There has been many stories going around the internet on how well Windows 7 manages on older and inferior hardware compared to what Windows Vista did. Having an old laptop lying unused in my shed, I decided to test this out myself. I went to the shed, picked up my old dusty Toshiba Satellite 1200 S121 and returned to my office. I plugged in the machine, popped the Windows 7 Ultimate x86 DVD and booted from it.

This is the story of how that went down, but first some facts;

Windows 7 hardware requirements

So, as you can see the Toshiba is lacking when it comes to RAM and video card. Both could be show-stoppers, but hey, since I am not using the machine anyway, lets give it a go.

Installing

After choosing Custom Install and reformatting my drive the installation started. And here I noted the first difference compared to my previous installations on my other laptops and desktops; It took a lot longer to install Windows 7 on this one. A total of a little more than an hour as opposed to the 18 minutes it took on my HP laptop.

I was really curious to see if this would work, and if there were serious problems around after the install had finished and I was greeted with the desktop for the first time. As always, one of the first things I do after installing an OS is to check out the Device Manager for any potential problems.

As the screenshot above shows there were no surprises. I already knew that there did not exist any WDDM 1.0 drivers for the onboard Intel 830MG video card, so the fact that it showed up with an exclamation mark was expected. So this was  a good start.

The next obvious thing was of course to head over to Windows Update to get whatever was available for me.

I got some updated drivers, amongst them drivers for the soundcard that only now I noticed did not work properly.

The next thing was to download an anti-virus for the laptop, and I chose to use the trial version of Trend Micro Internet Security Beta for Windows 7. Will see how that one works out.

How does it work?

Basic System information on the Toshiba Satellite 1200 S121

The Windows Experience Index comes out with the result of 1.0 due to only using generic VGA drivers. Not that any available WDDM drivers would have raised it much given that the processor and RAM only get 1.8. It is obviously not going to run any demanding games or applications well.

Starting applications takes some time, and I would not multitask on this one! But that said, once an application is running it works just fine. (as long as the app in question is not too demanding on the hardware – this post is written in Live Writer on the Toshiba, and without any problems whatsoever).

As you also can see from the screenshots above, I installed Ultimate on it, which really is a waste, given the limited available hardware resources. I did install it, since I already had downloaded and burned the x86 ISO to a DVD, and did not feel the need to waste bandwidth on another download. So I thought it was time to trim off some of the fat, and remove unnecessary features in order to speed it up a little.

Prior to the trimming, with WordPad, Live Writer and the System Information Tool running the Windows Task Manager showed me that the system was using approximately 400 MB of the available 503 MB. I did not think trimming away features would improve this much, but decided to give it a try anyway;

I ended up with turning off Windows DVD Maker (having no DVD burner), Tablet PC Components and Windows Fax and Scan. To what effect? Nothing positive… RAM usage went up and available hard disk space was reduced… So much for trimming the fat!

Conclusion

Windows 7 is less demanding on hardware than Windows Vista was. I tried installing Vista on this very same machine, and it was utterly unusable, whereas the Windows 7 install works. The machine can be used for internet surfing, basic word-processing and similar tasks, but not for more heavy applications. The official Windows 7 hardware requirements looks to be a good guideline when determining whether to upgrade or not, as this system would have done much better with double the amount of RAM as well as a newer video card.

The machine will probably be used by my 9-year old daughter for internet surfing (mostly Facebook and Facebook-games) as well as the writing the occasional document, for which she can use WordPad. For more demanding tasks there is always the desktop PC that my kids normally use…

All in all an interesting experiment, and although Windows 7 works on this machine, it cannot perform miracles. The hardware in question is 7 years old, and the mere fact that an OS of this day and age actually do run adequately is most impressive.

Anyone else around that has tried something similar? What are your experiences?

In January the European Union stated that Microsoft most likely broke European antitrust laws since they were bundling Internet Explorer with their Windows Operating System. Today cnet news’ Ina Fried broke the story of Microsoft’s response to the EU; they will release a version of Windows 7 aimed for the European market without IE in it. As Microsoft themselves states it in their leaked memo;

"To ensure that Microsoft is in compliance with European law, Microsoft will be releasing a separate version of Windows 7 for distribution in Europe that will not include Windows Internet Explorer," the software maker said in the memo. "Microsoft will offer IE8 separately and free of charge and will make it easy and convenient for PC manufacturers to preinstall IE 8 on Windows 7 machines in Europe if they so choose. PC manufacturers may choose to install an alternative browser instead of IE 8, and has always been the case, they may install multiple browsers if they wish."

The whole case is so stupid in so many ways, and I have the following comments;

1. This antitrust case comes at a time when there has never been more competition in the browser market than there is now. Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari are all doing very well, thank you very much. While IE had a market share that hovered around 90 % 5 years ago, it barely brakes 70 % today – and is on a steady decline.
2. The main complainant in the case, Norwegian Opera Software, is (of course) not happy with Microsoft’s solution, saying that it will “not restore competition in the marketplace”. There are a lot of Opera fans out there, especially in Europe, but obviously not enough to make much of a dent in the charts when it comes to market share. But how come this browser is not gaining, while the other choices are? Might it be that the other products are perceived as better?

   

3. If the European Union accepts this solution from Microsoft (which is not entirely sure) who thinks that PC manufacturers will actually provide a PC without a browser on it? And if they install one, which one will that likely be – IE most likely. Google might have the money to persuade manufacturers to bundle Chrome, but in no way does Opera Software have that money available. And what about retail versions of the OS? Does this imply that you go home with your copy of Windows, perform an upgrade or clean install only to have an OS with no internet browser at all? (This of course leads to the rebirth of internet browser CD install disks – back to the 90’s :-D) Stupid, stupid, stupid.
4. In 2009 an internet browser is integral to any operating system. Apple Mac OS X without Safari? If this legal battle had taken place in the 90’s I could have understood it, but not now. The world has changed and the thought of having an operation system without an internet browser is just stupid. How in the world would you get on the net? You couldn’t even download a competing internet browser! As I have stated above there is more competition in this market than it has ever been, and Safari, Google and Firefox seems to be gaining market share at the cost of Internet Explorer every day. There obviously is no need for an antitrust case since the market seems to be functioning just fine.
5. My last point: I am deeply sorry for this embarrassing legal battle instigated by a Norwegian Company (and we are not even members of the EU!).

What are your thoughts on this issue? If you reside in Europe will you purchase a European Internet browser free edition of Windows 7, or will you do as I will, get the US version?

The common advice out there is that unless you have more than 4 GB RAM there really is no need to go for a 64bit version of Windows. Well, I think otherwise. Yesterday, I figured it was time to reformat and install Windows 7 RC on my recently returned laptop. It is a HP dv9074ea from 2006. It has a AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 processor, I have upgraded it to 2 GB RAM and it has two internal hard drives, initially both 80 GB drives, but one has been exchanged to a 500 GB one. I have been accepted into the Beta testing program for Windows 7 Norwegian Language Edition (x86) and heading the first advice I mentioned above, thus decided to install the 32 bit Norwegian Language RC on the laptop.

The install went fine, but I was greeted by something far from a clean device manager afterwards, and had to install Vista drivers in order to have the system running. I then went through the hoops detailed in my install guide. But things did not continue smoothly. Far from it. Norton Internet Security 2009 were not allowed to run its heuristic drivers (incompatible according to the OS), I experienced several systemwide hangs, and had to force a log out to have the OS respond to keystrokes on several occasions. After having installed several of my applications I ran a Windows Update and were met with the Office 2007 SP 2 download – a huge one. For me that was a decision point. I was not happy with they way my system was running. It seemed at times slow, non-responsive and flat out buggy. That coupled with the fact that I am now so used to the English version of the OS that I did not feel at ease with a Norwegian version, made me decide to reformat again.

This time I installed the English x64 version from a USB memory stick (check here for instructions on how to do it) and it took a total of 15 minutes from I restarted my machine, reformatted the C drive, installed Windows 7 RC to be greeted by the desktop. The Device Manager was not completely clean, but a Windows Update found the missing drivers and the system was really running fine. I have now installed almost all my frequently used applications and the system works the way I want it to – smoothly with no problems.

Funny fact; I even have a slightly better Windows Experience Index on the x64 version; 4.5 as opposed to 4.4 on the 32 bit version (both due to the integrated Nvidia GeForce 7600 Go video card).

I am not completely sure whether this is due to the 32 bit OS or to inherent bugs in the Norwegian Language version of Windows 7 RC, but the user experience made it an easy choice. Yes I had to install everything again (not hard – just time consuming), but definitely worth it.

What are your experiences on this? 32 or 64 bit and why? Let me know…