Advice Request Windows 7 better than Windows 10, really?

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OK , so i have installed Win7 on a low-end laptop (1ghz atom cpu, 2gb Ram) which is a similar specs available at Win7 release , and since many many people claimed that Win10 is crappy compared to Win7 ; let me compared Win7 to Win10 ... i will even use Win7 Ultimate vs Win10 Home

this will be a real-time comparison made like Average Joe would.

please don't mention about privacy , it is not the purpose here.

Installation
(Win10 win)

both OS are in the latest ISO from USB using Rufus

Win7 : the installation was properly made, nothing special there
Win10: same as Win7, did customized setting , etc...

Then there the first expected fail of Win7 ; it doesn't have the proper drivers for my machine; which was released for Win8. So basically i ended up with no network, so i can't have Windows Updates...
I was expected it so i have them downloaded prior to the installation, but Average Joe won't think of it and if he doesn't have another PC under hands, he is done...

Post Installation (no winner)

Win7:
user account creation is classic , nothing to complain here.
Win10: MS push you to use a MS account for various purposes, but a local account is permitted ; so here nothing to complain too.

Windows Updates (Win10 win)

when i install an OS , the first thing i do is Windows Update to get latest compatible drivers and security fixes.

Win7:
Windows update hang and download nothing, if i didn't have a network traffic monitoring tool i could wait for hours. so i started wasting my time looking for fixes and finally find one here Windows 7 - Windows Updates hanging and not downloading?
Win10: clicked "check updates, after less than a minute , all are displayed, downloaded , installed without issues. I heard that some users had problems with it and some updates smashed their system, but i did dozen of Win10 installs and never get one.
If you worry, you can force Win10 to download only fixes and not drivers. ( PC > Hardware > Device Installation Settings)

Installation of updates in Win10 is smoother and less subject to errors/crash , not saying than on Win7 the display of the updates is very bad , you don't know if it is installing or hanging...


Post installation Cleaning/Tweaking/Backup (Not for Average Joe) (Win7 win)

After updating the OS, i always clean it and do various tweaks and modifications to make it "faster" , safer, and easier to use. Among those tweaks are services customization, security tweaks via registry/group policies, etc...Then finish by a backup using Windows Backup.

Win7: all options are in the same place (control panel ), they are easy to get.
Win10: i dont know why they decided to split the settings in 2 places , it make it harder to do since you have to navigate in "Settings" which may redirect to Control Panel...

In term of customization and control Win7 is better than Win10, (Win10 removing many of the control you had in Win7).
It is the main reason why Geeks and other advanced users stick to Win7.
For the backup no difference because Win10 uses Win7 system :D

I will post my Customized Win7 theme, im sure you will love it ;)
there the screenshot : Desktops Show Off!

Built-in Security (Win10 win)

when the OS is totally installed, cleaned, tweaked, it is time to check the security.

Win7: unless you have a version of Win7 with Applocker, Win7 barely give you anything to protect yourself, you must look for a 3rd party application.
Win10: MS did its best to give to the customers a secure OS , so many security implementations were made (kernel enhanced protection, secureboot, integrated AV, system wide reputation feature, new integrity level, etc...) , as a common user , you barely need anything else; security geeks however... ;)

3rd Party security softs (Win7 Win)

Now that we knows the security features of the OS, it is up to the user to add its favored security soft.

Win7: All the actual security softs works on Win7 , so there is no problem.
Win10: due to some restrictive adjustments made to the kernel, some softs can't run anymore on Win10 and some can't use or lost some of their features/protection (KIS, Webroot, Zemana, etc...).

Performance (Win10 win)

now all is set , we can start enjoy the OS...as i said earlier , both OS were tested on a machine with the technology available at their release. There is no point on comparing a new OS on a machine made to run on a older OS. the older OS will always perform better.

Win7: Quite fast and if you disable Aero and sounds, Win7 is even faster.
Win10: Win7 has a huge advantage on Win7 , it is the Hybrid Boot (aka Fast Boot) that really increase the boot time of the machine. However Win10 has many feature that eat resources and honesty not really needed and those can be disabled (as you can do for Win7)

Usability (Win7 win)

What is important is usability, you won't spend too much time looking for something.
This comparison was made on laptops not a tablets , so i judged it accordingly.

Win7: all is at the same place, easily accessible.
Win10: Win8/10 were made for tablet first (and desktop after) , so the usability is quite different.

Luckily MS improved the desktop experience of Win 10 with the lastest Anniversaty Update. but in a overall point of view ,Win7 is better on desktop/laptop machines.


Conclusion:

the Winner is Win10 because its security and core enhancements and optimization, however Win7 keep the leadership in term of customization/control and usability.


Ok so it is finish now, so you are welcome to comment; i tried to do this comparison as fair as possible for both OS.
 
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CMLew

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Oct 30, 2015
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Hmm.. mine running Win10 but my specs are just Core M with 4GB RAM, though mine running SSD. So performance wise can i say it would be better off to run Win7? Not talking about security performance but more on speeds and stuffs.
 

askmark

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Definitely Windows 10 - IMO every version of Windows, from version 7 to 10 has improved on the previous one. Even Windows 8 which the only issue I had with was the awful start menu, but that was easily corrected and didn't stop me using it. Under the hood, the improvements from each version are vast and shouldn't be underestimated. I've never had a stop error on Windows 10 and I can't say that about 7, and this is with exactly the same hardware. Not only that, this is on a Core 2 Duo 8400, 8 year old Dell Vostro!

Personally, I don't like the start menu in Windows 10, but I can live with it as I don't really use it that much to launch applications, not now I use Listary which is absolutely perfect for my needs and has improved my productivity leaps and bounds!

No OS is perfect, but I've used Windows since version 3 and nothing, apart from Windows ME, has put me off using Windows.
 

Mineria

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Mar 19, 2016
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Games play noticeably slower. Slower boot... downgraded happily.
You mean on really old hardware, right?
Have yet to see it perform any slower on systems with 3rd generation of Intel i5/i7 and up.
Besides gaming, my current rig cold boots around twice as fast with 10 than 7.

Did not respond well to tweaks.
Some tweaks use different registry entries, if you adjust your scripts accordingly they do work.
Although, a lot of tweaks floating around on the net are useless even for Windows 7.

Used 250ks more RAM (on average)
250KB?
Sorry to say so, but if 250KB higher RAM usage is of any concern for you, you definitely need to upgrade your hardware.
 
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Evjl's Rain

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You mean on really old hardware, right?
Have yet to see it perform any slower on systems with 3rd generation of Intel i5/i7 and up.
Besides gaming, my current rig cold boots around twice as fast with 10 than 7.


Some tweaks use different registry entries, if you adjust your scripts accordingly they do work.
Although, a lot of tweaks floating around on the net are useless even for Windows 7.


250KB?
Sorry to say so, but if 250KB higher RAM usage is of any concern for you, you definitely need to upgrade your hardware.
I'm running windows 10 home because my laptop can handle it and because the laptop was shipped with w8.0 so it's better to stay to w10 than 7
However, in a very low-end laptop (2Gb ram), I tried to install w10 (pre-installed then uninstalled stuffs and tweaked) & w7 with tweaks I have learnt for years, w7 is x2-x5 faster to w10 because w10 is constantly using pagefile due to a lack of memory (causing 100% disk usage in normal tasks, not idle) while windows 7 doesn't
telling ppl to upgrade their hardware is a good idea but also the worst idea because they can do something that they don't have to upgrade to make their rigs work faster like installing w7 with tweaks. W10 with tweaks doesn't really work with low-end machines and it might cause 100% disk usage due to software-hardware conflicts

My cousin has a sony vaio i7-3630QM - 8Gb laptop. He upgraded to w10 from the official microsoft tool and it was totally screwed up because of 100% disk usage bug. He installed w7 again without any tweak and now it is x10 faster (maybe a bit exaggerated but you can understand how much faster it can be)
my girlfriend's sony vaio i5-4Gb ram had the exact same problem. perhaps, updating BIOS can fix it but who knows
 
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JakeXPMan

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You mean on really old hardware, right?
Have yet to see it perform any slower on systems with 3rd generation of Intel i5/i7 and up.
Besides gaming, my current rig cold boots around twice as fast with 10 than 7.


Some tweaks use different registry entries, if you adjust your scripts accordingly they do work.
Although, a lot of tweaks floating around on the net are useless even for Windows 7.


250KB?
Sorry to say so, but if 250KB higher RAM usage is of any concern for you, you definitely need to upgrade your hardware.

Some tweaks work nicely, others don't seem to offer much, so less is more in that regard. I just keep my start up and programs to things I need and use, and no processes running in background for no reason.

Not to say Windows 10 isn't impressive... its a good OS, very light (on dual core +) and with RAM considering the selections and apps on it, and on default settings.

Just that for whatever reason this old laptop of mine, runs good on XP, great on 7 and sluggish on 10.
 
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Lucent Warrior

Thread author
You mean on really old hardware, right?
Have yet to see it perform any slower on systems with 3rd generation of Intel i5/i7 and up.
Besides gaming, my current rig cold boots around twice as fast with 10 than 7.

Im running windows 10 pro AU on 2nd generation intel and it is smooth and fast as can be.

Windows 7 is a seasoned OS. It is still a solid contender. That said, updating windows 7 from a clean install is a lengthy, pain in the arse, and you better hope you do not get caught on one of the update/corrupted installer loops in the process. Last machine i updated from scratch of windows 7, which was about a week ago, had over 300 updates to start with upon the first scan for updates. o_O:eek::rolleyes:

Windows 10 has had it share of issues as well, but i can literally clean install it and have the drivers up to date, and be installing user programs in under a couple hours, i can not do this with windows 7, at least not a complete clean install.
 

Soulbound

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My only grip with W10 is the Theme support. Yes you have to use 3rd party tools just like W7, but not every theme available requires the same tools.

In regards to Updates, since I come from a Linux Background + everyone remembers the XP SP fiasco, offline updates will fix any issue in terms of speed.

Currently for W7/W8.1 you have two, while for W10 you have one.

For regular and average and even new user, W7 to W10, improvements been made and easier, no denying it.
 

Evjl's Rain

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Windows update can increase or decrease system performance and it decreases drive C space

I had an old W7 machine w/ 2Gb of ram. After a full windows update with some cleanup and tweaks, it could never has the same speed as before

The best is to install windows with updates preinstalled so system would get the best performance. I feel like updating from the original windows will decrease speed rather than increase

I tried to install W7 ISO with all the latest updates preinstalled, it ran extremely fast. Then, I decided not to sacrifice system performance for those security updates unless they are written on newspapers that they really fix something or increase system performance

moreover, there was an update for windows 7 that caused BSOD. It was announced on many newspapers. I updated it before they announced. Guess what, BSOD + system restore didnt work => reinstalled windows for scatch
That's why I hate windows update
Just my story :)
 
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Ramona

Thread author
On my PC I use Windows 7 because I have the best performance and also a lot of programs that I use are not working on Windows 10 (some work, some have compatibility issues or low performance). My AV, Qihoo doesn't work that well on Windows 10 (the keylogger protection doesn't work at all) and so on.

On work (I'm Network Administrator & System Administrator), I had a lot of issues with Windows 10 (BSOD, performance issues and some software didn't work with Windows 10).

With Windows 10 I had a lot if issues with recovering from crashes or BSOD. A lot of the time I couldn't fix and I had to use the backup, when I use the backup software I couldn't boot and I used the Windows tool and other two software with same result. I only had issues with Windows 10.

I voted Windows 7 in the poll. :)
 

Soulbound

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Average Joe will be able to use such tool granted he reads the faq/guide.
 

jamescv7

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Well I find much stable to have 3rd party to implement themes on Windows 7 rather Windows 10 because of nature where issues may occur promptly due various reasons. + the current theme of Windows 10 is much stable without any enhancements.
 

Anker_by

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Jun 23, 2015
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I vote for Windows 10, because they just release and the performance is going increase in the future and that think they gonna release 'Game Mode' is interesting. Nothing compared with W 7 and horrible Vista.
 

darko999

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Oct 2, 2014
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I'm using win 10 since I got free key but I have to admit that unistalling useless apps everytime windows updates is annoying. Win 7 was obviously better than 10 but Microsoft made it almost like win 10 so people will just upgrade. So now win 7 is not like it was before.
Of course I love win 10 performance and some features. But if I have to compare old win 7 vs win 10, old win 7 was better. Actual windows 7 vs win 10 I'll go win 10 and fight on tweaks to make it as good as possible.
 
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Tadas247

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Dec 30, 2016
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Windows 10 works great at this stage. I haven't got any problems with them for a long time now. For those who still using windows 7 i would recommend to upgrade because in my opinion newer is always better.
 
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