[chaz_ahhh]

Hi Guys,

i couldn't seem to find a thread relating to this, appoligies if it's already been discussed in detail.

But,

I'm an Avid Windows XP user, and after using it for 8 years and supporting it in IT for 6 years, i know it inside out and how to setup it up perfefctly for my Mini 9.

Currently it's working brilliantly and i'm extremly happy

I've recently upgraded my desktop to Windows 7 and, although it's very nice, i'm not really feeling the benifit too much for what i use my PC for. So i'm not really bothered either way, but working in IT, i'm going to have to leave my beloved XP behind at somepoint and move on.

So the question is, based on the fact i'm not intrested in windows 7 for the new features and look and feel, is it worth upgrading my mini 9?

What benifits have you guys experienced? Does it "feel" snappier? does screen real estate feel more easier to manage? have boot times/suspend/wake up times decreased? do videos play back smoother and with less jumpiness? does it run cooler? can you play back videos (namley BBC iplayer) without them becoming unwatchable after 10 mins?

And on the contrary what disadvantages have you experienced? again do all or any of the above suffer?

based on the fact i use my mini 9 for connecting to various peices of equipment in server rooms via terminal windows, browsing the internet on my sofa, hooking it up to my tv to watch a bit of bbc iplayer, or watching bbc iplayer in bed and remote support work using my 3G card ie logging into windows servers etc.

will windows 7 benifit me atall? or will it actually be worse overall, i'm worried that screen real estate will be an issue and it will feel less "clean" than xp with all the new, unnessary, mac os styley graphics (or can i turn it all off to make it more practicle)

Any advice, and/or experience would be brilliant

(i could of course just shut up and install it myself to see, but i though it would be useful for anyone else having a similar dilema)

Chaz Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Aged 24 & 3/4

[holmes4]

My experience is that Windows 7 is an overall better experience on the netbook than XP. The screen is at least as clean as XP and you can make changes to further reduce the screen area used for the taskbar. Windows 7 has many optimizations for SSDs and netbooks and should give you better performance and better battery life.

If you're happy with XP, stay with it. But I would not go back. My work systems are still XP and I miss Windows 7 there. (We'll eventually move to Windows 7, but not yet...)

[MoInSTL]

Windows 7 runs great on my Mini 9 with two gigs of RAM. I can say that one of the best benefits is Windows 7 HomeGroup. It is so much easier to set up a network. Just a few mouse clicks and you're done. I couldn't believe how easy it was. I have an old HP work horse with a Jet Direct card and it found it easily too.

Another nice feature for Mini users is that it knows when you are not in your home network and applies the Public Network settings automatically.

There are more options to manage all of your your settings (like making the task bar small). IMO one can manage much more on a granular level than XP which sounds like what you like to do.

You may want to make an image of XP and at least try 7 for a few weeks to see whether you like it or not.

[nd4spdbh]

i love my mini 9, and for a long time i had a super tweaked stripped down copy of windows xp... as the full fledged xp install took too much space and was slow. But overall windows xp just felt quirky... it worked just fine but would stutter every now and then... it just didnt feel right... I then moved to windows 7 pro... a stripped down version via the guide here on my dell mini. and my god it was the best thing that ever happened to my mini 9... it became so much more usable, so much smoother so much faster... yet prettier... and the same battery life. Try it out id bet you wont go back. Needless to say i tried win 7 on my mini nine, cus i too was skeptical of gettin rid of my beloved windows xp, i never touched vista more than a beta test so i was VERY skeptical of an operating system that was very similar but ... i now run win 7 on my mini 9, main desktop, and HTPC.

[Cygnes]

Hey Guys,

Here's a question. How much space does Win 7 Home Pre take up? I'm not even sure how much space XP is taking up. 16GB isn't exactly a lot of space.

Thanx,
-Steve

[strider_mt2k]

It looks like Win7 Pro takes up a little over 10GB on my 32GB SSD as a "raw" install.

I've said this in other threads, but My Mini 9 runs Win7 right out of the box like it was the OS that was intended for it all along.
It's simply outstanding.

That being said, Windows XP can ALSO be made to run very very well.

The caveat THERE is that to do so you need to do some manual tweaking to make everything "just right" which is not to everyone's taste.

[nd4spdbh]

ya win 7 right out of the box uses up alot of space. But following the guide here at MyDell MINI will easily get you down to 3gb of space used.

Im also going to be testing a further stripped version that i made following instructions over at vlite forums.

[dstrauss]

I prefer Win 7 Home Premium over either Win XP or OS X on my Dell Mini 9 (2gb ram; 128gb SSD). It just runs better; is snappier; sleep mode works right.

[mehboob]

We have been testing it for a while now as well. It has been a charm.

[byrdman164]

Honestly, I installed windows 7 about half an hour ago on my mini 9 with an 8gb ssd (factory). Copied an image to an external drive in case I wanted to go back to XP if this didnt work. Surprisingly, it installed with no issues! I didnt have to trim it down or anything. Granted, it takes up much more space, but it still installed and worked great. After the install, it left me with 1.03GB free space, which I was shocked.