Windows 7 is the best

I've been using Windows, since Win95. Remember Win98, and SE which allowed me to play Sims Rollercoaster in crappy 3d. Then I skipped WinMe and got XP remember getting used to all the colours. Thought it was the best thing ever then, got Vista, worked out all the kinks and was fine. And now I'm using Windows 7 and I think it's the best version of Windows ever. The installation was amazingly easy, albeit a little long. I didn't need to configure anything out of the box. It all just worked. Not to mention the cool wallpapers that are included and how easy it is to uninstall Windows bundled stuff. Of course I miss a lot of things from the Linux camp like software repo's and customization, and the sense of being free but this is a major improvement over past Windows versions. It's just as fast as a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04 using ext3 as the file system. It's better looking out of the box, and almost just as easy to install (besides my time settings being borked). I have to say, good work Microsoft. Good work. Now update IE!!!

 

For an RC, W7 is (yes) quite good. I am however holding back the end-vote until I get the official version ;-)

cheers ...

 

Unless MSFT somehow ruins the RTM compared to the RC, I think they're sitting on a real winner.

OP; +1.

 

Glad to hear it. But Linux is still far more efficient and (of course) free and completely flexible. Now I just need to figure out how to get W7 for a halfway decent price.

 

Very true. I just don't want to jinx it Still, I hope that the devices manufacturers get on board faster than with Vista's implementation.

cheers ...

 

Yep Win 7 is awesome. Although it's just a very very very much improved windows vista in my opinion. For the past few months though, win 7 has been flawless for me.

 

Let's just hope they market it properly.

Regarding the installation, IIRC, it seemed to have only taken about 20 minutes or so, compared with about 40-45 for Vista.

 

Update IE? They've been doing that for a while and it's still as awkward and unreliable as always.

 

It took 20 minutes for me to clean install Vista. I didn't see any difference in installation time.

 

both install in about 8 min here... interesting, as it has about the same disk footprint, and the setup routine is largely the same (so is the os, from an installation perspective).
bu it's nice, yes. not for me, but for the public, and so for microsoft.

 

And to think because this is a Beta the real version would be even faster.

 

I haven't tried Win7 yet, but good to hear it works well. Waiting for GA.

As for IE it is a terrible browser. Firefox is way faster and more modular. So is Chrome. IE is slow (even IE8 advertised as "we fixed it now"), quite average in ease of use, misses a lot of plugins, and takes more vertical real estate on the screen than its competitors.

 

I don't get it.. This seems to be an Service Pack.... not an upgarde ... I will have to see. I got Vista Ultimate and its not the best but it works... I need windows in order to run my music studio software... if not for that and runing the sims 2 and the sims 3. I would ditch windows completly. I really think you guys should look under the hood and dig deep on this one.....Windows 7 is like paying MS for a Service Pack. ........... no big difference in the OS....... I tell you its smart and good for MS that they have yet another way to line their pockets... Lets look at the facts most poeple are happy with XP... Vista has just started to be an approved OS in most environments... now you release window 7 (I mean Vista Service pack 3) and want us to pay for it... BAD Bizness

 

at least it DOES have lots of improvments and changes.

apple does charge for a servicepack where there are NO changes (not like their os ever really changes since it's existance at all, actually).

win7 changes more than that. but yes, it would not be here yet if people would have accepted vista.

so it's not bad business, it's the people now paying for that they ed on vista. it's good business (as people will buy it).

 

always remember the OEMs will ruin the os, not microsoft. so far we all tested clean installs, and most of us experienced non-cleaninstalled vista. clean installed vista is quite fast, and very stable and good. it's the OEMs crapup (crap setup) that messes the oses up since years.

i'd love to see mac osx with all the OEM crapware stuff. it would suck

i hope microsoft gets the OEMs to not include much crapware.

 

Yeah, Vista never took as long as 40 min to install for me. And IE8 is improved, but FF is still vastly superior.

 

True. Add lazy device manufacturers to the list who butchered drivers, which MSFT got blamed for as well.

I think the transition to 7 will be smooth though. Even if hardware manufacturers do the unthinkable and sleep through 7's release, as it stands there are very few things that worked in Vista that don't in 7 and that list will only grow smaller.

OEMs OTOH really should start doing things differently. As you said, MSFT unfairly gets most of the blame for this and tarnishes their products' image. They should force OEMs to, in the very least, offer clean installs as an option to everyone.

My blood got boiling a while ago when I read on an HP Support forum some poor guy trying to clean install Vista on this HP Desktop knowing that the recovery disks that HP provides are of no help, as they add all the bloat back on. Some HP Support genius tells him that he has to buy another licence and copy of Vista to do that. How PO'ed that customer must feel. OEMs should really be called out by MSFT on this. They (oems) are essentially dictating to consumers how crappy the Vista experience must be.

 

I saw a few videos on the new features of Win 7. They seemed unique but I didn't find that they would help me much. The main reasons I would go for WIn 7 would probably be efficiency, having a new look with aero(since XP is old and I am bored of it) such as nice transparent window borders and such without a huge performance hit like in Vista. I never had too much problems with Vista either but it was just too much money for a very marginal improvement on XP.

 

I think W7 is very good, but I also think XP and Vista are good. I have never really had many problems with any of them.

 

I can't wait to put Windows 7 on an Intel SSD in my E4300.

Man...

 

Indeed, if they bungle up the marketing al la Vista's launch (The "wow" soooo isn't now Microsoft ) they could be in a world of hurt.

Instead of being abstract about it like they first did with vista, they should actually show people what the OS can do, how it makes using their PC easier.

 

Meh - I agree with others that I never did get the 'Vista sucks so much' arguments of the past. The worst OS I ever used was Windows ME by far. And Win 98 was not much better. Both crashed like crazy, and looked nasty. XP was the first OS they made that I actually liked (stable and predictably bad here and there), but even then its embarrassing to look at that and OS X or Linux with Compiz side by side. The latter (OS X and Linux) revolutionize the way we can interface mouse and machine, the former (Windows) familiarizes us with all the problems possible in today's convulted hardware / software / Networking messes. And hey, if you are using Linux, you are too geeky to live with its support shortcomings, you probably code your way out of it : )

Remember Doshell and Win 3.1? Now that was cool, we all got to pay for 2 OSes trying to do the work of 1!

I'm sorry, but Win 7 seems to be only a revolution for those leapfrogging XP to enjoy the enhanced glitter and relative speed that I've been enjoying for over a year with Vista SP1 and now SP2. I'm actually pretty excited that Win 7 seems to have been pushed out faster by the lackluster embrace of Vista, but who exactly is it that rejected vista? Not the consumers (you can't buy a new machine without it pretty much). Its those budget-minded crisis fearing IT departments in the businesses of the world that did not embrace it. If one can't make a seamless transition to a new platform for a reasonable amount of money and 0 headaches, why do it at all? In my old job for example, the transition would just have been impossible given the crazy mix of decade old and brand new equipment still in use. Paying all the different vendors to properly integrate key software, and then likely ditching older hardware that couldn't run it quickly just explodes the cost. And boy, the cost is NOT exclusive to Microsoft, it goes to the ultimate gougers - Platform providers! 100k for a server and 10k a year for support is just the start. Imagine asking them what it will cost to adapt their Unix platform to a Win7 compatible environment? Forgeddaboutit. It is my feeling that Microsoft seriously needs to start considering how their OS dominance has introduced new issues for small and large businesses - and figure out how to keep innovating without being unduly disruptive. I truly believe that XP survives simply because of the complexity of changing OSes over in a complicated computer-dependent business environment. Changing platforms is not like changing your underwear. We just can't do it everyday!

My advice to future OS developers? 100% backward compatibility (at least 10 years worth), realistic licensing prices, and serious attention paid to performance vs. hardware requirements. Windows 'Basic' should run on a 386dx, and Windows 'professional' should be able to take advantage of 16 cores and 20 gigs of RAM. I am exaggerating of course, the idea being that the OS should scale with whatever hardware is present to make transitioning / planning upgrades on a business scale dependent on their time lines, not YOURS (Msft's, Apples, etc). In a perfect world, that would be great, even if it meant that most features simply would not be available until RAM / CPU combos were up to the challenge of modern capabilities . . . <sigh> Maybe that brings us back to DOS and Win 3.1 but hey, if you want to sell to, and control the OS market, you have to look beyond the product and into the hellish earthly battle known as the world of IT departments. I've been there, and survived, but not without many battle scars, a wounded ego, and fledgling faith in technology.

Enjoy Win 7 board members! After Oct. 22nd you won't really have a choice anyway. BUT, will the business community leap this time? Can't wait to see!

For now, I am going to remember Vista as the 2.5 year long beta testing period that gave us Windows 7, a better, though dubiously improved and expensive piece of software. Sort of how the Win 98 / ME period was like an extended beta period leading to XP. : P

 

Yeah, with Vista, it was really "If you want to use Vista, then you need to upgrade your hardware". I think the Vista "Experience Index" really killed it for people, thinking their PC was not "up to snuff". Not to mention the scare of non-compliant hardware wouldn't even work for DRM content.

 

funny that i never had to upgrade any hw and vista runs well on p4 based systems.

just a bit of ram

so far it looks like corporations don't switch to win7 much. at the current crysis, any form of investment have to be worth it.. and, as xp works.. even while getting more and more "meh", there's no real reason to switch (namely save money somehow).

 

Nice post, and I agree with what you said. I agree, windows ME was HORRIBLE. I know since I was the tech support for my friend, who was running it. Main pieces of the functionality were just broken. Even MS later admitted it that it was an unfinished product that was released.

 

I'm not saying that you had to, but that was the message coming from MS. And for DRM content you HAD to.

But XP is fine for a business environment, really. It serves its purpose, is fully compatible with Microsoft Server 2003 and 2008 (well, not all features supported), so why switch? As I am going through my MCSA training, however, from a support standpoint, I am liking Vista a whole lot more.

 

I'd just quibble with one of mgh_a1's points - 10 years of backward compatibility. Much of what has hobbled the progression of WinOSes is, precisely, the need to maintain significant legacy support; absent that issue, the OS would probably be substantially better (from a performance and size of codebase view) than it is now. Better would be to guarantee 10 years of reasonable performance going forward (for a price, of course, but then, if one's buying enterprise licenses, the price is worth it), including not just security support during the so-called extended support phase, but also support for functionality upgrades required to maintain reasonable performance. And, to take into account potential future delays in releasing future iterations of the OS, a guarantee of a certain minimum number of years of such support beyond the release date of the next iteration.

That, along with assistance in transitioning from one platform to another, should give enough wiggle room for even the most hidebound of IT managers to make a seamless enough transition, without having to hobble the next generation of the OS with the idiosyncracies of the prior iteration upon which certain large IT departments have become dependent.

 

That's exactly right. The ultimate verdict on Windows 7 will come from the experiences of people who get it on their HP, or Gateway, or Sony, or Dell. And most of those manufacturers are certain to provide a pig of an install laden down with sprawling security suite trials, "assistants", and other assorted crap that'll make the OS perform like garbage. The vast majority of users will never experience anything close to a clean installation of the OS.

 

I think MS is doing a lot of hype about Ms 7. I have been reading a lot lately about Win 7 and I never find reasons why Ms 7 is better than Vista apart some small changes in Gui. A good improvement for me would be memory usage. Can people make a comparison how fast MS 7 is vs Vista? How much memory consumes for its basic tasks?

 

Many many NBR members (myself included) believe that W7 is definitively a good step up over Vista. I am sure that you can browse the threads here in this section to see for yourself the good reasons behind it.

This has nothing to do with MS hype though I think that MS is being tickled to dead for such positive feedback.

cheers ...

 

I have just installed Windows 7 RC 7100 on my NP8662 laptop and immediately noticed that it is much faster than my XP SP3 and Vista in general usage and boot up times. It is more intelligent, it detects issues and sometimes solves the problem by itself and it will recommend solutions to any other issues.

When I had a look at the services list, I noticed that there were hardly any running, most were set to manual as opposed to automatic as well. I also noticed improved performance in the first game that I tested which was GTA IV.

I found that I could now increase the settings in game much more and still get good performance but if I did this in XP, the game seriously slowed down with stutter. The stutter after 30 mins of play in GTA IV has also disappeared.

I can only speculate that Windows 7 is doing something more efficient with my Q9000 Quad Cores during gaming that XP was simply not doing.

I am so impressed with Windows 7 that I have already pre ordered the professional version and plan to install it on my NP8662 for all of my gaming needs. I will also be upgrading to more RAM and then using the 64 Bit version.

 

You know what this means 10 years worth of obselete libraries and APIs.

 

100% backward compatibility means every virus of 1999 still has to be able to run today and harm our systems.

thanks, no.

applications that rely on buggy parts of the system, don't follow the guidelines of the os vendors on how an app should interact with the os and it's apis should NOT get ANY compatibility work effort done. those are lazy programmers, they don't deserve that their apps work.

since windows xp (and i think even on windows 2000), microsoft explicitely stated in the msdn, DON'T STORE SETTINGS in the programs folder. that's not where it belongs to. and provided a simple api to do it right.

any app that doesn't follow that guideline has to fail, and deserves to fail. no backward compatiblity should be given to those apps. the apps should get patched.

but i know, real world is not like that. everyone wants it's own funny useless unsupported crapware to still work years after years. instead of looking for a good working, simple solution.

just as everyone wants to have the hp scan tools installed. and no one knows, that the os can scan documents just as well without any of those 100-200mb big app installs that mess with your system default settings.

 

Tonight I discovered when set to "open each folder in its own window" mode, Windows 7 does not remember the sizes of each window, so they all open at the size of the last window opened. Ugh.

 

I still wonder how people like that option at all but it has to be an annoying thing for them

 

I frequently open at least two folders for copying things from folder "A" to folder "B". I also have various folders with various numbers of things in them. A window sized to properly fit 20 items doesn't properly fit 400 items. My desktop and all my laptops use 1920x1200 displays, I should be able to take advantage of that real estate.

 

Things Microsoft Wanted but people don't follow:
1)Do not store Data in C:\Programs Files
2)Do not set up Admin Account for normal usage (hence UAC)
3)Program Files should remove themselves cleanly using add/Remove Programs
4)Use the new APIs for Programming not sticking to the old ones due to laziness

 

just get used to not do it that way? win7 has aero snap just for that.

and yes, i work with 1920 res, too. what i do, is i have close to all of my apps always fullscreen. best use of screen real estate. alt-tab.

back in nt, that "tons of windows for everything" was the way i've learned it. since xp, i mostly work in fullscreen windows. much more efficient.

it's a habbit thing.


oh, and moving around data frequently shows something's wrong most of my data defaults to the right place, and is done. and with libraries, you should have even less need to move


but it's obviously dependent. still, sometimes changing habbits solves long-year ramblings and cryings about things that never work the way you want it suddenly in some minutes

 

Aero Snap is not the ideal tool for this. It can't account for two folders with vastly different numbers of items, and can't help when there's more than two folders.

I can't comprehend running everything full-screen. I've included a screenshot of cnn.com at 1920x1200. That's "best use"?

For you maybe. I find having every possible window at 1920x1200 to be completely inefficient. I couldn't write this post while looking at IRC and leafing through images in a folder at the same time that way.

I don't have a central storage repository, since I don't leave any of my computers on 24x7. It's not my electric bill. Sometimes I'll be on my Mac, or my Sager, or my desktop, or my Dell, or even my Blackberry or my iPod Touch, and whichever one I'm on I may download something that needs to get moved to another machine. My data doesn't "default" to the right machine (especially if it's off) and the library system doesn't give me any extra efficiency.

Please don't tell me what's wrong about my computing needs.

 

there is a zoom feature on all major browsers, so yes, browing at maximized settings is best.. attaching now a screenshot of this very post..

I don't want to attack your way of living. I just say I don't have any of your problems, so they can be solved. but not without changing habbits and i know how hard that is (still scared of the switch to win7 when it's there.. :s)


and btw, central repository rocks get rid of having to manage all your data on all your different systems. then, live gets much more easy.