Opinions on Windows 7

[Technochicken]

I am guessing that there are a fair number of TS members that have tried out windows 7, and it would be interesting to hear opinions from some other people. Here are my personal opinions:
First of all, getting drivers to work was a mixed bag. I did not have to install the drivers for my video card, as they seemed to be built in to the os. Windows immediately showed a 8500 gt, and the native res. of my monitor was automatically set. But all the other drivers were a complete nightmare. i could not find a driver for my wireless adapter that worked. the setup would run, but windows would not detect the driver installed. the same thing happened with my motherboard and sound drivers. Some of these problems were probably because i was using the 64 bit version of windows 7.
I have mixed opinions about the start menu and task bar also. First of all, the task bar is extremely thick, but this is only an issue when you have fairly limited monitor space as i do. The system tray is a big improvement over vista. You can completely customize it, so you do not have annoying space wasters like norton sitting down there. Also, there is a handy button in the bottom right corner that shows the desktop. One thing I really hate about the task bar is the new system for showing what windows are open. I like being able to read a description of what is open, and windows 7 just has little pictures.
Performance wise, there is a fair improvement over vista. I installed it on a slower hard drive than the one i have vista on, and it still booted a bit faster than a fresh installation of vista did on my faster drive. 7 uses the same amount of ram on idle as vista, but the cpu usage is almost always at 0%, where in vista it jumps around much more. Opening applications was not noticeably faster than in vista.
In actual use, I hardly noticed any difference between 7 and vista, and when windows 7 is released, I will be in no hurry to upgrade.

 

[skitzo_zac]

I'm running the 7 beta (64 bit) straight from XP (Pro SP3) never used Vista (except a couple of times on friends machines, but not enough to have my own opinions on Vista).

Installation went fine (apart from my own stupidity when trying to get it dual booting with XP, but thats fixed now). Drivers all installed fine using Vista 64 drivers for all my hardware, however the Creative drivers for my X-Fi XtremeGamer don't work properly when enabling the CMSS-3D function (there are modded Daniel K drivers available to fix this) so the next set of official Creative drivers should fix the issue hopefully.

Pretty much everything I have tried to isntall has worked no problems, the ones that did have problems were remedied by running under compatability mode.
Installed:
Xfire
AVG Free 8
Folding@Home CPU & GPU clients
Last.fm
Windows Live Messenger & Mail
Opera 10 alpha
Free Download Manager
Java
Flash
CCleaner
Foxit Reader

Exceptions include the K-lite codec pack which I haven't really looked into trying to get it working yet.

I am used to the whole UI now and kind of like it I think. My main issue is that the 'show desktop' button is way down in the bottom right corner next to the clock. I want it on the far left next to the start button, you should be able to move it.

It seems to be pretty good performance wise, definately seems more slugish than my XP installation but not so bad that it really annoys me. My machine seems to comletely freeze occasionally sometimes, no BSOD just not responding at all with no hard drive activity or anything have to hard reboot it to fix it. This happens maybe once or twice a day, I haven't seen a pattern so am unsure what causes it.

Windows Media Player 12 seems to have a few issues, the album art it displays in the bottom left corner when you are in library mode on some tracks seems to be displayed kind of like a negative image (if it happens to you also you will know what I am talking about). And I have an album in lossless wav 2.4Mbs which WMP doesn't recognise the bitrate just shows it as blank, I can play these songs I just can't skip through the song. When I try to skip through the song it just restarts the song, I was trying to install K-Lite to try and fix this issue.

My conclusions, apart from the creative drivers which should be easily fixed and until then I am downloading Daniel K's modded ones, the freezing I like it. If they let me move the 'show desktop' button the the left of the taskbar I would love it, but if not I'm sure I would get used to it on the right or just use Windows+D as my primary way to get to the desktop.

 

[SNGX1275]

Yeh I've ran it. It seems fast, seems maybe faster than Vista. But do we really know? There are probably very few of us that have ran a clean install of 7 and a clean install of vista on the same hardware.

So that is something that needs to be considered when we are comparing performance.

My impressions of 7 are pretty good though, it seems to be stable, but **** everything has been stable now for 9 years, if it wasn't you had bad hardware.

The taskbar absolutely sucks though, it is by far the worst thing I have seen from a UI perspective from MS in.. well 14+ years. I have no idea wtf they were thinking, but this taskbar is worse than it was in 1995.

 

[skitzo_zac]

Yeh I've ran it. It seems fast, seems maybe faster than Vista. But do we really know? There are probably very few of us that have ran a clean install of 7 and a clean install of vista on the same hardware.

Bit-Tech have some performance numbers for Vista vs 7 here

My problem earlier with K-lite lay in the fact that I was trying to install an old version of the codec pack. I downloaded the latest version and it installed without problem. However it didn't fix WMP 12s issue with my 24bit WAV lossless audio.

 

[HDD123]

Im using Windows 7 64 bit (my 4gb of ram is on its way shipping) duel booted with Windows XP Media Center. Im happy with the performance so far and they even but in a windows logo on the os boot screen unlike Vista now i wanna see how it does with Crysis Warhead.

 

[the.freak]

I'm downloading the 64bit version, have tried the 32bit one on VMWare, not many changes Core wise

 

[1101doc]

Win7 build 7000

My main complaint about Win7,beyond agreeing that the 'Taskbar' is less than I desire, is the seeming total lack of button controls in folders. No Move To.. Copy to.. Delete, search, Up, refresh--nothing, and I cannot discover a way to get them. Not good.

Curiously, my Win 7 is no better (even worse) at 'remembering' Taskbar settings than XP was before I ran TaskbarRepairToolPlus. Simply will not 'hold' settings after a reboot unless I 'show all-all the time.'

As an Opera user, I am not impressed with IE8, although it is snappier than 7 for sure.

At this point (3 days) my feeling is that if you like Vista, you'll love Win 7. But if you think that Vista prevents you from making the modifications that you've grown to expect from XP's flexibility and configurability, you'll like Win 7 even less than Vista.

Unless the final version is significantly improved over this beta, I will never buy it. I am always so glad to get 'home' to XP after a Win 7 session.

 

[1941]

I Have Windows Ultimate both X32 and x64 bit as well as Windows Home Premium x64 on my machine along with Vista and all I can say is that Windows 7 Rocks.

 

[ksloan1945]

I am trying to remove Max Secure Spyware Detector from my computer and can't get it uninstalled. When I try to remove it from the control panel, I get a "C:\Program Files\Spyware Detector\unins000.dat" does not exist message. I just purchased McAfee and would like to get Spyware Det. off my computer--I paid for it and used it for a year. I assumed that included in that fee was the capacity to remove the program when I was finished with it. I'm really nervous about going into registries and messing around.

 

[Tmagic650]

I installed Windows 7 on a separate hard drive in my Vista Home Premium 32bit, SP1 computer. The dual boot works fine but Windows 7 won't let me install drivers for my on-board NIC, so there is no Internet connectivity... Windows 7 does seem much faster, but until I get a NIC to work, I am stuck

 

[DaMak420]

I am trying to remove Max Secure Spyware Detector from my computer and can't get it uninstalled. When I try to remove it from the control panel, I get a "C:\Program Files\Spyware Detector\unins000.dat" does not exist message. I just purchased McAfee and would like to get Spyware Det. off my computer--I paid for it and used it for a year. I assumed that included in that fee was the capacity to remove the program when I was finished with it. I'm really nervous about going into registries and messing around.

Umm... Windows 7 discussion...... where did this come from...hahaha - ok but seriously.... try posting this in the right section, under your own thread, and you will get all the help you can imagine.



Windows7 is lighter(foot print) and faster.

I am running it dual boot on my system (see specs) which is pretty beastly. Vista runs like a dream. 7 is like the same dream with Kate Beckinsdale, Jessica Biel(spl), and Jennifer Aniston in it.

The taskbar takes some getting used to, but it isnt that bad, you just have to play with it.

 

[Tmagic650]

I installed an old Intel 10/100pro PCI NIC and both Vista and Windows 7 recognized it and I am online under both OS's... Sweet! Windows 7 Ultimate Beta 64-bit... so far, so good