Windows 7

[JerryF]

I have looked through the recent topics for a referance to using Windows 7.
Are there any problems about changing from XP home?
I believe 7 comes in various forms, is there anything to choose between them?
Thanks in advance
Jerry

[ksinkel]

Running Windows 7 is fine. From the standpoint of running PWP, I do not see any reason to prefer any one of the Windows 7 flavors over others (e.g. Home, Professional, etc).

Kiril

[cliff]

You can compare the different editions at the following web site. Note that the Pro version has an XP Compatibility mode that might be important for some of your XP programs.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... fault.aspx

[keithrj]

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit without any problems. I would suggest going to 64bit as there will be a 64bit version of PWP which will allow you to take advantage of more memory for larger images.

[davidh]

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit edition without any problems too.
The 64bit version is a good idea unless you have another software not supported on 64bit which is my case. The version of Silverfast I got bundled with Epson V750 scanner is one build short of being upgradable to 64bit version.

David

[keithrj]

DavidH, I have not found any 32-bit software that does NOT run on 64-bit Windows 7. The only problem I have had is old drivers that don't work. I am willing to bet your Silverfast will work on 64-bit as long as your driver for the scanner works.

[davidh]

Keithrj,
I really was not able to make Silverfast run on Windows 7 64bit. Since Silverfast is not a general scanner software like Vuescan but is scanner model dependent and based on the information from Silverfast that my SF version will not be upgraded to 64bit, I concluded that it is just for my scanner model running just on 32bit and gave up on retrying. I had the right scanner driver straight from Epson.
Still I guess I will try again.
Thanks for the interest,
David

[davidh]

Keithrj,

you seem to have found one.

David

[keithrj]

Davidh,

well there will always be something that won't work. My Canon scanner was similar as I think the driver was somehow built into the scanning software.

Have you contacted the developers of the software to see if they have an update for Windows 7 64bit?

[mjdl]

Since I had 32-bit Vista on a Lenovo notebook, I was able to upgrade only to the 32-bit version of Windows 7 via the Lenovo OEM upgrade offer.

While this does mean that I can't take advantage of all the installed memory on my machine (i.e. the BIOS firmware has remapped above 4GB any installed physical memory that would shadow the video and other devices' mapped memory space below 4GB, but 32-bit Windows, when it constructs the machine's physical memory map on start-up, will not use any physical memory above a 4GB physical address, so you effectively lose that remapped memory), it does mean very few device driver compatibility issues: if it worked on Vista, it will work on Windows 7.

One way to coax such 32-bit "Vista only"drivers to install (if they failed to install via the program installer), is to go to the "Device Manager" (on the desktop: Computer-->Manage-->Device Manager), locate the hardware (USB hardware must be plugged in), and use the context menu item "Upgrade driver..." to locate the folder with drivers that the (failing) installation may have helpfully copied to your machine anyway.

A similar strategy will work on 64-bit Windows with 64-bit and some 32-bit drivers, but only if the Vista drivers are signed. You can generate a self-signed certificate with the Windows SDK and use the tools there to sign drivers--but this is high-end Windows geek stuff, I've never done it.