The Glade 4.0

Ran across this deal the other day. Click here for details.

Apparently, all you need is a valid .edu email address. I've already qualified for mine, and will be ordering it later today. The great part is, you have until January 2010 to purchase it for this price. Granted, this is only for the digital download. It costs an extra $13 to have them ship you the actual discs. But that's still a small price to pay.



You can also goto http://www.win741.com for details, and to view the F.A.Q.



Just thought I'd share!

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

Yeah, I scored that too. Was disheartened to find out I wouldn't be able to upgrade from XP with it. This is only for the Upgrade version, is it not?

Anybody know if the Upgrade version will let you stick in any Windows CD to do a fresh install? If I can do that, I might make the jump.

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The Dude abides.

There is no version of Windows 7 that allows you to upgrade from Windows XP. The only way you can upgrade without installing it from scratch is if you have Windows Vista. I know this because I had the same question months ago and all answers, including official ones, pointed to this. Also, any version of Windows 7 that claims it is an "upgrade" is also the full version of the software. The "upgrade" is just a buzzword. You don't have to have Vista installed to do a full installation of the OS.

Glad to hear you guys are getting it cheap. I am too, but not quite that cheap. I was able to get in on the limited time offer they were having several months ago where you could pre-order it for more than 50% off, so I ordered two copies.

I have been using the Beta version of the 64 bit Windows 7 exclusively for months and I personally love this OS. The only major issues I've had are that my old trackball doesn't have drivers for it (not surprising, it's almost 10 years old and no longer being made... and I use a gaming mouse nowadays anyway) and that Majesty 2 doesn't work for me (I dual boot to xp to play it). The game works fine for my wife though, so I don't know what it is.

I have been a big fan of Windows XP for almost 7 years now. And after getting used to Windows 7, I find it's really hard to go back to XP. It just feels outdated, slower, and less secure.... (and less pretty). And it's weird to say that.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Numbuk, if you using the Release Client, then you can run WinXP virtually inside of Win7. Don't need to dual boot to play your game.

Yea, I pre-ordered Win 7 for the 50% off price, too. But I cancelled the order when I found out about this deal.

As far as the upgrade, yea, XP to Win 7 requires a "clean" install. You just have to insert your original XP disc during the install process.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

The XP Upgrade was this way too. Do you know if Windows 7 will just prompt for any Windows CD before proceeding with the full-blown install or will it only ask for a Vista CD?

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The Dude abides.

From what I understand, it won't prompt for a CD. I am 95% sure of this. It may ask for a CD key from XP, but I am pretty sure it won't ask for an extra CD.

From what I understand, the "upgrade" can be installed just like it was an OEM disc. This is something I was concerned about, because I didn't want to have to re-install XP just to re-install Windows 7. All answers pointed to that it could be fully installed from scratch by itself.


Edit: Also, and this is important..... The Virtual XP feature of Windows 7 does **NOT** work with games. It might work for a game like Solitaire, but it does **NOT** do any hardware acceleration. The Virtual XP feature was designed more for business applications (to help convince businesses to make the switch). I've tried it myself. It's like VMware (Virtual Machine). It uses it's own version of a virtual video driver, and does not (and can not) use drivers for your own video card.

So if you were planning on using the virtual XP to play your old games as a safety net, don't count on it. You will be better off making a small XP partition on your drive and dual-booting. A little disappointing, as I too was hoping for something as awesome as playing my old games without having to have an old OS on my drive. Ah well.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

So for all of you running Windows 7. 64 bit or 32 bit?

I have been running 64 bit Vista since RC2 and other than some issues with hardware drivers early on, haven't had any serious issues.

Any reason not to go 64 bit for W7 ?

Been running the Win7 64bit RC since it was released and I've had zero problems.

Probably not a huge difference if you have no problems. Windows 7 is essentially Vista, just without the bloat, looser security warnings, a little more streamlined, and several (very nice) GUI enhancements. A lot of people using 7 say it "feels" faster than Vista but I can't confirm any of this.

It definitely blows XP out of the water for me in terms of slickness and speed.

I would do a bit of research on the differences to see if making the jump for you is really worth it. You may find that moving over to Windows 7 isn't quite worth it yet.

Bear in mind that when searching for articles, the date on the article may be something to take note of. Articles written in 2008, especially in mid 2008, were reviewing Windows 7 when it was still in an Alpha stage. Articles written in/after mid 2009 are more likely on the mark with the eventual retail release candidate.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

For lower-end computers Win7 performs much better than Vista, especially with all the visual effects turned on. I can confirm this first-hand. Also, the indexing in Vista could cause your computer to lag until everything was crawled, but I haven't experienced that at all in 7.