Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7?

[Svein Berger]

Hi all,
What version is best for Pre8, I'm using Vista Home Premium now, but I've heard that Windows 7 is faster and using less resources.
All opinions are welcome. I am willing to upgrade/downgrade to get the best solution.

[Shrimpfarmer]

I am sure Windows 7 is the best road to follow. I had a number of problems running PE7 in Windows Vista but I suspect it was my tinkering that caused the problems, I had optimised Vista for a different program. If the software is running well i.e. no lock ups, few if any warning messages then I would sit tight and wait for Windows 7. However if your experiencing these sorts of problems then all I can say is that downgrading back to Windows XP had my PE7 running sweet as a nut. I will of course move to Windows 7 but I am going to wait until I see that the vast majority of users are finding it an improvement.

[Svein Berger]

I am sure Windows 7 is the best road to follow.

Yes, I'm agree with you. I already have Windows 7 on my test PC at work. So far it looks much better than Vista.

I had a number of problems running PE7 in Windows Vista but ...

Pre7 works fine on my Vista. I have optimised my PC to Pre7. So hopefully Pre8 aslo works fine.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

I skipped Vista. I know that a lot of folk here use it without too many issues but for me, compared to XP, it just seemed too bloated and the implementation of user priveileges just too plain obstructive.

Having said that and having run Win 7 on a laptop for tha last couple of months without any problems (the only problems were caused when I went back to XP on the laptop so it was a re-install of Win 7) I intend to go straight to Win 7 64 bit as soon as Microsoft release the discs (pre-ordered).

[Svein Berger]

.. I intend to go straight to Win 7 64 bit.

Do you think PRE8 will work "without problems" on 64 bit?

[Chuck Engels]

Do you think PRE8 will work "without problems" on 64 bit?

That is all dependent on the individual machine, hardware, and drivers.
It is really hard to say that it will work for everyone without any problems.
There are many reports of version 8 working on Vista 64bit and Windows 7 64bit, but there are many reports of problems as well.

[Svein Berger]

That is all dependent on the individual machine, hardware, and drivers.
It is really hard to say that it will work for everyone without any problems.
There are many reports of version 8 working on Vista 64bit and Windows 7 64bit, but there are many reports of problems as well.

Well, then window 7, and good old 32-bit is the safe way to go then.

[Chuck Engels]

That is the safe way to go Svein.
It will probably be a year before I move from XP, by then more will be known about how it works on Windows 7 64bit.
By then version 9 will probably be out also and I will be able to see what changes are made and what gets fixed.

[Chris B]

I've been "playing". I have an older test setup (4600+ X2 Athlon, 3GB Ram, 160GB SATA HDD). Not really any point in running a 64bit OS - but works as a test platform. I downloaded the trial for Windows 7 Enterprise (64 bit) PE8 and PSE8 and installed them. After a quick play - things seemed to "just work". Facial recognition in PSE4 is very cool - but I'm not sure how useful I would find it.

As far as Video goes I managed to capture HDV using HDVSplit (worked fine - seen reports elsewhere that it does not). Win7 can play .mt2 files without extra plugins. PE Loaded the files and could analyse and trim them. I didn't do any serious work with them but a positive experience overall. I'm hoping that large amounts of RAM (more than 4GB) being available to windows 7 will allow it to aggressively cache the data files I'm working with and so even though the programs don't "see" the memory - they should benefit from it and stop some of the disk thrashing I get under XP.

As an aside - I think one of the areas of progress that new OS releases tend to make is the amount of included stuff. You don't need to download this and that Codec to play video - it's included (see .mt2 above) and sometimes not "letting go" of the old way causes more problems that it solves.

[Chuck Engels]

Excellent report Chris, thanks.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Do you think PRE8 will work "without problems" on 64 bit?

Sorry Svein, I may have misled you.

I currently use PrElv2 which I will finally stop using when I migrate to Win 7, at which time I will be using only PPro CS4. So the PrElv8 issue doesn't arise for me.

[Svein Berger]

No problem John, I think I will try Windows 7, 32-bit. My new Pre8 is crashing on Vista. So I will continue to use Pre7 until I upgrade to Windows 7.

[DeafBug]

Just a quick question. Is PRE8 a 64-bit app? I know Premiere Pro is as Adobe made it clear on their product page. I can't see if Pre8 is? I know Windows 7 will run just fine. More like in the XP-compatibility mode if you install the Win7 64-bit version.

[Bobby]

Discussion here indicates that PRE8 is not a 64-bit ap.

[Chuck Engels]

I have mentioned in another topic that Premiere Elements 8 is still a 32 bit application.
There has been no talk that I know of about it ever becoming a 64 bit application, but you never know.