Does Seven suffer of a performance decrease compared to Windows Vista?

I have to format and reinstall Windows on an old laptop (bought around 3 years ago) because of usual degradation of performance of Microsoft operating systems..

The computer had Windows Vista and I was wondering if installing Windows Seven will cause a performance decrease, a performance boost or simply no difference.

In case of no difference or boost I'll go for 7 just because it seems more stable and less likely to degrade.. do you have any suggestions about it?

Think about the fact that the pc has 1gb of RAM (I'm not sure about the CPU but I think it's a plain Core2Duo)

Thanks in advance

Jack

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 455

2Win7 and Vista are very very similar OS'. You shouldn't notice much of a performance difference. – Phoshi – 2010-07-10T22:42:05.210

Answers

For me Windows 7 feels faster than Vista on the same hardware, but you better upgrade the memory to at least 2GB.

ocsid80

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 835

1+1: From my experiences (as well), in general it runs better than Vista on the same hardware. Just don't expect leaps and bounds. – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2010-07-10T23:57:49.117

Performance degradation being the fault of Microsoft is a myth. Performance is degraded due to applications that are installed that run on start up or third party services that run in the background and eat up resources. Many times users are not aware that they are even running.

If you install Windows and keep the installation clean, it will perform the same in three years as it does today.

MDMarra

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 19 580

True, although keeping the installation clean can be tricky once you've been using the computer a lot. Sometimes it's nice to just wipe things clean and start over. – David Z – 2010-07-10T23:32:57.927

That's not the point of my question but I know that you are right. The fact is that the pc is not mine and I'm sure (from user capabilities) that trying to keep tidy will be just impossible :) – Jack – 2010-07-10T23:55:20.837

2@David: "Using" the computer does not lead to OS degradation either, it's installing garbage software that primarily causes it. If using it alone caused OS degradation, servers wouldn't run for years on end. ;) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2010-07-10T23:55:32.913

3@Jack - Then what is the point of your question? It looks to me like you are asking if a flaw (OS degredation over time, which is a myth) in Vista has been corrected in 7. Perhaps you should rephrase your question. – MDMarra – 2010-07-11T00:19:46.363

@techie007: for normal people, "using" the computer entails installing some of that software. I did not claim that it is impossible to use a computer in such a way as to keep the performance from degrading, only that it can be tricky. – David Z – 2010-07-11T00:22:04.893

No I was asking if in general, on same hardware, Windows Sever behaves betters than Vista. The cause of my question is that, since of degradation given by bad usage, I have to reformat a PC and I was wondering if 7 is worth a try or reinstall Vista.. – Jack – 2010-07-13T02:21:43.877

@Jack - "In case of no difference or boost I'll go for 7 just because it seems more stable and less likely to degrade.. do you have any suggestions about it?" – MDMarra – 2010-07-13T02:33:58.447

The point is that it will degrade only as much as the user screws it up. If your question is about Win 7 performance in general, one of the other billion questions on the topic that are already here should answer it. – MDMarra – 2010-07-13T02:48:16.763

Windows 7 is faster on machines that is capable of running Vista at a decent speed. Heck, my friend even try to install it on a ancient machine with 512 ram and it can do basic stuff like web surfing.

Like the others had said, OS itself does not suffers performance degradation apart from the usual fragmentation of hard disks. Applications now a days often comes with small programs that runs in background "launcher" to speed up the application launching or provides some users control at the taskbar, this are the ones that reduce performance as everyone of them eats up a bit of memory and sometimes even hard disks read/write performance.

user42527

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 41

Out-of-box, Windows 7 seems a lot faster than Vista. Even after I installed a lot of programs, 7 seems to handle much better than Vista ever did. Of course, XP could claim that against Vista as well. Vista never was very fast for me.

TuxRug

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 1 616

There is a real improvement in Windows 7 as regarding disk throughput and battery life over Vista, but not over XP.

The reason for it is that Microsoft has introduced an unacknowledged bug in Vista, that causes repeated disk accesses by csrss.exe and lsass.exe.

Microsoft, in a truly Machiavellian spirit, has reserved this bug fix to Windows 7.

harrymc

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 306 093

Most of the reviews I've read have said that Windows 7 is about the same as Windows Vista, with 7 sometimes being faster at certain tasks (HDD access being one of them). Some things are not included, like Vista's Sidebar, and Windows Mail. Some things just make it feel faster, like a smaller taskbar (which admittedly does make it more productive, but not necessarily faster). Some things are productivity features, like Libraries.

In the end, if you have the money to upgrade, then might as well do it. Vista apps and drivers are quite compatible, so there's not much of a problem there. You don't really need 2 GB of RAM unless you're using 64-bit Windows 7, though.

If you're still not sure, then you can run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see what Microsoft says.

Hello71

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 7 636

Its not windows thats slow, but the apps that run on it =p. Windows 7 is however an improvement over Vista IMO, especially in UI.

Javed Ahamed

Posted 2010-07-10T21:56:53.073

Reputation: 344