Netbooks running windows 7

I experienced several difficulties running popular applications on the Dell Mini 9. Windows 7's built-in applications, such as Media Center, felt slow to respond. Other apps behaved sluggishly as well. Some problems, such as abrupt slowdowns when trying to run Microsoft Office , Office and Quicken , were clearly caused by memory problems. There simply wasn't enough RAM to run them effectively.

When I tried to run two or more major applications at the same time, the performance dropped from merely miserable to "Is this thing still on? In fact, as I continued to work with Windows 7, I came to the conclusion that RAM was the single most important factor in determining performance. I'm not sure why some programs failed, however. For example, HandBrake , an open-source video transcoder that I use for converting videos into Apple TV-compatible formats, always ended up hanging before finishing the conversion process.

The same version of HandBrake worked without any problems on my Windows 7 desktop system. I strongly suspect it was running out of system resources. Not unexpectedly, the Dell Mini 9, which uses Intel's mobile class chip set for graphics, just didn't have the horsepower to deal with Windows graphics demands, even without Aero and with an advanced beta of Windows Display Driver Mode 1.

When I set out to push the limit of the system, I started running into low-resources warnings when I had 12 windows open. XP SP3, on the other hand, was still doing well. When I tried Windows Media Player 12, the audio played well, but I ran into stuttering with standard videos, and couldn't get HD videos to play at all. In theory, Windows 7 is better than XP at battery life, but I discovered that this wasn't the case when it came to displaying videos. I then ran videos I placed on the SSD.

Windows 7 was knocked out after not quite two hours of use. XP made it to just over two and a half hours, while Ubuntu was still playing video at the three-hour mark. And, even though Microsoft is doing its best to kill off XP , it looks like the PC makers aren't going to let Microsoft put XP out to pasture after all. Under the limited-by-design Windows 7 Starter Edition, I expect you'll see better battery life and you'll be less likely to run into memory problems.

After all, you won't be able to run more than three programs. What does that mean? Full p HD for netbooks, photo editing, and possibly gaming for netbooks. The new boosts to netbook technology are going to close the gap between netbooks and notebooks. New Music Videos Thato Siyabonga Send an email 12 February We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits.

However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent. Cookie Settings Accept All. Manage Privacy. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.

Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. For now, Microsoft is offering Windows XP on netbooks because Vista simply won't run on a netbook's limited hardware, but it's going to need to move them to Windows 7 once that operating system hits the market.

It's worth noting that while Microsoft claims any version of Windows 7 will run on current netbooks, Intel is not making such claims. In fact, Anand Chandrasekher, Intel's head of Ultra Mobility, recently said that Intel will be releasing new Atom processors in the second half of that will support Windows 7 Starter and Basic editions. Which brings up the question: Is there anything wrong with running a full version of Windows 7 on a netbook? To test this out, I decided to install the Windows 7 Ultimate beta because of frequent updates, I worked with builds to on a Dell Mini 9 netbook.

How well would it run? The company recommends that you have at least 16GB of available disk space for the installation; Windows 7 actually takes up about 5GB. The 8. The default resolution, which is typical for a netbook, is by What it doesn't have, as is the case with almost all netbooks, is an optical drive for the installation disk.

The installation, from start to finish, took about an hour and there wasn't a single glitch. Once in place, Windows 7 was slow to boot up.

Because of a netbook's lowered graphics capacity, you can forget about running the Aero interface, but even Windows 7's low-end non-Aero desktop took a while to load on the Mini 9.