So Windows 7 has been out for more than a couple of months now. What’s the verdict from people who have been using it so far?
My computer a non-brand name laptop (Sager) came with Vista and I have to say that my experience with that OS was very disappointing. My main complaint with the system was that it was constantly crashing some of my programs and you couldn’t kill the task. If I tried to reboot the system would hang and I often had to perform a hard reboot.
-So far, Windows 7 hasn’t had these issues. Rebooting, shutting down, starting up seems a lot faster. If you shut down and there are programs still running it knows to execute those fuckers down right away. Unlike Vista which would wait there for ages for those bastards to shut down. Errrr… I guess this is what XP used to be like, but I think it’s a bit better at it.
-User Access Control is still annoying, but it’s easier to change the settings now.
-At first I didn’t care about the docking of the windows but I find myself using that feature a lot more now
-The task bar is interesting. I’m “pinning” my most popular programs there.
-I really didn’t want to crowd the task bar with all my programs and I noticed the Quick Launch bar is no longer there. I found out how to resuscitate that sucker up and I use it for other programs I don’t use as often.
-I like the “Themes” feature.
I had to fish around for updated drivers but it wasn’t too bad. That’s it! If you have any other Windows 7 tips, throw’em this way.
I have had no issues with Vista crashing. I might have crashed two or three times and both times seemed to be my fault. I notice not significant differences between my desktop Vista Home Premium and my laptop which is Windows 7 Home premium.
Both have the same processers and RAM. Win7 is bit faster in startup but we’re talking less than 15 or 20 seconds.
My understanding from what I’ve read is that Win 7 is not new code, simply a massively tweaked and optimized version of Vista. All the basic lower level operational nuts and bolts are more or else the same as in Vista, the main difference is in the vastly improved “look and feel”, a better graphics engine, and getting rid of some of the more obnoxious Vista nonsense.
I’ll like the new capabilities when I upgrade to it but the file managing software was a step sideways which is typical MS. It is not intuitive enough to justify the change. they should have put the drive listings in a slim column to the far left and kept the rest closer to the old layout.
I develop Win and Mac software, and I like Win7-64 lot. Everything is faster than Vista64, across a very broad range of activities. Launching the app I’m debuggin in Vista 64 takes around 3 minutes; in Win7 it takes as low as 30 seconds. I feel like I’m getting back an hour of productive time every day. Also, I like the new tray and Win7 window “peeking” very much.
I’m getting a new Mac in the next week or so, so we’ll see if Snow Leopard + latest XCode makes me feel charitable to my Mac. The old Leopard+XCode sucked, but I’m hearing good things about the new stuff, so we’ll see.
I like it. I had XP-64 :Vomits:, and Vista Ultimate on my laptop. Upgraded both to Windows 7 Home Premium. Only hicup I had was I have a very early X-Fi audio card that Creative didn’t support on Windows 7. Someone had already hacked the driver though, and it’s working like a charm.
I’m liking the new taskbar. At first I set about tweaking it to behave exactly like the XP taskbar, but having read a Microsoft blog about all the thought the put into the new design I decided to give it a chance, and it works very well. I like the way you can quickly “peek” at other applications’ windows, without actually switching to them.
Upgraded my box from XP Pro to Win7 about a week ago. I’m loving it as well and have no issues other than the typical learning curve on where some features are located.
The other thing that I’m liking is the Search. In Vista, it was attrocious but Windows 7 seems to be a lot better at it. It even does hit highlighting on the search results!
I had problems with it at first. It likes to shut down my laptop when it’s getting too hot. No warning or anything, just shut it down. I blew out my fan so it stopped overheating as much and that problem was solved.
I tried Vista for about a month on my laptop and rolled back to XP. I’ve got 6 computers in my house all on XP and I’m just not seeing any reason to upgrade. They’re all solid and working well. (Actually a 7th using Linux but it’s my file server.)
I use OS X most of the time, but when I have to use Windows I use XP because I agree it’s totally satisfactory. On the other hand, much to the consternation of Windows Vista apologists, I’ve found most people are generally positive about 7. The only people I’ve ever asked have been computer professionals of one type of another.
I never understood why people were so adamant about defending Vista with the argument that people just disliked change when it seemed so obvious it had serious failings. So I’ve felt vindicated that most people I know think “wow, 7 is really a lot better in a lot of ways and pretty decent”, rather than hating the new new thing.
I updated two laptops running Vista and two desktops running XP. In four months, the only hiccup has been a single explorer crash on one of the desktops. For my needs, Windows 7 is either faster or not noticeably slower than Vista and XP, and it’s nicer to use.