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Windows 7 is pretty sweet

elbarto1

elbarto1

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grabbed a copy of W7 Pro via student discount for $30 http://www.win741.com/
repartitioned my HDD to allow dual boot w/ XP (old faithful) so far I am quite impressed even though all it really is is a souped up vista w/o all the issues. nice compatibility and ease of use. well worth $30 but maybe a hard sell at retail price. anyone else take the plunge?
 
i describe it to our clients as "feels like XP, looks like Vista" and it is a definite upgrade, even for business (most of which have been holding out during the vista years)

there are still a few print drivers, etc. with incompatibility, but even at the RC1 stage Win7 was being adopted by a few of our clients (setup for software QA/testing, etc.)

i'm still a XP fan, personally... as i don't see any amazing performance increase with Vista/7 - but since i've been using debian the last ~7 years i don't really get too attached to the issue, lol :)
 
Been using it for a couple weeks now, and really enjoying it. That is to say, it has worked well, and looks pretty. Still having trouble getting it to recognize my aging printer, but I only print something a couple times a year anyway.
 
The University College I used to work for decided after testing it properly for only a few days that they would switch pretty soon (straight from XP). The sysadmins are pretty conservative about new functions, so that's a pretty big vote of confidence coming from them.

From my early looks, it looks very nice. Some of the main problem areas that drove people to OSX - like driver management and network setup - seems to be handled well too.
 
been using 7 x64 for a few months now and so far i have nothing bad to say about it at all. the only incompatibility issues ive had is with daemon tools (which should be fixed soon) so im using alcohol 120% for the moment and my preferred speccy emu zxspin throws an eppy but i can run that under the XP VM.

its also a hell of a lot quicker than vista, the boot time on my gaming rig has nearly halved and my 3dmark score is a tad over 13000 which is an improvement of about 500 over V x64.

much as it pains me to say it M$ have done a really good job this time.
 
Heh, it pains me to say that too. I'm mostly a Linux and Mac user. But since I can't escape the clutches of Windows at work or when helping family and friends with computer-related stuff, I'm really happy that MS seem to have done a good job for once.
 
Whilst I'm pleased that MS have released what appears to a decent OS since the arrival of XP, there remains certain things that 7 has adopted from Vista that I don't like.

Although 7 is simple, it's not easy.

Vista start menu. Always preferred classic version in XP, carried to Vista, dropped in 7.
Network properties. Double click the little icon in your system tray to bring them all up. Not so in Vista, or in 7. It's harder to get to them.
Display properties all over the place, rather than in one place.
Renaming things in control panel that didn't need to be renamed. (Add/Remove Programs for example).
Moving folder properties away from My Computer.
Dropping the 'up' button and the file menu as standard.
Missing File menus as standard.

These are all niggles. MS has tried to make the interface simple, but for techies, it's more convaluted to do things now. I don't like 7's task bar either.

Inevitably, I will go to 7, but I've already spent an hour with it, trying to make it more like XP. :lol:

Anyhoo - something else, anyone noticed that it's the odd numbered Windows that tend to be OK?(Not including the NT family):

Windows 3/3.1 - OK
Windows 95 - mainly shit
Windows 98 - not bad
Windows ME - awful
Windows XP - kick ass
Windows Vista - shite
Window 7 - not bad
 
white43 said:
Vista start menu. Always preferred classic version in XP, carried to Vista, dropped in 7.
Click to expand...

You have to be kidding me! No classic profile at all? That just ended any chance of my investing in Windows 7.

The classic view/profile is the only thing that makes Vista tolerable to me. I'll stick with Vista.
 
Vista start menu. Always preferred classic version in XP, carried to Vista, dropped in 7.
Network properties. Double click the little icon in your system tray to bring them all up. Not so in Vista, or in 7. It's harder to get to them.
Display properties all over the place, rather than in one place.
Renaming things in control panel that didn't need to be renamed. (Add/Remove Programs for example).
Moving folder properties away from My Computer.
Dropping the 'up' button and the file menu as standard.
Missing File menus as standard.

These are all niggles. MS has tried to make the interface simple, but for techies, it's more convaluted to do things now. I don't like 7's task bar either.
Click to expand...

i wouldnt call the network properties thing a niggle, its a total pain in the arse. also the icon doesnt show network traffic like it used to :(

at least you can turn the file menus and quicklaunch back on though and the taskbars one redeaming feature is that if you keep your media players on it when you right click you get a list of recently played files which i find quite handy.


white43 said:
Windows ME - awful
Click to expand...

i think completely broken would be a better way of putting it, i always thought ME was an apt name for it :smile:
 
Captain Khajiit said:
white43 said:
Vista start menu. Always preferred classic version in XP, carried to Vista, dropped in 7.
Click to expand...

You have to be kidding me! No classic profile at all? That just ended any chance of my investing in Windows 7.

The classic view/profile is the only thing that makes Vista tolerable to me. I'll stick with Vista.
Click to expand...

CK - you can download a program called CS Menu for 7 - and it adds a classic menu for 7....funnily enough.....although my main gripe with it is not being able to copy or drag items out of the menu.
 
nOmArch said:
i wouldnt call the network properties thing a niggle, its a total pain in the arse. also the icon doesnt show network traffic like it used to :(
at least you can turn the file menus and quicklaunch back on though and the taskbars one redeaming feature is that if you keep your media players on it when you right click you get a list of recently played files which i find quite handy.
Click to expand...

Yea - I was underplaying it. For IT peoples(like myself) - Vista and 7 are a total pain in the arse. Nothing is easily found and configured anymore - simple, but not easy. The 'animated' network icon no longer actually shows network traffic. Yea, you can turn on the stuff I gripe about - but why turn it off in the first place?

It's like Office 2007. Office 2003 - perfectly good program. We're all used to the File, Edit tool bar - but what better way to improve it, than to completely do away with it and replace it with tabs....so you don't know where the f*ck anything is anymore. :roll: This is not improvement, this is blatant trying to resell a good product but tweaking it to look different.....hmmm Windows 7.

It's old, but XP is still the best OS out of MS. I'm sure one day I'll install PCLos or Ubuntu and never look back. At least with these products, the core OS never really changes in the way it works, just gets better in its operability to end users.
 
My mom just got a new laptop with Windows 7 on it and I was able to flip it to a classic style pretty easily, which is definitely what I'll be doing when I try it out for myself. I really don't like the new way the Explorer is set up. I wonder if there's a way og making it more like XP. Or if I'll just have to deal.
 
white43 said:
Windows 3/3.1 - OK
Windows 95 - mainly shit
Windows 98 - not bad
Windows ME - awful
Windows XP - kick ass
Windows Vista - shite
Window 7 - not bad
Click to expand...

i actually completely agree with these, although you missed Windows 2000 which is easily their best OS.
 
I find the best way to cope with the horrible reorganised Control Panel is to use the search box liberally. That said, I keep forgetting and try and navigate through the ridiculously hierarchical menu system to find something before I realise it's easier to use the search box.
 
ReverendBeastly said:
My mom just got a new laptop with Windows 7 on it and I was able to flip it to a classic style pretty easily, which is definitely what I'll be doing when I try it out for myself. I really don't like the new way the Explorer is set up. I wonder if there's a way og making it more like XP. Or if I'll just have to deal.
Click to expand...

There isn't a classic style in Win7 - certainly not for menus.

CSMenu gets you a classic menu. There is a theme you can download - Luna, which is the XP theme - but you also need to patch the themes system files first. You then need to suss out how to get the quick launch back on the task bar.
 
white43 said:
[ CK - you can download a program called CS Menu for 7 - and it adds a classic menu for 7....funnily enough.....although my main gripe with it is not being able to copy or drag items out of the menu.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information, mate. I shall reconsider buying Windows 7.

While I prefer XP to Vista, I have actually been able to run a few old games on Vista that I couldn't get to work on XP. I know this flies in the face of what most people have experienced in terms of compatibility with Vista, but this actually made up for not having XP on my new laptop for me.
 
Windows 7 sounds better than Vista which I found hard work just trying to find folders, files ect. I dont think I would change XP, until I know its better.
 
After a standard install and idle - Vista runs about 100mb more memory than 7. Vista is the worst bloatware ever.
 
I find that even though 7 consumes roughly the same amount of memory as Vista, that it's much more willing to give it up to other applications. Vista just chewed up a gig of RAM and wouldn't give it out to anything, meaning the machine slowed to a crawl when doing anything even vaguely intensive.
 
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