Windows 7 Reviews Thread

[gkarris]

Hi all.

Hope this thread will work out. I'd like the community to put all their Windows 7 Reviews in this thread. Please keep it "nice" - this is for reviewing Windows 7 and how well it runs on Macs, PC's, under Virtualization, etc.

PLEASE STAY WITHIN TOPIC. No "MS stinks get a Mac" or "your computer stinks" posts please, or "how do I?". Thank you.

Please state what machine your running on, the version, and your likes/dislikes. Also, will it be worth upgrading from XP or Vista? Would you need to get a new computer (Mac or PC), Virtualization or Bootcamp?

I'd like to know.. I'm testing it on a few different machines. Will post my findings on at least my first machine a bit later.

Thanks to all for your valuable time.

 

[Eidorian]

Computer in signature. They have the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 installed in Windows 7 by default. Homeworld 2 doesn't work.

If I'm lucky I can just install said TV pack on Vista and not have to get a copy of Windows 7.

 

[buddhaface]

I have it installed on my 2006 MBP and as primary on my HP tablet.

64-bit was a kind of sluggish on my tablet, because my tablet is only 1.33ghz (I believe Win7 x64 requirements were 2.0ghz minimum). So I reinstalled the 32-bit, and it's been working amazingly well on the tablet. Definitely as fast as XP and perhaps even snappier (which is impressive considering I have all the Aero effects turned on).

I like the new taskbar, keeps clutter down to a minimum. One thing that drives me batty on OS X is when I have a gazillion windows open, it's really difficult to manage them with Expose and Dock. But the new Win7 taskbar handles cluster masterfully (you aren't overwhelmed by the gazillion windows you have open).

The new Win7 Libraries concept is also pretty cool (it's like iTunes organization for your entire PC) and not nearly as confusing as people make it out to be.

The Win7 tablet inking functionality is improved over Vista (which was already pretty damn good), particularly when making corrections.

Definitely pretty happy with it so far.

 

[ryannazaretian]

Tried it on my MBP (below are specs). I liked it, but found that LabView was incompatible, so I had to go back to a previous version of Windows to get it to run.

I really liked it though. It was fast, had some neat features, and was pretty stable. Everything worked on my computer with the drivers given from Apple's OSX disk, which was a big plus for me.

I think it will be a solid upgrade once it is finished, as long as MS doesn't screw it up.

 

[Stridder44]

I have an early '08 MacBook Pro (specs in sig)- gave Windows 7 64-bit a try on 80 GB of space (which is what I ususally give Vista 64).

It ran very well and was very fast. I would have kept it as my main (Windows) OS but I came across 2 big problems:

1) Lack of Virtual Drive software. Daemon Tools, Power ISO, Magic ISO etc. They all either do not work or do work but have massive memory leaks/cause Explorer to hang big time.

2) I could not get my external Firewire 400 hard drive to work, much less even be recognized. In Vista64 I at least get a "device connected" ding, and am able to explore it with HFS Explorer. I'm guessing this is a driver problem more than anything though.

 

[gkarris]

Thanks for the reviews so far.

This is my experience on the machine I first put it on:

Dell Latitude D610, 1.8 MHz Pentium M, 2Gigs RAM, Intel GMA900, 4200 RPM Hard Drive

Running on MS Virtual PC 2007, Windows 7, 32-bit

I first gave it 512Megs RAM, but was too sluggish, so I upped it to 1.2 Gigs RAM - ran much better.

Actually, it runs pretty well, under the circumstances. So, it should run fine on the minimum published specs natively on a more modern machine.

I was running it on this one primarily to check out the interface. I think it is better than Vista. On the Vista laptop I have, I was looking for certain features (like automatic changing of background pics) that were absent. Looks like they're in Windows 7 now.

Windows 7 seems like the next version of Vista that will actually run on XP machines. I like it and MS will do well with the new OS.

So the questions is, is it worth the upgrade?

If you have an XP machine, or a Vista machine that's very sluggish, then yes, it is worth the upgrade.

If you have a Vista machine that runs Vista well, then not so much. Do you want to spend $100 to upgrade? Well, on my cheapo Acer that was $379 that does run Vista, I don't think so...

Need an OS? I say use the Windows 7 Beta, then get the real version upon its release.

Now I'm debating what else I should test it on. On my Black MacBook and Acer, it'll run just fine. I was thinking on testing it on even some older machines, but natively using a different hard disk.

 

[Stridder44]

I have an early '08 MacBook Pro (specs in sig)- gave Windows 7 64-bit a try on 80 GB of space (which is what I ususally give Vista 64).

It ran very well and was very fast. I would have kept it as my main (Windows) OS but I came across 2 big problems:

1) Lack of Virtual Drive software. Daemon Tools, Power ISO, Magic ISO etc. They all either do not work or do work but have massive memory leaks/cause Explorer to hang big time.

2) I could not get my external Firewire 400 hard drive to work, much less even be recognized. In Vista64 I at least get a "device connected" ding, and am able to explore it with HFS Explorer. I'm guessing this is a driver problem more than anything though.

Just wanted to follow up on this: I ended up reinstalling Windows 7 and found solutions to both previous problems.

1) Slysoft's Virtual CloneDrive, works well in Win7 64

2) Ended up trying the Firewire legacy driver, and all worked well

 

[gkarris]

Just installed it on this Thinkpad X31:

Centrino 1.3 GHz
ATI Radeon Pro Mobile 16Meg
1 Gig RAM
40 Gig HD
(came with Windows XP Pro).

It runs great!

Couldn't find all the drivers, and the ones I downloaded from Lenovo for Vista didn't work, but I went to the device manager and from within Windows, told it to "check online for drivers" and it found all of them!

Everything works on it! Worth upgrading? I don't know if I want to sink more money into this machine, but Windows 7 runs great on it!

MS has done it right. To make up for Vista, though, they should make it a $29 upgrade... (unlikely though )

 

[Eidorian]

I'll see if I can avoid getting Windows 7 just for the Windows Media Center update that is available to Vista.

Not that said TV pack update is easy to install...