Impressed with Windows 7..Anybody else?

[sl1200mk2]

Not really impressed. The changes they made are only skin-deep. Once you use it regularly, you notice the same problems Vista had.

Sorry, but that's just not true. There are quite a few underlying architectural and kernal changes.

One example: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

If you're interested, this is easy information to find. You might not be interested at all, and that's fine too... just keep on believing the FUD you'll mostly read here.

Personally, I like being a big fan of both platforms and technology (from anyone) in general.

 

[EmperorDarius]

I am not impressed. If I had used Vista as much as I have used Xp, I would be. Because it's really a gigantic step forward from Vista.

However having mainly used Xp, I'm not impressed. Windows 7 is still slower than Xp (not by much, but still slower). It fails to offer a good performing and good looking GUI. The aero interface is not only resource consuming but also very ugly. The classic interface is much lighter, but not any better when it comes to the look.

Things have improved. The Memory management is better than both Xp and Vista. (Though it still has some flaws)
The Security is similar to Vista, though UAC is certainly better (Though I don't think it'll take much time for malware writers to bypass it, like they do with Vista)

The new taskbar gets really messy with a lot of applications opened. But other than that, it certainly is better than the old Windows one. Nothing revolutionary though, being used to the Dock.

Aero Peek doesn't seem very useful to me. Hiding all windows is certainly better.

The Boot speed has been improved, yet much much slower than Leopard's (and certainly Snow Leopard's)

I like what they have done with media format support, though I'd never use Media Player. It's either VLC or KMPLayer for me.

I don't like having gadgets sitting on my desktop.

I don't like the Ribbon interface of the apps. Big fail.

And I don't like the "Editions" or Windows 7.

Overall, except for the slower speed, Windows Xp users should upgrade to 7. Though the process is quite tedious. In any case, Windows 7 is what Vista was should have been. Accept it or not, Vista users have been nothing but Beta testers for Windows 7. Well, at least Vista user's pain has has been paid off somewhat. No wait. That would've been if Windows 7 was a free upgrade to Vista users. And for Xp users, who were stuck with a 2001 OS just because there was no other choice.

In the very end, it's still Windows. With the registry, insecurity and instability it always had.

 

[clevin]

I am not impressed. If I had used Vista as much as I have used Xp, I would be. Because it's really a gigantic step forward from Vista.

However having mainly used Xp, I'm not impressed. Windows 7 is still slower than Xp (not by much, but still slower). It fails to offer a good performing and good looking GUI. The aero interface is not only resource consuming but also very ugly. The classic interface is much lighter, but not any better when it comes to the look.

Things have improved. The Memory management is better than both Xp and Vista. (Though it still has some flaws)
The Security is similar to Vista, though UAC is certainly better (Though I don't think it'll take much time for malware writers to bypass it, like they do with Vista)

The new taskbar gets really messy with a lot of applications opened. But other than that, it certainly is better than the old Windows one. Nothing revolutionary though, being used to the Dock.

Aero Peek doesn't seem very useful to me. Hiding all windows is certainly better.

The Boot speed has been improved, yet much much slower than Leopard's (and certainly Snow Leopard's)

I like what they have done with media format support, though I'd never use Media Player. It's either VLC or KMPLayer for me.

I don't like having gadgets sitting on my desktop.

I don't like the Ribbon interface of the apps. Big fail.

And I don't like the "Editions" or Windows 7.

Overall, except for the slower speed, Windows Xp users should upgrade to 7. Though the process is quite tedious. In any case, Windows 7 is what Vista was should have been. Accept it or not, Vista users have been nothing but Beta testers for Windows 7. Well, at least Vista user's pain has has been paid off somewhat. No wait. That would've been if Windows 7 was a free upgrade to Vista users. And for Xp users, who were stuck with a 2001 OS just because there was no other choice.

In the very end, it's still Windows. With the registry, insecurity and instability it always had.

too many personal opinions, which is fine since the topic is all about it.

apple users spend a quarter of time beta testing for OSX as well anyway, since apple always release OSX 6 month premature and make 2-3 patches subsequently to fix problems.

Im just saying win 7 runs fine on a netbook.

 

[EmperorDarius]

apple users spend a quarter of time beta testing for OSX as well anyway, since apple always release OSX 6 month premature and make 2-3 patches subsequently to fix problems.

I don't agree. The only time when Apple made that mistake was with OS X 10.0. That really was too soon. Other than that, I usually have never had any serious problem with a 10.x.1 update.

And besides, Vista's problems haven't really been fixed with Service Packs. Microsoft is asking customers to PAY for a fixed version of Vista. (Snow Leopard is not really a fixed version of Leopard, but anyway, even if we consider it that way, the price Microsoft asks for a 7 upgrade is simply ridiculous.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

Just a huge collection over the years. But, the count isn't what's really important. Even if I had way less than that it was still a good idea for Microsoft to add in the "next wallpaper" option in case you just don't want to see the one that's currently on the screen.

And to answer your question, I can actually name at least a dozen people that I know of that have close to that number and in a few cases more than that. A lot of us are media enthusiasts in the fullest regard and we save pretty much anything that we like and have kept that collection over the years. You're looking at a guy who's packing two nearly maxed out Drobo's.

Pack rats! Alright, you win.

I use it regularly. I do not notice the same problems Vista had.

Have YOU used it regularly? Have YOU used Vista regularly?

Something tells me ( maybe it's your forum ID ) that you probably have not.

My forum ID has nothing to do with the fact that Windows 7 is still Vista at it's core. You get new bells and whistles, but it's still Vista at it's core. I do agree that Windows 7 is much improved and I already pre-ordered 2 copies, one for my MBP and one for my mom's Dell.

Sorry, but that's just not true. There are quite a few underlying architectural and kernal changes.

One example: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/

If you're interested, this is easy information to find. You might not be interested at all, and that's fine too... just keep on believing the FUD you'll mostly read here.

Personally, I like being a big fan of both platforms and technology (from anyone) in general.

Same here, but I'm only a fan of OS X and XP/Windows 7. Vista was a horrible failure no matter how you try to explain or justify it's existence.

The underlying architectural and kernel changes you mentioned haven't changed it completely. There are still many parts of Vista in Windows 7. For example, the UAC. Microsoft did not completely rewrite the OS, just made changes to Vista. So yes, there are quite a few changes, but they started from Vista.

 

[sl1200mk2]

Microsoft did not completely rewrite the OS, just made changes to Vista. So yes, there are quite a few changes, but they started from Vista.

This is absolutely correct, but I think one big point gets missed. Vista inherited a new, very modular architecture directly from Server 2008. Microsoft no longer needs to go through huge rewrites of an entire OS to get desirable results. They only have to address what needs to be 'fixed' or evolved. Win 7 is a direct representation of building off Vista and thus that platform, but making some large steps in the right direction. Microsoft is no longer writing two completely different platforms for server and desktops. They have one core and create, add and remove modules as needed. Revolutionary idea? Hardly, but it's getting dramatic results on both the desktop and server fronts.

The big reason why Vista 'sucked' was that (as a platform) is was such a departure from XP. It took time to get right, especially with 3rd party drivers; hands down the source of most peoples pain. Things had to be fixed and unfortunately it took a full product cycle to get where they should have been in the first place. MS took a big PR hit and a rightly deserved kick in the rear.

It pretty much reminds me of the first release of OS X. IMHO, 10.1 and 10.2 sucked pretty badly. I wouldn't (didn't) buy a Mac back then because of it. It wasn't until late 10.2 (10.3 released soon after) that I bought in because it started to mature. If we really want to be real, I know, that's awfully hard around here, OS X didn't fully come into it's own until pretty recently. It wasn't until 10.5 that I said "holy S this is really good" and now want to go from laptops to desktops.

Anyway... good discussion!

 

[OneMike]

When I tried out windows 7 I was definitely impressed with it. Not enough to ditch my macs but Windows may be a choice again in the future.

 

[clevin]

the price Microsoft asks for a 7 upgrade is simply ridiculous.

$120 is indeed pricey, but certainly no ridiculous.

The underlying architectural and kernel changes you mentioned haven't changed it completely. Microsoft did not completely rewrite the OS, just made changes to Vista. So yes, there are quite a few changes, but they started from Vista.

there is no major OS in current computers that don't have a 20+ years old kernel.

if you want to imply that apple somehow completely rewrite an OS from scratch around 2000, then it would be a lie.

 

[EmperorDarius]

$120 is indeed pricey, but certainly no ridiculous.

It's ridiculous since they've forced their customers to either use an incomplete and buggy *Beta* OS or an 8 year old OS. The upgrade should have been free, or at least very very cheap.

 

[spillproof]

I never upgrade to Vista because I did not like it very much. I just might have to upgrade to Win 7 from XP because I'm very happy with it.

 

[jalagl]

I upgraded my work laptop this week to Windows 7, and so far am very happy with it. Keep in mind I upgraded form Windows XP, and never used Vista. This is on a 13" laptop with a Core 2 Duo 2GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM, using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. So far my impressions are:

• Recognized everything (hardware) out of the box. It is a year(ish)-old laptop.
• It has a certain "lag" when starting actions, but is pretty snappy afterwards. Hard to describe it exactly... seems like it takes a second to open a window, then renders everything instantly.
• Had one crash already that resulted in a BSOD: http://yfrog.com/95l9np
• Really like the taskbar an "pinning" apps to the Start menu.
• Windows XP Mode works kinda well for a couple of old legacy apps I have to run. The integration with Win7 from XP Mode apps isn't as streamlined as it should, but the performance hasn't bothered me so far. (Using XP Mode RC)
• Have been able to find my way around configuration settings, which I heard was a big pain in Vista (never used Vista myself)
• Like the way app windows "stack" on the taskbar, with a quick live preview similar to Exposé. I normally have tens of windows open, and this makes it more manageable.
• Went through A LOT of UAT prompts the first couple of days, as I was installing stuff and setting up the laptop the way I like it. After that, only seen a couple of them, so it doesn't seem to be as annoying as I've heard it was in Vista.

Overall, I think it is a worthwhile upgrade. I'll, however, stick with OSX on my home computer and upgrade to Snow Leopard as soon as it is available.

 

[clevin]

It's ridiculous since they've forced their customers to either use an incomplete and buggy *Beta* OS or an 8 year old OS. The upgrade should have been free, or at least very very cheap.

thats your opinion, certainly you are entitled to.

But on this matter, its more a question of what most vista users think. I don't believe Vista is as bad as people trying to portray it. Apple maybe successfully generated much of the negative public opinions at the beginning with its infamous mac vs pc ads, that doesn't mean its necessarily true. Its not like apple was sincerely making fact based cases in any of its ads.

Standing from the different side, people can argue apple's OSX in the past 9 years, has put their users on alpha beta testing for at least 2 years, apple still charges $129 each until 10.6. Is that ridiculous? over the past 9 years, its total of $500+ and 20% of the times, its reinstalling the system, and testing. How good is that then?

Apple users can forget apple's behavior, then they shouldn't throw stones at windows, after all, their glass house isn't much stronger.

 

[MorphingDragon]

and talk about rip off again, did I ever mention to you specifically that the core of OSX is rip off from Unix/BSD, and the core of safari is rip off from Konqueror?

Umm, UNIX has become a Generic term, irrelevant point. The Kernel comes from technology developed to replace the Kernel in BSD and NeXTSTEP was developed as a drop-in replacement for BSD. In Essence, BSD no longer exists in Mac OSX, all components of Mac OSX were designed to replace BSD. SOME processes are BSD but that has diminished greatly. I believe the IP Stack is still BSD in Windows too. In Fact Apple dont even deny it, on the Darwin Page, they say "Darwin integrates a number of technologies, most importantly Mach 3.0, operating-system services based on 4.4BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)" Not the OS itself.

Cocoa/Carbon and Objective-C were NeXT Technologies.
I dont know about your programming ability but all Cocoa functions are NSSomethingSomething. Like NSGarbageCollector or NSString. NS stands for NeXTSTEP.

WebKit was a fork of KHTML. Safari is based around WebKit. Chrome is based around Webkit. Bash Safari then fairly bash Chome, Nokia Browser, Chrome OS etc etc aswell. Be fair to other products, otherwise your just being hypocritical.

 

[EmperorDarius]

But on this matter, its more a question of what most vista users think. I don't believe Vista is as bad as people trying to portray it. Apple maybe successfully generated much of the negative public opinions at the beginning with its infamous mac vs pc ads, that doesn't mean its necessarily true. Its not like apple was sincerely making fact based cases in any of its ads.

I'm a Vista user. I use Vista periodically (though I mostly use Xp, when using Windows). And I think that Vista is awful. Pretty much everyone I know hates Vista. Most of them have just downgraded to Xp. I don't really care about Apple ads, I care about my experience.

Standing from the different side, people can argue apple's OSX in the past 9 years, has put their users on alpha beta testing for at least 2 years, apple still charges $129 each until 10.6. Is that ridiculous? over the past 9 years, its total of $500+ and 20% of the times, its reinstalling the system, and testing. How good is that then?

The only time when Apple did user users as beta testers was in the beginning of OS X. (10.0-10.2). That's true. After that, every OS was a stable OS. $129 is a good price. So let's say that 129$ got wasted. Look at what Microsoft is asking for the Ultimate Edition.

 

[yoyo5280]

I am actually disappointed with Seven.

From all the hype I thought it would be great, but literally during the set up I found interface glitches that irked me.

I never used vista, and I have heard of the dreaded security system. Well it welcomed me in my first 5 minutes of Seven. Like 5 times.


I don't think i'm getting Aero though cause I am running through VirtualBox.

-Omi

 

[chrono1081]

I'll be honest with you. I have Leopard and Windows 7 on my 13" MBP. But Windows 7 is just a big yawn to me. It's the same old Microsoft clutter, registry, apps spread all over the place. Sorry but I don't feel the excitment.

+1. Windows seriously needs to ditch the registry. (Maybe not because windows problems keep me employed)

I will say that 7 is what Vista should have been. It is more responsive and runs much better on slow hardware. I do like how everything is in the control panel for the most part where it should be and the dock icons are smaller.
But IMO it still has nothing on Mac OS. Its just the same old drab windows underneath the gloss.

Vista was such an awful piece of trash if you tried to use it for anything other then internet, office work and some games. If your one of the users who need to do things like large data transfers, backups, anything involving disk imaging Vista was unusable. There are still some who try and defend Vista for whatever reason but I think Vista was a good wake-up call to Microsoft. There were a lot of people who hated Vista and a lot of people who tried other OS's because of it. Microsoft I think realized they aren't as invincible as they thought they were.


EDIT: I do think MS owes customers a much cheaper if not free upgrade to 7.

 

[Not Available]

Yes, I also run it through Boot Camp, and it's definitely smoother than XP, I was SHOCKED when my G11 keyboard was recognized & installed (drivers) automatically.

Although it has many improvements, it still lacks a lot of OS X's features, which I find crucial.

I might update an old computer to 7, I ran the advisor, and all I needed was some more RAM (I had 512 DDR-400, they said 1GB -- I got them, but I think I'll get 3GB after all).

 

[chrono1081]

Unless I skipped over it somewhere (which is a possibility please correct me if I am wrong)....


I still saw no multiple desktop support or ISO burning and mounting support :'( (A coworker said he saw burning but no mounting but I haven't found it).

 

[Not Available]

In fact, I'm posting this from Windows 7 (Boot Camp). One thing I like better is the scroll bars and buttons. In OS X, they're like crap, they look like 1699. But in Vista/7, they look amazingly modern.

One thing I don't like, though, is the trackpad. Gotta' configure it

 

[neiltc13]

Not really impressed. The changes they made are only skin-deep. Once you use it regularly, you notice the same problems Vista had.

Can you provide a list of these problems?

 

[Les Kern]

I'll be honest with you. I have Leopard and Windows 7 on my 13" MBP. But Windows 7 is just a big yawn to me. It's the same old Microsoft clutter, registry, apps spread all over the place. Sorry but I don't feel the excitment.

I feel even less impressed. While the first beta's were a bit impressive, MS started adding in the legacy code to make more things work and it slowly became bloatware that struggles JUST LIKE VISTA. I can imagine the GM now... and I see pain in the future. The only good thing I see so far is the fact my app runs on it... which counts for nothing.

 

[neiltc13]

I feel even less impressed. While the first beta's were a bit impressive, MS started adding in the legacy code to make more things work and it slowly became bloatware that struggles JUST LIKE VISTA. I can imagine the GM now... and I see pain in the future. The only good thing I see so far is the fact my app runs on it... which counts for nothing.

So you'd rather they went down the route that Apple did and cut out support for older applications as well as preventing people who bought computers in 2006 or before from using the software on their machine?

 

[MorphingDragon]

So you'd rather they went down the route that Apple did and cut out support for older applications as well as preventing people who bought computers in 2006 or before from using the software on their machine?

The should just resort to Classic Mode. Oh Wait... XP Mode.

 

[womble2k2]

My girlfriend occasionally works from home, and her office use a remote access system that only works correctly on Internet Explorer. I have therefore installed Windows 7 RC on my MBP for her to have access to IE.

I've not used it much, but from what I've seen, MS is still miles away from an OS that comes close to OS X. It still isn't easy to navigate around, it still isn't intuative, it still is a mix of styles / methods to do similar tasks in different areas / applications / tools. It is still bloated, it is still resource hungry and it is still not as user friendly as OS X.

MS needs to raise its game. With Apple gaining market share, new OS's such as Google Chrome OS and more user friendly versions of Linux attacking Windows, it needs to be a lot slicker.

With multiple versions, all with standalone, upgrade and OEM builds, each with complicated pricing, it is a nightmare.

Some say MS is clever my allowing everyone to download the RC and make it work until June 2010 is clever, but I think they've taken a huge risk. Yes, please will gradually get used to it and will want their PC to continue to work post June 2010, but with high ticket values, it will surely lead people to either look for cheaper alternatives or obtaining ways of getting the OS for free (either torrent a full version or circumventing the RC 'end of life' system).

I can't wait to get Snow Leopard to get a 'better Leopard' and then see what Apple has in store next.

I guess what will come after SL will have tighter integration between MobileMe and iPhone (iPad?) OS X, as well as bringing new useful tools, streamlining workflows further and exploiting GCD / Open CL further to provide a slicker overall experience.

After Win 7, MS will be expecting PC's to have six core CPUs, 16 gigs of memory and a 1 TeraByte HD as standard to run it's successor!!

Phil

 

[bruinsrme]

Coming here asking if people are impressed with a Microsoft product like going into a Pepsi plant and asking the employees drink coke