Is windows 7 faster than xp?

I just installed it, and it’s pretty decent. I also have a Core2 Duo w/ 8GB of ram and a decent graphics card.

YMMV.

It’s a good OS, with some useful twists, like libraries and the new task bar. No real problems except I still prefer to use the Google indexer rather than the native one, and Firefox or Chrome rather than IE.

Windows 7 64-bit is faster than Vista 64-bit but much slower than XP 64-bit. So in short, no. But it’s a worthwhile upgrade for other reasons. Functionality, higher stability by a bit.
So that’s it, the only reason is – it’s an upgrade, vista done “right”. Brings you to the current state. Though if you don’t really need to, XP still works more than fine.

XP still has slightly better driver support for quite a few devices. But everything will work on Windows 7 – just some things will work in a slightly different way.

You have to “fight” to get the quicklaunch back as well :P

I used 7 for a while. It’s not necessarily “faster” (quite a generic term) but I find it more optimized.

The taskbar is very nicely done, I find it to be more useful then the Dock on a Mac. Other little perks, like Aero Glass/Peek, etc. make it a very nice system to use. I think it’s worth it if you computer is fast enough.

My experience thus far is that it’s actually a hair slower but at least it can run on low-power systems like netbooks; something Vista was utterly incapable of. If you, like @grumpyfish, run a more modern/high-end system than I generally do, then you may not notice the speed difference though.

Personally, I am grudgingly warming up to Win7 out of sheer necessity (soon it will be the *only Windoze), but I want to find whoever though the new and “improved” Taskbar was a good idea and mace them in the face though. (Not pepper spray; I’m talking mace.)

That said, I just fully went to Ubuntu since it’s faster on my slow PC than WinXP/Win7 on a “faster” box. There is a reason that most of your supercomputers run Linux ;)

I use an Ubuntu distro on my netbook. It and Win 7 are both OK. They each have problems. So does OSX. So did CP/M and DOS, for that matter. Hell, they are just computers.

Vista is a pig. 7 is a much better OS, but if you are on XP, there is still no compelling reason to install it on an existing computer. For one thing, there is no clear upgrade path. There are some things you can do to preserve local data and user preferences, but you’ll still need to start over, necessitating a reinstall of all your applications. More pain than it is worth, since there’s nothing out there that requires 7 to run properly. Any application you can buy off the shelf will still run just fine on XP.

Windows 7 is not faster than XP overall (although it may win out in certain measurements). I have been very happy with the speed of Linux.

Windows 7 is not slower than XP due to the enhancements and improvements such as enhanced graphics options which consume much of computer’s memory and processor speed. But overall, Windows 7 puts up a better Operating System than other windows OS do (and that includes XP).

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