[Closed] New computer. Stick with Win7 or buy Win10?

Also, if I go for Windows 10, will it fit on a 120 GB SSD or should I go bigger? There will be a second HDD in there too.

If you're looking to go proper cutting edge, Intel and AMD no longer support Windows 7:

"Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel's upcoming 'Kaby Lake' silicon, Qualcomm's upcoming '8996' silicon, and AMD's upcoming 'Bristol Ridge' silicon."

https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/16/10780876/microsoft-windows-support-policy-new-processors-skylake

That is what has stopped me from upgrading just yet. I have a copy of Windows 10 sat next to me, but I just can't bring myself to do it just yet.

I'd go W10: It's better than 7 and future proofs your PC.

Download and install Windows 10, activate it with your Windows 7 key, send me the £75.

it seems to be constantly updating

Irrespective of what it may "seem," Windows Updates are released on the second Tuesday of the month just like they have since the late Jurassic.  There are sometimes extraordinary patches, but these are generally in response to immediate threats.

Windows 10 has the option to share updates with other W10 machines, which will reduce your Internet usage.

Don't disable updates.

Also, if I go for Windows 10, will it fit on a 120 GB SSD or should I go bigger? There will be a second HDD in there too.

That'll be fine (it's exactly how my laptop is set up).

Windows 10 doesnt give anything amazingly better (unless compared to 8).

I am not sure where 7 is at in the support life cycle though which would be my only real concern.

I am not sure where 7 is at in the support life cycle though which would be my only real concern.

Mainstream support for W7 ended three years ago.  You've got another two years of security-only patch releases and then that's your lot.

There's no way on this Earth I'd be installing W7 on a new machine.

I've stuck with 7 without any issues when I built my Ryzen 1700 system last year.  windows 10 sucks ass.

I only know from the boys in work setting up PCs, but...

If you download Windows 10 from MS it not quite current, but it will update from fresh to ready in about 30 mins (this is based on a 300Mbps connection mind you)

Windows 7 was taking most of the working day back when we sold Win7 machines.

Win10 will still update once a month, but so does Win7 (and 8 I presume, but who cares right). The good news for people with slow connections is that it's got some clever features to try to ease the pain. i never notice mine's updating until it mentions it needs a re-start. You can do a few things with the settings for metered connections to make it update less.

As an OS it's lovely, for a muggle user like me, it's like 7 but nicer to look at, with a start menu that sort of looks like the massive full screen win 8 start menu in miniature.

If I had a complaint it's this - to give it super-fast boot times it,s sneaky - it will boot to the log-in screen really quickly, but once you get to the desktop, whilst it looks really, it's not really and if you try to do anything it will just lag. You won't notice it so much with an SSD on a decent machine, but on something with a slower CPU and a mechanical drive it's annoying.

Have you got the Lettuce upgrade?

Win10 is way better than 7. No choice really for me.

120GB SSD as a primary will be fine, my work PC is setup like that and I've still room for a huge code repository and multiple heavy dev environments.

Had to use a win7 machine today... It's not aged well. If you want to sort out the updates read the instructions. It's simple and easy. If you constantly put off updates it will stack up if you do t have the computer on a lot you.might get the  when you turn on.

Windows 10 has the option to share updates with other W10 machines, which will reduce your Internet usage.

Don’t disable updates.

That.  You would really have to have a good reason for wanting to stick with 7.

Fairy muff. Thanks for all that really useful info guys, it is a great help. Very easy to stick with what you know and are comfy with. Jeez, I would still be using windows 3.1 if I could 🙂

Will bite the bullet, go for Win10, and pray that Openreach can push that fibre another few metres up the valley towards us. Currently 6 miles on copper!

W10 , obviously.

It's not that hard to install an OEM version of 10 for about 20-25 quid, if the 75 quid is bothering you.

That. You would really have to have a good reason for wanting to stick with 7.

Still use 7 mostly at work (servers are mostly newer but desktops still 7) and dont find massive difference aside from when I have to use the single 8 server directly and end up swearing.

I thought the free upgrade for 7 had expired now? Not sure I would bother paying more right now for 10 unless an program required it. Since on 10 at home though it hasnt come up.

It’s not that hard to install an OEM version of 10 for about 20-25 quid free, if the 75 quid is bothering you.

FTFY.

I thought the free upgrade for 7 had expired now?

In theory it has officially, but it's still free if you have accessibility requirements.  In practice, there are no checks or enforcement around this requirement, you can freely download it just as you always could. And as I said earlier, you can install W10 with a W7 retail or OEM key which the OP already has.

Microsoft wants everyone on a common platform - Windows 10 - and for the old legacy crap to die a death.  They're making their money in the server / corporate arena and seemingly don't care about the consumer market - who gives a crap about a $10 OEM licence when they can sell you a database server for ten grand?

Still use 7 mostly at work (servers are mostly newer but desktops still 7) and dont find massive difference aside from when I have to use the single 8 server directly and end up swearing.

Enterprise environment is a completely different story.  For folks at home looking after themselves then install windows 10, uninstall whatever shit antivirus was pre installed (if any), sign up for Office365, save everything on OneDrive and then just get on with something way more interesting.

(oh, and buy an iPad for one handed surfing and keep it away from the files you care about 🙂 )

Edit: for reference, I help a number of small non-profits with their IT for amusement.  My life has got waaaaaaaay easier since Win 10.  Unless people start 'optimising' things then the machines tend to just work and if they go down the Office365 and OneDrive route then it is fairly straightforward to get stuff up and running again when it goes wrong.

will it fit on a 120 GB SSD or should I go bigger?

depends what you need it for, will all your programs fit onto a 120GB drive.

I've a 250, and I've only 40GB left on it, but I want a load of stuff on there to be quickly loadable (basically about 70/80GB of abelton live gubbins.) I think a base w10 install will be somewhere around 40-70GB. can't mind, it'll be no bigger.

Basically, figure out how much stuff you want to load quickly if you can fit it all on the SSD happy days, if not buy a bigger one. it's only about 80 quid for a 250GB these days anyhow mind, so may aswell go bigger.

1.5 interweb is your biggest problem, **** that! (since when is eck a swear word? 😆 )

w10 is a good OS, there's no logical reason to stay on 7 unless you are restricted by some bit of archaic software.

You'd be aswell buying the SSD first and sticking it in your current comp if you are only looking to make a slightly better build.

So if I was you, fit an SSD, upgrade to w10, then fix you interweb before looking build a better computer.

basically about 70/80GB of abelton live gubbins

🙂  Using Ableton is a good way to use up your disk space

But it is worth going up to 250 if you can.  The folks I know still on 120 spend a lot of time moving stuff onto USB (or picking which stuff to sync with OneDrive and what not to).    If all you have is Word and Excel files then all is okay.  If you want to have your photos there as well, or even play with a bit of ableton, then the bump up to 250 will make life easier.  But 120 will work

 it’s only about 80 quid for a 250GB these days anyhow

Someone posted a PSA this morning for one for £60.

The folks I know still on 120 spend a lot of time moving stuff onto USB

The OP has a second HDD, data storage shouldn't be a problem.  (I'd probably go for a 250 given the price now, point is that a 120 isn't the end of the world.  My 120 is half full.)

In fact, I'd get this:

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/250gb-samsung-850-evo-25-ssd-sata-iii-6gb-s-mgx-3d-v-nand-512mb-cache-read-540mb-s-write-520mb-s-97k

Be prepared for Windows 10 to launch a two day denial of service attack on your broadband. After that it's generally worse than 7, but after a couple of days playing wackamole you can eventually get everything working.

It looks like the OP has already been persuaded (and I was only coming on this thread to point out you can still get W10 for free using a W7 key - it even works as a clean install using an Enterprise W7 key now, and I happen to have a couple of those...) But just to add my 2p, I've never been into upgrading OS for the sake of it before I have to and was very happy using W7, expecting to carry on with it until updates stopped - I'm also on old hardware which doesn't officially have support for W10 and still use some oldish peripherals I wasn't expecting to be supported. However I needed to install the latest version of SQL Server which doesn't work with W7, so it was forced on me...

Anyway it's been fine - I don't think I've found anything which doesn't work or isn't supported. I installed all the drivers which would install for my machine (using a combo of the available W7/W8/W8.1 drivers) but then found that following a major update W10 supported the other stuff which I had no specific drivers for. Some things work much better in W10 and having got over the usual "it's not what I'm used to" I'm finding the general experience is better.

For all normal contexts updates have also been completely pain free as well, presumably happening whilst I was asleep. I'm still feeling a bit irritated though that it powered off my Ubuntu server VMs in order to do an update!

I went for a 240gb SSD as with windows, the apps I want and 3 or 4 medium sized games, or 2 or 3 large games installed, it's pretty much full.

I have a couple of much larger older drives for media storage and light weight games that don't really benefit from the speed of the SSD.

Works well for me, and if your not gaming or doing some other high intensity things, then a 120gb is fine, just dump all your media files on a 2ndary  older mechanical drive

Just want to point something out.

Windows updates do not hog bandwidth (at least not in our house with its 4mbps).  However the Windows Store does. Whenever we find the internet going to pot, I open up a Windows machine and find the store downloading a ton of updates for the apps.  I have to manually pause it.  This does not happen with Windows updates which I don't notice.

Although - this hasn't happened for ages, so maybe they've fixed it?

4 mbs Moley... I have broadband envy. 🙂

TBF I think our initial worries over my brothers Win 10 laptop updates causing the net to shut down have proven to be largely unfounded and after considerable trial and error it seems my nephews' PS3 (or is it 4?) is the root cause of most of the bandwidth hoggage, even when it appears to be asleep. Pulling the plug on it seems to cure most ills.

I actually have a 250GB SSD on my current Win7 PC but in 5 years use it is still only half full. My 1TB HDD is also only 1/3 full so I would generally class myself as a low data user. New PC would replace this one with slightly better cpu and a much better gpu and this one would be relegated to secondary use by mrs farmer. Oh, and new computer would be smaller form factor so as to free up some leg room under my desk 🙂 Priorities!!

Thanks again for all the comments, hopefully others have found it useful too