Technochicken
Posts: 716 +2
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.
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.