*HP dv8 Owners Lounge*

Been a while since I've heard that here, Alan. Thanks!

I had no disagreement with you had you just said that, but I thought you said that SSD would be cheaper than the drives for RAID.

But costwise, SSD is still more expensive than the RAID drives would be. Adding a a third drive would be clumsy to carry around all the time.

I certainly share your appreciation for the SSD's performance advantage in our DV8 plus, any simplification of our lives using a laptop is desirable.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

NWoC

BTW, did you jump on the opportunity to buy that DV8 that was posted as available through CostCo? (I asked earlier but you didn't answer) Pricing was quite attractive, too.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Thanks for the heads up, but no, I did not... mainly because I'm looking to replace my existing unit (under warranty) from HP - so purchasing one is not a viable option.

And I admit, I'm not familiar with "NWoC". Care to educate me?

I even googled it - but came up with no common acronyms that seemed to convey your presumably "sharp" retort.

"Nanny with own child" (common Scottish phrase) certainly did not... nor did anything I could come up with on my own - short of " Not With out Condom", in reference to your pending prom evening... but I was fairly certain that was incorrect as well.... LOL.

 

My best (non-humorous) guess would be something along the lines of "not worth one's comment"... since my remark was admittedly fairly lame to begin with.

 

Close enough ..

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I hope that HP still has stock to swap with yours.

Not Worthy of Comment ... though not applicable responses, yours are FAR better! ROTFL

Regards,
- - Phil

 

They do not, ergo my present conundrum regarding what model to select... There is no option presently in their lineup which meets all of my required specifications... EVEN IF I remove 18+" screen size as one of those requirements, there still is no other unit that meets all of my others.

Thank you... hopefully I made you smile... which was my only intent.

 

That's very frustrating, I'm sure! I do not follow the current offerings available (I know my limitations ) but there are others who frequent this "lounge" who should be able to help if you post what you most want to retain in DV8 capabilities.

For sure! :laugh:

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Au contraire! Except when I said I was guessing (an attempt at gracious deferential condescension to you) that "it doesn't surprise me that you might be having difficulty with it." I actually wasn't guessing - I was certain!

Consistent? Of course. Thanks! :laugh:

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Phil, I have a DV8 that I would like to put a SSD in. It is a NQ226AV. All original, no bios updates, no video driver changes(rare crashes on video card). Your 256 drive is a little expensive for me. Do all dv8's support trim? I think mine is a 1000 series. I would like a suggestion on the correct SSD, 128gb. Also, how can I find out the speed of the express card slot?--if it is worth getting a 3.0 USB card.

 

Adding an SSD to the DV8 is a terrific way to nearly triple storage performance.

Mine is also an NQ226AV.

The video crashes are a well known problem with the factory DV8 load - easily corrected with an nVidia driver update to version 197.16 or later. Version v260.99 was just released by nVidia but I haven't tried it though others report it works okay. You can get it here: NVIDIA DRIVERS 260.99 WHQL

Most SSDs are more expensive than what I paid HP for my 256gb Samsung SSD. From what I put on mine (OS, Office 2010, Photoshop CS4, McAfee AV, and security updates), formatted capacity of 128gb wouldn't be enough for me.

The support for TRIM resides in the Windows 7 operating system and the SSD drive firmware. The DV8 doesn't care about TRIM and treats SSDs as SATA drives, nothing more. Since Win7 supports TRIM, the only thing you need to be sure of is that the SSD you by has TRIM functionality supported in its firmware. If not, check the manufacturer's site for the model number you plan to buy and check for firmware updates that will provide TRIM support on it. That's all there is to it.

I guess the only suggestion is that Crucial or Intel offer good 128gb products but I have no experience with that size. Be sure not to let your concern for pricing lead you to a discontinued product that doesn't support TRIM..

Also, keep in mind that formatted (useful) capacity of SSDs can be much less than the advertised capacity. Expect about 10-15% less capacity after formatting. Extremes (50-75% available) have caught some buyers by surprise!

Information on PCExpressCard is described here: ExpressCard Question and Answers
AFAICT, ExpressCards can operate at two speeds - USB2.0 at 480mb/s and PCI Express at 2500 mb/s ... USB3.0 should be about 3000mb/s when it becomes available but DV8 BIOS doesn't support it, and since being discontinued, probably never will.

Hope this helps a bit with your understanding of your available options.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Does that mean that it likely won't be possible to add USB 3.0 capability to the DV8 via a USB 3.0 express card that is designed to add that capability?

 

No, Peter. I would expect that if you want to use a USB3 device as opposed to getting USB3 to deliver its rated speeds, you would be able to get a suitable driver with a USB3-to-Xpresscard adapter to use that USB3 device at USB2 (or Xpresscard) speeds. However, since both of those are slower than USB3, there would not be any speed advantage over getting an ExpressCard device instead.

FWIW, I believe the person to whom I was replying was interested more in the extra speed of the USB3 connection (less than being able to adapt a USB3 device to the DV8) and that was the specific reason I was advising them not to expect to ever see that speed on a DV8.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Well for me as well, the only reason I would be interested in a USB 3.0 express card adapter would be so I could hopefully get much faster speeds than USB 2.0 provides, (even if it was not 100% of the USB 3.0 speed specification).

If that was not possible, than I wouldn't bother with it.

Fortunately, we already have the eSATA connection on the DV8 which provides very high speed connection to one or two external hard drives at a time in a single or dual hard drive dock that uses the eSATA connection. And there also is the Firewire port, although I forget right now if that is the faster Firewire or the old slower one?

 

At the best, the USB-to-Expresscard adapter would allow a 2500mb/s (actually very fast) connection which is 5-6x speed of USB2. If the Expresscard connection were only USB2 speed (as the Expresscard spec allows) there would no advantage. I don't know what speed the DV8 supports but would expect it supports the PCI Express spec of 2500mb/s.

Yes, the eSata port should support the speed offered by USB3 or 3000mb/s. Maybe there will be a USB3-to-eSata adapter? :laugh:

The DV8 Firewire (IEEE 1394a) port is 400mb/s (i.e., the slower one) and just a bit slower speed rating than than USB2 but actually faster than USB2 in practice because the Firewire flow management system is more efficient.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Phil, thanks for the reply. You were correct in your assumptions about my questions. I am going to order the second hard drive caddy to get prepared to switch to SSD as I have followed your threads and it seems to be worth doing. I have had this laptop for about a year I guess and have less than 80mb used on the hdd, and could take off lots of pictures to get it down even more. Part that scares me most is doing a clean install--I did make startup disks from the day I bought the machine along with a backup--but don't want to deal with redoing all of the drivers,etc. Will this work if I just take off the pictures, music, etc and clone the drive or do I really have to start from scratch??

 

You can clone the drive and just install it and it will be as if nothing was changed (assuming you clone it properly and no glitches or problems occur during the cloning process) and you and your computer won't know the difference, except, of course, for the faster speed of the SSD and the lower capcacity.

That's what cloning does. . . it makes an exact copy of absolutely everything on the source drive and puts it on the destination or target drive.

As far as creating more space and moving stuff off the C drive, you should read the following tutorial and follow those instructions (if you have a second hard drive to use for your user data): http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html

I strongly recommend following the procedure shown in the above tutorial for moving user data files because there's a little more to it than just moving your photos off the drive, that is if you want to do it correctly and optimally for the functioning of your OS and programs. But the tutorial is very clear and it's not at all difficult or complicated (in most cases).

And if your stuff as is will fit on the SSD, you should clone everything first and then install the new drive and your second hard drive in your machine and then do the procedure for moving your user data files in the tutorial.

After everything is done, you should clone your SSD again, (this time as the source) to another drive so you have a backup of your new setup.

 

yea.. a clone is a clone... going onto another drive has little to do with your clone since your hardrive or SSD interfaces with your bios rather than whats on your clone image.

However if you had any special utilities installed just for your old drive, you can take those off once you get up and running again.

While there may be special drivers to enhance things you should still get into windows as normal with no problems.

 

1) before you order a second drive caddy, be sure your SSD supplier is not going to include one (I ordered my SSD from HP and it came with one included)

2) I don't advocate a clean install except as a last resort! (Others here have done so as another way to deal with the HP bloatware that I just simply uninstalled or deleted) A clean install is certainly unnecessary and not beneficial if you're happy with your machine as it is presently.

3) Just cloning the drive will do the trick. In my case, I just used the copy of Ghost 11.5 (on the free Hiren's BootCD I downloaded) and cloned the primary drive directly to my SSD and have been running just fine and nearly 3 times as fast from the SSD ever since.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

True. You won't have any problems with the cloning with Ghost if you prepare your HDD by running Chkdsk/f on it to ensure that the file system knows correctly where every file is located and is readable.

Using this is good if you have been following Windows defaults for file storage. I never have since I learned my habits before Windows 1.0 and never liked the Windows schema. Instead, I have always placed ALL my data(even email) in a folder named DATA or a subfilder of DATA and all my install files in a folder named INSTALL, so I just can just move them, anytime, to whatever drive location I like.

Exactly! Though it has never happened to me, if you should have any issues arise during the cloning, your HDD has not been affected. You can resolve the issues and then move your data, etc., after the clone is rebooted and known to be okay. If your SSD is too small to hold the current contents of the primary drive, you can copy it elsewhere and delete it before cloning to ensure adequate space is available on the SSD.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Well actually, to be really safe, one should back up one's data before doing any of the above procedures, just in case anything goes very wrong, unlikely though that may be.

Also, the new Windows 7 "schema" for user data files and the whole "Library" system in Win 7 is really great, imo, once one starts using it and gets used to it. And W7 makes it really easy to move those user data files around to different locations in a way that makes sure all one's programs will be aware of the new locations (see tutorial referenced in my previous post).

It really is an advance over the older system or "scheme." I did, however, rename all the My documents, My Videos, etc. to just plain "Documents, Videos, etc. The "My" prefix is unnecessary and I think it's just there to assure compatibility with some older programs. But getting rid of it has caused no problems for me.

 

Yes, the SSD is seen as a SATA drive and the SSD firmware takes care of the rest.

Not so fast, Alan!:laugh: If you have any defragmentation utilities that are set to operate on your HDD, you should disable them as far as any partitions on the SSD. Defragmenting is not beneficial on an SSD and performing it actually consumes read/write cycles and shortens the life of an SSD. You may also delete the swapfile and disable hibernation as they either are unnecessary with an SSD or will shorten its life, or both. Windstrings also has a set of procedures he can provide to you that lets you reconfigure your browser like FireFox to store its caching in memory and not waste write cycles putting it on the SSD.

Basically, in the world of SSDs you are entering, you will want to do almost everything within reason to reduce writing to the SSD in order to prolong its life.

All the things that determine loading of Windows will function the same on the SSD cloned from an bootable HDD as they did on the HDD.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Not only that.. but from a pure functional standpoint.. you really don't need to since the SSD access is so fast anyway.

I have file indexing turned off and it does slow me a bit "just a little" if I want to scan my whole drive for something but the payback is its not constantly writing little tid bits to the drive to keep the indexing current.

SSD is the next best thing to having your whole OS on ram!

 

Not true, really! Cloning the HDD (using a safe procedure like Ghost on the free Hiren's BootCD) is exactly the type of backup needed before any of the "procedures" is performed. (It's particularly safe for making the backup since the OS on the hard drive is not even running so no writing of temp files, etc., is occurring to the source drive!)

After the clone is made, all the "procedures" will be occurring on the clone and the original is safely packed away as the backup.

Different strokes for different folks, Peter. I agree with getting it moved off the primary drive as the most frequent cause of a catastrophic loss of date is when the primary drive crashes and takes with it all the data in those Windows default locations on the primary drive. I think the direct folders on a secondary drive for DATA and INSTALL are safer for that reason, as well as more intuitive and easier to deal with than either the traditional Windows schema I was referring to, or the new Windows 7 one.

The choice between the library system (about the only Windows 7 innovation that I don't care for) is probably a topic better explored in a thread of its own, IMO.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Thanks, Alan, for the confirmation from someone else here who has had an SSD system on their DV8 as long as I have.

I have found that it took longer to hibernate than to start up the machine so where's the time being saved. Shutdown is much faster without hibernation and start up is just as fast!

Regards,
- - Phil

 

If you've got a bunch of say for example, video files, that are scattered all over on different hard drives with some on external, some on internal hard drives, the library system is extremely useful for being able to organize and see and access them all in and from one place. Most people who try it for a while really like it. I really now can't imagine computing without it, although I initially thought it was BS, but I gave it a try anyway and quickly saw the utility of it.

 

Since you were advocating that he make a backup somehow, my original response was only to point out that, since he was making a backup anyway, that THAT cloning was also taking care of the backup issue by itself at the same time!

Now you sound like he shouldn't make any backup after you advocated one. Or is this another unfounded, baseless, attack on the use of Ghost to make backups (clones in fact)? Shame on you!

Since the Ghost on Hiren's BootCD is known to be VERY safe to use andmaybe you don;t know that it wouldn't damage the source drive even if you killed the DV8 during it, your suggestion of damage from some unspecified threat is ludicrous!! I guess you COULD always make such a universal cautionary remark (with nothing to support it) about any procedure you list, proffer, or advocate, that involves having your DV8 "running" will also run a risk to the drive in a similar way. However well-intentioned, your comment seems unnecessary then. Since you are never expressing those kinds of concerns about your own recommendations here, some might even find it hypocritical. It's impossible to respond to your "unknown threat" but I can say that I consider running Ghost in a clone operation to pose a trivially small risk of causing damage to the source drive!

Further, beyond the risks inherent in just running a DV8, why you do you have to insult his intelligence by suggesting that he could damage something by "user error" as though he was some sort of fool? Do you think he won't read the directions? Do you think he will select the source drive as the destination drive and ignore all the resulting warnings? As a non-user of this version of Ghost, why would you have any opinion of it? Besides, Ghost is far easier and simpler to use IMO and less risky (since the HDD OS is not running during the backup operation) than what you use and IMO it is very unlikely he could find a way to trash his source drive as you suggest in your vague statement. AFAIK, there's no operational error to make a mistake running Ghost in such a way as to delete the source HDD.

Nonsense, Peter. That horse is dead as I explained above.

Good ...

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I deliberately avoided suggesting the use of anything other than your beloved Ghost in the hopes of avoiding provoking another ridiculous tirade from you. But it didn't work. All I suggested was backing up data files before starting to clone. Yes a clone is a back up. But things can go wrong and the source can get damaged, especially when the user is not experienced and familiar with cloning and the program in question, notwithstanding your opinion to the contrary. But I'm through with this. I should have known better than to offer any advice in this thread.

 

Sure wish you had stayed on that issue. It was all the other stuff that drew a rebuttal with the facts. It's probably better not to respond to it as it was mostly a factual response.

I agree that backing up the data is a good start too. I am so used to having data on a different drive the OP's issues were uppermost to me.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

What would be the best way to update the video card driver on this DV8T Quad. The driver in use now is 8.16.11.8906. I would like to try this 260.99 WHQL. Do I uninstall the existing driver or I just go ahead and install the 260.99. Any help is appreciated.

 

I agree!.... Unless you have a ton of stuff opened and postitioned and you want to "freeze everything" so you can come back to the exact scene at a later date... there is little reason for hibernation.

When you can hit restart and be rebooted, fingerswipe your fingerprint scanner and literally be in windows all within 35 seconds!

A simple startup is even faster.

I love having my core gadget on the desktop and watch it go when I first come into windows... Thats about the only time I really get to see the processor strut its stuff for a brief few seconds.

 

Most of the time, just installing the new driver over the existing one works fine. Purists will go through a complicated uninstall and cleaning procedure in safe mode prior to installing the new driver version, however, I have found that this is unnecessary with recent versions of the nvidia drivers. The installation routine is now much better about removing what needs to be removed as part of the automated installation process.

So I just installed over the old driver, rebooted and everything is working great. I would only go through the safe mode cleaning procedure in the unlikely event there were some problems after first having tried it the easy way.

 

I agree.... I routinely run ccleaner and/or glary's tools to clean.

Ccleaner is the safest and its free too..... that will remove any extra unneeded tags in the registry for the most part to keep it as is you had really done a total uninstall first and then install.

 

This is a bit OT but might be of interest to any folks who are interested in getting the best possible sound out of their DV8's and don't mind parting with some extra money to achieve that. If that's not you, you probably should just pass over this rather lengthy post.

In this post, I'm going to provide an initial review of the Nuforce Icon HDP, ("HDP") which was delivered to my house by UPS yesterday. This little device is a very small external rectangular unit (slightly smaller than a bare 3.5 inch hard drive), that can securely sit vertically on a desk thus taking up little space, using an included silicone base. The HDP contains an extremely high quality headphone amp, USB DAC, & general purpose pre-amp). It's designed to turn one's computer into a truly high quality audio source way beyond the quality of the onboard sound card. It's the sonic equivalent of replacing the computer's video adapter with one of the most powerful and advanced video cards available.

The Icon HDP is very simple to set up and use. When plugged into one of the DV8's (or any Win Vista/7 or recent Apple computer's) USB port, the HDP is automatically detected as a USB audio device and becomes available to be selected as the default playback sound device whenever one wants to use it. (It also works under XP but setup is a little more complicated.) Anyway, once selected as the default playback device, it completely bypasses, cuts out and replaces the computer's internal sound card and amplification circuits and thus all sounds will be entirely processed by the HDP's very high audiophile quality components which include a 24/96 USB DAC and headphone amp and preamp. The resulting sound through my Shure ES530 in ear monitors (which I thought already sounded pretty great before hooking up the HDP) has exceeded my expectations and is frankly the best sounding music I've ever yet experienced. I suppose it might even be better with very high quality around ear headphones like Sennheiser HD650's, but I'm stunned by how great my 530's sound using the HDP. I thought the HP had pretty good on board sound and it does, but the HDP provides a whole 'nother level of clarity, spaciousness, depth, dynamic range, detail, transparency, etc.

To get the best performance, one has to use source material like CD's, DVD's or lossless file formats like e.g., FLAC. The limitations and loss of fidelity inherent in lossy formats such as low or even high bitrate MP3 and WMA files are immediately very apparent when played through such a high resolution device.

There are 7 or so detailed reviews of the Nuforce Icon HDP on Amazon that were obviously written by experienced audiophiles (I'm just a novice myself) who have tons of super expensive equipment that is way beyond my means, and they all say this little device compares favorably or even exceeds devices that are far more expensive. So it appears the HDP, while not exactly inexpensive is something of a bargain, at least in the eyes of the aforementioned audiophile types who apparently have unlimited funds to spend on audio equipment.

I also tested the HDP's preamp out to my powered 2.1 Logitech speakers (Z-2300). It significantly improved the sound of this speaker system but at the same time it revealed their limitations. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to eventually replace the Logitech satellites but probably can keep and continue to use the powered sub part of that 2.1 setup (which contains a 200 watt RMS amp and 8 inch long throw woofer) to power a set of higher quality small right and left speakers in place of the inferior stock Logitech R & L speakers. Fortunately, the Logitech R & L speakers connect to the powered sub using standard RCA plugs so it will be very easy to replace them with better quality passive speakers.

I was going to return the HDP if it didn't make a night and day difference to my ears. Needless to say, I'm not letting go of it and I wouldn't even consider traveling without bringing it along as it's totally addicting.

One thing I was surprised by is that I didn't find the HDP to improve the audio on my TV video rips to the extent it does with music files. I'm not yet sure why that is but so far they sounded better using the on board sound processing of the DV8. I haven't tested any blueray movie rips with the HDP yet.

But even if it turns out that it doesn't improve movie sound, which is already pretty great on the DV8, the HDP is well worth it to me just for what it does to music. For more info, I recommend reading the reviews of it on Amazon.

 

No question - hibernation is generally a waste on an SSD system which loads so fast. With an HDD and a lot of stuff in various stages, hibernation can speed up rebooting to resume where you left off.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I think that Peter's right if your system is generally healthy in all respects before you apply the upgrade over the old driver. I install almost no updates to drivers on my system but, if it provides any reassurance, I did just what Peter described and encountered no issues. I would always recommend a full clone backup before performing any driver for my hardware though others seem to think it is not essential. That would depend on how much time you might want to put at risk to recover if anything goes wrong (I have 10-15 minutes to risk )

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Did miss something, Alan? Are you saying you would install the nVidia driver update as Peter described and then run a cleaner?
BTW, if I were going to uninstall the nVidia driver before installing the new driver, I'd use the free version of RevoUninstall to perform the uninstall.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I pretty much install all my drivers over the top of existing unless it fails for some reason then I'll go the 8 hour yeast rising method.

I figure any lines of code that become outdated the ccleaner and glary's will mop up.

I"ve noticed with win7, uninstalls are much cleaner than previous versions anyway....

I figure the new driver is going to use what it wants and ignore the rest from the old driver.
If someone never does a cleanup it would finally clutter up the registry.

If someone meticulously uninstalled before reinstalling anything.. maybe his registry would never need cleaning.

But rather than live in a sterile house and making living hard.. I prefer to relax and just cleanup periodically.

The nature of the beast is... windows in always updating as well as your browser, Antivirus etc... theres no way to perfectly uninstall "everything" before you install or update unless you disconnect from the internet and never update.

Any way you stack it.. you need to periodically clean the registry if you want things to run perfect.

 

Aaah ... er ... I take that as "yes" ... but, with so many words to sort through , I'm not sure .... :confused2:

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Yes.........

 

Now you're cookin'! Thanks. :rolleyes2:

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Microsoft just posted the Windows 7 SP1 Release Candidate for download. I downloaded it and installed it. Went well on the DV8. Smooth! :laugh:

Download Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Candidate(RC)

Regards,
- - Phil

 

I don't much care for the desktop evaluation watermark that comes with it (supposed to appear after the 2nd reboot following the install of the RC). And the various methods/hacks to remove the watermark can cause instability. I'll probably wait for the final version, since afaicr, SP1 mostly consists of all the previously already applied updates delivered through windows update, iows nothing particularly earth shattering.

 

I didn't care much about the watermark and it didn't seem to interfere with anything.

I guess we don't have much to disagree about here, Peter. While I'm running my DV8 with the SP1RC for now, I'll certainly be waiting for the final version due out after the first of the year and apply that, as well, then.

The only argument for applying the SP1 to Windows 7 (it's much more needed for the 2008 Server OS), is that Service Packs generally take a more integrated view of the problems being fixed so the resulting systems run better (reliability and speed) and more efficiently by avoiding the use of most of the "trap" segments of code used to address small elements of code security issues in monthly patches. So, when all the issues in a particular OS file are addressed through a rewrite, the file processes smoother and may, in fact, preclude some future threats.

So, even though Win 7 is relatively solid and far less in need of an SP than any prior version of Windows at introduction/release, I still think it's worth applying just to make a great version of Windows run even better. It sure seems to run better after I installed it.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Ah, common... you sure thats not placebo?.... LOL!

I will " definitely" ghost before I install that thing!...

BTW... you still happy with Chrome?.. I was just gettin ready to play with it tonight.

 

What a high tech question! Of course. My stop watches don't respond to placebos. :laugh:

I did a full image with Ghost before installing ... figured it would probably be quicker to clone back the copy than to uninstall the SP1 if it hadn't turned out so well.

Still delighted with Chrome ... (also not a placebo effect! Very fast!)

Regards,
- - Phil

 

yes, I would be way quicker..... especially since as of yet, I've never seen a graceful way yet to uninstall a service pack.....

I doubt Win7 will be any different.

Once you commit.. you've got it!......

When I get a little time.. I'll update too.. they are usually for the better.. but I've had issues in the past with XP... after SP updates some of my other "non microsoft friendly" software wouldn't work right or autoupdate would try to update things and would fail.... the only way to get rid of it was to tell it to quit trying to update those programs.

 

Yup, that's why I mentioned it.

Win 7 isn't XP and, by reminding you that I've been running SP1 beta since July '10, I can encourage you in that respect and say it hasn't adversely affected the behaviors of any of my software or OS, AFAICT. I'm sure you'll find it very satisfying.

Regards,
- - Phil

 

Excellent news.... Yes win7 has been a pleasant surprise.... it will be hard for them to top it.....

 

I doubt that most of us expected Win7 (aka "Vista SP3") to be as well developed as it turned out, Alan. They are working hard on it... seen the post leak on Windows 8?

Windows 8 Release Date, Projected Late 2011 | Windows 8 News

Regards,
- - Phil