Windows 7 question

[Carbuff]

Does anyone know if windows 7 has the same file security nonsense that vista has? What I mean is that vista was always telling me that I didnt have permission to access drives and stuff and I would always have to go through some long process of taking ownership of drives and setting the permissions and what not. The reason Im asking is that Im thinking of upgrading my daughters computer to win7 because it is working really well on my laptop. But she has 3 other drives with data on them and I dont want to have to deal with all that ownership crap on them. If so then Ill just redo the system drive with winxp again.

[Ben...]

You mean User Account Control? The stupid thing that asks for admin permission to do everything? I just turn that off.

I've never had issues with not having permission to access drives or files. Do you mean like a portable hard drive or something like that? Or partitions of a drive?

I didn't have to do a thing when I upgraded to Windows 7 other than turn UAC off. Just make sure the account is the administrator so you can set any permissions yourself. That's all I can think of. Sorry I'm not much help. I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to.

[toxikdeth]

Sorry to get off subject but is it worth upgrading to windows 7

[Flatpicker]

Sorry to get off subject but is it worth upgrading to windows 7

I did from Vista and I like it.
It seems to run well on the 3 different machines I've put it on.
1 Atom based netbook 2 GB memory.
1 Centrino 2 based Laptop 4BG memory.
1 higher-end desktop 4GB memory.

[OnlineStageGear]

I think he is referring to the Vista flaw of making files unaccessible and you have to fix them to delete or rename them. UAC on or off has no effect.

[Carbuff]

Yeah, I put it on my laptop which originally came with vista but I hated it so I upgraded to xp and it ran much better faster startups none of all the wiz bang junk constantly popping up in my face all the time. Win 7 seems to be a bit leaner and faster than vista. If you are upgrading from xp you cant do an upgrade install and some programs might not be compatible. As to my original question, Im not referring to uac, I always turn that off in vista. The problems that I would often encounter with vista is if I added a drive to lets say back up files from another computer, vista would tell me that I couldnt access the drive as I didnt have permission and I would have to go through hoops to "own" the drive and have permission to access it. I never had those problems with xp. Vista just wasnt going to work for my needs. I do too much tinkering and vista needed to be "in charge" all the time or it wasnt happy.

[cornstar70]

Sorry to get off subject but is it worth upgrading to windows 7

It's definitely worth the upgrade. Plus, I think there's a site where you can get the upgrade for $30. But, i'm not sure the name of the site and I believe you can only upgrade from Vista to 7. Luckily, being an IT person, I got it free. W7 is far superior than vista. Much more stable, way better memory management, and it's the first true 64-bit OS Microsoft has managed to produce. Not like the previous so called "64-bit" OS's which were basically just emulations. You get way more "horsepower" out of your hardware w/ W7. Just think of it as a faster, more evolved version of XP with the aesthetics of Vista.

[Ben...]

Sorry to get off subject but is it worth upgrading to windows 7

From Vista? Heck yes in all cases. It's the same thing but without all the hassle and it uses a lot less of your system. The percentage of RAM in use when idle dropped about 5-10%.

From XP? Maybe, depending if your programs work (Which most will). It runs very well and I have had few problems running both the release candidate (From May until Monday last week) and the final version (From Monday until now, I upgraded to 64 bit. Seems a little faster.)

I think he is referring to the Vista flaw of making files unaccessible and you have to fix them to delete or rename them. UAC on or off has no effect.

Oh, I've never encountered that.

[Axewielder]

Much more stable, way better memory management...

Is this true? Vista's idea of memory management was to use ALL of your memory in an effort to guess how you might use it and optimize around those guesses. FAIL

[wr3k3d]

I'm running windows 7 with 2gigs of ddr2 PC2-8500 1066 with amd athlon 64 x2 Oc'ed too 2.8 from 2.2. and nvidia 9600gt and ive had not one problem. its very stable, very quick. Doesn't ask you everything like vista does. I think microsoft did it right this time.

[joelayres]

microsoft did it right

Now there is an oxymoron if I ever heard one!

[Newc]

MicroSloth counting Fail:
1. Windows 3.1
2. Windows 95
3. Windows 98
4. Windows XP
5. Windows Vista
6. Windows 7

[Spivonious]

MicroSloth counting Fail:
1. Windows 3.1
2. Windows 95
3. Windows 98
4. Windows XP
5. Windows Vista
6. Windows 7

You missed Windows ME. :P

Going by version numbers we have:

Windows 1
Windows 2
Windows 3
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.11
Windows 95 (4)
Windows 98 (4.1)
Windows ME (4.2)
Windows 2000 (5)
Windows XP (5.1)
Windows Vista (6)
Windows 7 (6.1)

I've been running Win7 since the public beta and think it's fantastic. Microsoft really made a nice OS this time around. If you're still on XP, it's time to upgrade (assuming your machine has at least 1GB of RAM; 2 GB is optimal). If you're on Vista, then I'd skip this round unless you're having major problems or your machine is at the minimum requirements.

As far as the original question, you shouldn't run into that with 7, unless your sharing is setup incorrectly. If the drives you're trying to access are running Win7 as well, just make everything part of a Homegroup and Windows does everything for you. Otherwise you'll need to make sure the user accounts match on the two PCs and setup sharing manually.

Also, UAC was toned down in Win7. The only time it pops up (on the default settings) is when you're installing a program or copying files to a non-user folder (which you really should stop doing anyway). You can adjust it to go back to Vista mode, or off. Honestly, once I had the computer setup and my programs installed, I never saw the UAC prompt again. Turning it off completely is a horrible idea as you won't be notified if any spyware is installing itself or trying to change settings.

They also toned down the aggressive pre-caching of Vista. But honestly, why have 6GB of memory if you're not going to use it? The memory is just cached; it's still free for use by running programs, but it definitely speeds up opening frequently used applications.

Side note - check out Microsoft's free AV program "Security Essentials". It takes up next to no resources while running and apparently does a good job catching things.

[rjohnstone]

To get back on topic,
Carbuff... if you're doing an upgrade from Vista, the permissions will not be an issue.
If you're doing a clean install, then yes, you will have to deal with the permission issue as the security tokens will not match.
Access is based on the SID of the user, not the actual user name.
When you perform and upgrade, all the SID's remain intact.

Contrary to what others may post, anyone running Vista should upgrade to 7.
The performance gains you get with 7 is like having a new PC.

And yes... Microsoft FINALLY got an OS right.

I ditched Vista Ultimate for Windows 7 Ultimate and the difference is night and day.
Much more stable now.

[Spivonious]

Oh, don't get me wrong, 7 is a definite upgrade from Vista, but if your Vista install is working fine, I don't think it's worth $100 to move up to 7.

If you have a .edu email address, you can get a Win7 upgrade for $30.

http://windows7.digitalriver.com/store/mswpus/en_US/DisplayHomePage?resid=8eqsXQoBAiMAAC58KoYAAAAZ&rests=1257179640728