virtualbox under Linux so might be a MacOS issue but...
Certainly it doesn't eat an entire CPU core.
Darren
I find that Winodws 7 runs like a sloth on Valium with less than 2 gigabytes of RAM available to it on a real machine, and I doubt there's any difference in that requirement when it's a VM. You may also have a problem with multicore support in your VM hosting program. I know M$
*say* a Gig will do for Windows 7, but they also used to claim XP would run in 512 megabytes, which hasn't been true since SP3 came out.For what it's worth, my netbook has a 1.6 GHz processor and 2 Gig of RAM, and even that siezes up for a few seconds from time to time under certain programs. It's never actually crashed yet....
Win7 64bit on this physical machine needs just over 1GB to get out of bed with no apps running, I'd expect it to be dog slow with But, I notice that the CPU load is enormous - one core is pinned at
That sounds more like a virtualisation/hardware emulation issue than not enough CPU horsepower, I'm more familiar with hosting VirtualBox on Windows than on Linux, have you got all the relevant drivers installed in the guest? any different if Win7 uses a classic/basic theme rather than an aero theme? Are you using guest addition to "pass" the 3D GPU hardware into the VM?
Indeed, the first time I install something, the first thing I do is turn it off, then from then on it doesn't bother me.
Not exactly, if you change from 32 to 64 you lose things:
If you don't use IE, who cares?
If you're going to change, why not go straight to 8 and have a more up to date OS with better hardware support (it does UEFI properly for a start) and nicer more sensible interfaces for file copying etc? The metro interface is the only thing that's annoying, but you don't have to use it. Simply delete all the links to the stupid news and weather apps and use the metro screen like a huge full screen start menu. And the start button, contrary to popular belief, is still there, it's just invisible - you can click bottom left as though it was there. And if you apply the patch to 8.1 it puts it back anyway. Oh and it starts MUCH faster than 7.
And if you install Classic Shell, you can boot straight to the desktop and have the conventional Start Button, program menu, etc. of Windows XP/Vista/7.
SteveW
Why bother? The metro screen IS a start menu, just larger. The only thing I miss is "recently used programs" and "recent documents", which I think are both missing from classic shell.
The question was about hardware...
That's mostly true, but there are a few irritating vestiges that I have yet to find a way to get rid of...
Annoying ones like the slide in panel that now goes with wireless networking and VPN connection control. It won't stay on screen while you access other windows - and particularly annoying - will consume a click anywhere on screen and use it as an indication that it should close. So if you want to go copy and past a username and password into a VPN connection for example, you can't in Win 8.
Most peoples concern with the start button, is the lack of launcher menu that was associated with it. On a multiscreen desktop the start screen is a very poor and rather jarring replacement.
(there are fortunately plenty of third party addons like Classic Shell that restore normal operation as well as making other welcome usability improvements)
Hardly matters if you never turn it off... ;-)
Larger, butt ugly, badly organised, non hierarchical, and obscures a whole frigging screen!
They are both present.
The question was can you "UPGRADE", which implies not reinstalling the OS from scratch.
Never used VPN in 8, but I've used wireless in 8 and I have no idea what panel you're talking about. I use the utility that came with the wireless adapter.
Define "launcher menu".
I tried that and as far as I remember it didn't have recent programs or recent documents. That's all I miss from 7 start menu.
I used to sleep mine so I had all my programs still there where I left them. Now it has something to do 24/7 I leave it on.
More room, nice pictures, quicker to find something.
Explain.
I wish it ordered them in recently used order, but it's fine just placing them myself. I put the common ones in the leftmost section, then the less common ones in a 2nd section, then things I rarely use in a 3rd section.
You only open it for a second to start a program.
I don't remember these, at least not in the original version, or I would have kept using it. I will have a look....
Thanks! I've now made it exactly as I had 7. I guess there weren't all those options when I first tried it (about when 8 was officially released).
MS finally saw sense when they put a lot of the Windows 7 stuff back in to Windows 8.1.
If you use the windows management interface for wireless connections, they appear on a slide in panel on the right hand edge of the screen - roughly under where the network connection icon normally appears on the tray.
The thing that pops up when you click "start" in Win XP through Win 7, and that which is missing from Win 8 and 8.1
Either your memory is faulty, or they have changed it since, as I have them both on mine.
Like what??! A picture for the start button instead of a blank space? I've seen nothing else come back.
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