How's Windows 7 these days?...Thinking of switching from OSX

[funky shit]

I'm seriously thinking of switching to Mac cause I hear its just better for this kind of shit. I've had enough. Too many problems.

They haven't even made win7 drivers and your looking to buy a mac cause you think "it just works"?
Also, could be live 8.1.1 acting a ballbag.

[Faldoe]

I'm seriously thinking of switching to Mac cause I hear its just better for this kind of shit. I've had enough. Too many problems.

They haven't even made win7 drivers and your looking to buy a mac cause you think "it just works"?
Also, could be live 8.1.1 acting a ballbag.

They've said Ableton should work fine in Win7 right?

Which version of ableton is the most stable?

[funky shit]

Well im running 8.0.4 and have had no crashes.*


*no crashes which were due to ableton anyway.

[Faldoe]

max4live work in 8.0.4?

[funky shit]

max4live work in 8.0.4?

nopes, just 8.1 and up

[Ninja-Matic]

As far as running Ableton - I haven't come across any issues - however - trying to get my peripherals and firewire audio I/o to work has been a nightmare.

7 keeps telling me that my APC40 is an audio I/O and not a midi controller - tells me my audio I/O is a midi controller and not for audio, hahahaha.

No matter how many times I try installing drivers for my peripherals 7 keeps insisting that they are not correct and assigns them for whatever purpose it wants.

When I use them 1 at a time - without anything else - it works - but more than 1 peripheral (controller) and it does its own thing.

I use M-Audio stuff, MOTU, Akai, etc.

On both of my Macs - i have never had an issue - it just "works" flawlessly. No matter if I unplug anything while running Ableton, plug stuff in on the fly, it doesn't matter - I can just use it without issue.

I use my Macs religiously because I never have had 1 issue yet. My PC is just used for E-Mail and web and gaming - but I tried Ableton on it to see how it performs and at least Ableton works fine. But from browsing m-audio forums - people have nothing but issues getting their stuff to work properly.

This is not the case with everyone - but is the case with me and many others - some people don't have problems.

This was also done on a fresh reformat and install of 7.

I just shrugged it off and went back to my Mac as I always do, lol.

[Ninja-Matic]

I'm seriously thinking of switching to Mac cause I hear its just better for this kind of shit. I've had enough. Too many problems.

They haven't even made win7 drivers and your looking to buy a mac cause you think "it just works"?
Also, could be live 8.1.1 acting a ballbag.

From my experience - Ive been using Macs since I was a child alongside Windows platforms for gaming, mostly.

Never had 1 issue with my Mac yet. No crashes, no peripheral problems, nothing. I can literally turn my controllers, audio I/O's on and off at will while everything is running and it just snaps right back into place.

I've had tons of issues with Windows machines crashing audio programs, peripherals must be "on" before turning on your PC, you can't swap them on the fly without something crashing.

In my experience, yes, "it just works" is a true statement.

I still build my gaming PC's, for sure, I'm not discounting them. Their processors usually cycle quite a bit faster than Mac hardware - but for all audio purposes - I haven't used a PC that came close to the stability and ease of use as a Mac.

Not to mention Win7 ignores whatever drivers you install for your controllers and assigns it's own whenever it wishes.

"sometimes it works right!" is not an option when performing on stage, IMO. I can't count how many times some of my other friends have crashed due to Windows - my Mac friends? Smooth as silk.

They are overly-expensive, for sure, but for peace of mind they are priceless.

You're only as good as your last performance - so I'm not taking chances, lol.

[Pyro Z]

Just to clear some stuff up guys, because I was part of the private testing phase for Microsoft during development for both Windows Vista and 7. Microsoft has been working to get Windows up to par with OSX in terms of it's audio architecture. The problem is that they've needed to break a lot of things in the process. For every person that complains about it when Apple breaks something, Microsoft is going to get atleast double the backlash. So it's a tricky process. They've finally got something good to show for it (low-latency and stability) in Windows 7, but your hardware and software has to support it. This has been an issue for me since I use PreSonus' FireStudio family of audio interfaces and, though they support Windows Vista, they don't work at all under Windows 7, yet. They currently have a beta driver....and Windows 7 hit RTM 8 months ago. : / It's because Microsoft completely re-wrote the audio stack for FireWire devices.

Windows Vista brought us some cool technology, like WaveRT (which Live does not support):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff538837.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/au ... tport.mspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_ ... dows_Vista

As you can see, companies that really want to get their acts together can and do support this:

http://www.motu.com/newsitems/windows-w ... w-shipping

There's more, but that's the important stuff for audio production specifically. For anyone that has the time, this is a nice behind-the-scenes look at what Windows 7 aims to do with audio:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/ ... abilities/

[hacktheplanet]

Can anyone recommend a decent wireless card that will work with 7?

[Faldoe]

Is 8.1.1 not as stable only in Windows or is also not that stable in OSX?

[rsaulo]

The only thing that make me left mac is ableton launch a linux port of Live.

Tried Ubuntu Studio for a few months and it's a GOOD choice, using a mac only because of Live.

BTW, Windows 7 appears to be a good product, need to wait for the SP's, generally they @#$#@ the system.

Dont's forget that using any anti-virus take 30% of your CPU, that you does not loose with OSX or Linux

[]'s

[d-track]

awesome tips guys. D-Track whats you experiences been with OSX86? I have the usual cold feet about it. Does the software update as it would on any other system? Like what are the trade-offs other than piecing together the system and a somewhat tricky install?

Thanks again everyone,
J

this thing screams for a new topic but..
first, installing windows on macs is legal and supported. osx on pcs is a bit different. in theory if you dont modify the code then its not piracy. but apple wont provide support even if you buy the os.
if you do a so called "vanilla" install which means you run the original stuffs like kernel unmodified then apple software update works flawlessly- no need authentication.
before start to make a hackmac you need lots of research on the net and then a lot of patience. it took me a week to get everything work as if it would be a real mac. not bad if you already have some experience in both theory and practice how operating systems (espec unix based ones) and hardware work blahblah. to make it short: pain in the ass.
you lose the original macs main features like "being cool"/elite consumer group, design, replacement of human brain (plug and play..) - at least at the beginning.
but if you get over these things then youll be fine and the osx is just the same.
im gonna put up somewhere a 10.6.3 tutorial on how i did it.
let me know if you are still interested

[Formic]

win7 64 bit for me, runs rock solid, best OS I have ever used

[rsaulo]

win7 64 bit for me, runs rock solid, best OS I have ever used

It´s plugged on internet???

[Guff Tong]

Just installed 'Tiny Windows 7' on my sons old 2.8ghz, 512 gb ram laptop in a kind of 'lab-rat' test way (Using Tiny XP rev 9 in studio at present)

Win 7: "Would you like windows to check the internets for the missing driver?"

I automaticaly click the 'yes' tab with no expectations...... only to find that windows 7 DID in fact find, download and install the drivers.....

This is nice.