robotmaker
all windows 7 is a hype ploy for you to upgrade to another operating system i found its not as fast as windows xp pro ,running on the same machine with same software,memery,i check hard drive speed test,and reasorces was at 50 to 60% compare too 10 to 20% now using 64 bit processor it was very fast more bits processing but then alot more power usage meen less battery life or much larger battery then adds more weight i found out most like because of its the lastest operating system ,like wanting the lastest car or ? what happen when windows 8 come out i guess windows 7 nobody will like,and then windows 9 the same thing and so on,just so microsoft can make money by adding a feature if you look at all the professional robots on the markets made by the best robot engineers will not see them using a windows 7 or 64 bit and companies knows about windows 7,so ask your self why they not using it,doesnt cost more money to add it
you need windows xp pro,some drawbacks on using mini laptops,sometimes hard to upgrade memory and harddrive sometimes they use more current,size and little more weight,plus turning on but then they are complete,notthing much needed use i both types mini tx boards and mini laptop on my robot builds,but most mini laptops wont fit inside toy robots we hack with mini itx or PICO -ITX boards they will board i found great using EZB software and a very small size is 2.8" by 2.8" PICO-ITX PX10000G or PX11000G runnung at 1GHZ or 1.2GHZ with 1GIG ram,so will fit inside most robot builds
its not that i dont like WINDOWS 7 also,just for robots its not really needed,KKEAST said support will run out on windows xp,i never contact support yet and i dont think anyone here contacted them yet too,same on the software i havent yet see any software made for robots that cant use windows xp pro
There are not much of differences with using it on a Windows7 and XP on my side but there really are some components that do not work as described if you are in the more advanced OS.
I am guessing that you have tried the compatibility mode but still was not successful with it. And if that is the case, you might want to consider switching completely.
Hmm so some ezb features don't work if I'm using win 7 , please don't make me smack myself
Its good to get both sides out there I suppose. As for the power stuff....its worth looking into....Here is an interesting article...and link to the white white paper on Windows 7 double digit power savings compared to XP
Power Consumption
Did a single search and found this bot with embedded Windows 7.
ATOM-7xp
and another site for robots supports Windows 7 and LINUX.....options
Coroware Robotics and Automation
couple of things about comparing windows 7 to windows xp pro,first needs to be same processor board and memory ,so you need a 32 bit to do the testing,second on making changes to windows 7 for power saving ,you can do most all in windows xp pro
so it not a good test,only best test like i did is ,made many power saving changes in windows 7 and same in window xp pro and found i did save some power i have windows 7 on my video server and my programming computer ,because it was hook up to ac input and need much speed and power,on robots you dont need all that, s o the testing they did IS NOT ON REAL WORLD TESTING ON ROBOTS
then you have to look at extra costs using windows 7 compare to windows xp pro most robot we build here dont use anything very fast,unless you are using your robot as a home computer (jstarne and kkeast) is doing,to me thats not a real robot can very easy make a desktop computer and hook to large screen tv,i have 8 like that and adding another,one in each room and 3 in computer room hook up as a network and video server,and adding some others as control panels for my security system and X-10 control,WINDOWS 7 makes a great fast video server very easy to make windows xp pro use lest resources and power management changes to save power and add more speed
this is my video server running windows 7,real powerhouse ICORE7 3.9ghz 6 core cpu right now has 32 meg of QUAD CHANNEL ram and 4 teragig sata 6 ,boots super fast
@robotmaker...wicked!....put a SSD on that for the OS.....and it will boot even faster......but it probablly does more than you need it too anyway! nice!
i know about SSD,but for my desktop not really needed yet,looking to overclock to about 5 GHZ and buy a special cooling system,mostly a super gamming computer,i dont play games at all,but having it for as a video server,have more then 800 movies i collected