I work in a computer lab, and we switched over to 7 this semester. So far, other than a few things-not-being-in-the-same-place moments (which I’ll get used to), I think it’s maybe a touch better than xp. Most of the improvements are look-and-feel, which I can certainly appreciate. I like the thumbnails when you mouseover the taskbar, for instance. It certainly seems faster, but we also got new computers, so I wouldn’t want to commit to that.
It does still have some of the obfuscation that Vista was infamous for. You can’t unlock a computer and kick off the user without restarting. It still frequently wants administrator access to do stupidly simple things (like run a troubleshooter). Pretty much everything’s got an added layer of ‘simplified’ controls before you get to the classic interface. You can either get used to the new methods, or switch back, so it’s not really a big deal, just seems pointless. It’s not like their new ‘simplified’ layouts are really intuitive or anything.
I went from a machine with XP to a new machine with 7 64 bit back in October. It is more stable than XP. It is set up a bit differently. My consultant advised me to skip Vista and says that 7 is basically a reworked Vista that is not as much a pain in the ass. It was trouble getting some drivers, but overall I think it is a success.
So far I like it quite a bit. The only thing I don’t like is having to track down where MS decided to put things on this version. Of course this happens every time they come out with a new OS. I can always find what I am looking for but it might take a bit longer than normal. I’ll get used to it.
So far I haven’t had any issues. I am running it at work and pound on it pretty hard. No lock ups and it runs all our programs with out an issue so far, and we have tons of programs that are used by various departments.
Plus it comes with a chess program, so I can waste my time getting better at chess.
I hate 7. The only differences I notice between 7 and Vista are negatives. For instance: I used to be able to click the Firefox icon on the left side of the taskbar whenever I felt like opening a new Firefox window. Can’t do that anymore. I used to be able to click a button on the taskbar to go into Windows Flip 3D view; can’t do that anymore (have to hold down Win+Tab.) I don’t like the new taskbar tab system. I hate the fact that when you drag a window to the edge of the screen, it automatically fullscreens it. (Hey Windows, if I want to fullscreen a window I’ll click the fucking Maximize button.) The taskbar pops up onto the screen when you manipulate the controls of VLC media player in fullscreen mode (never used to do that in Vista.) The only way to remove it is to click the screen again.
My clock keeps resetting itself to wrong times and dates. I NEVER had any of these issues a single time in XP or Vista, but I guess Windows 7 wants to change all that by giving us interesting new experiences like time travel.
Yes man, I’m sure your clock randomly changing itself is due to Windows 7.
My biggest problem so far is minor sleep issues. Mostly the fact that it won’t go to sleep sometimes when it’s supposed to. I have it set to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity and sometimes after a few hours it still has not gone to sleep. I did the basic “do not allow my router to wake up computer” and now IDK what else there is.
I have a laptop which runs Windows 7 and I like it quite a lot. It’s perhaps the most attractive and convenient UI I have come across on a computer (I have used MacOS X a fair bit though not much Linux). And yet somewhat to my surprise I don’t find myself rushing to install Windows 7 on my desktop. The fact is Windows XP runs just fine and while 7 has a whole range of improvements, XP remains perfectly usable.
Because Vista was/is fine? Most of the problems people had with it weren’t Vista’s problems. A lot of(maybe even most of) the compatibility issues people had came from switching 64bit without knowing what 64bit was. Or from it being pre installed on computers that couldn’t really handle it. Well they could have if it were configured correctly but usually they just had the default/near default configuration. And many people got entirely new computers as their start with Vista and then blamed any problem they had on Windows rather than considering the possibility that their new hardware may not be as reliable as what they were used too. Or that to bloatware that comes on many new systems, especially laptops, might be causing the issues.
There’re problems with Vista, there’re problems with all OSs but the way people blew it way out of proportion with Vista was just annoying.
I find most people’s reaction to Windows7 to be rather disappointing. It’s Vista with a bit of a face lift and they go all gaga over it while bashing Vista. It makes no sense.
You can make it work more-or-less like it used to by creating a custom tool bar. Right click on the task bar->Toolbars->New toolbar…
You can turn this off, though I cant remember where. And some programs do something like this by themselves(such as Chrome) so they’d still do it if you turn it off.
I never used Vista, so I think a lot of what is annoying me about 7 got changed earlier. It’s like they tried to idiot-proof everything, but instead made it more complicated.
My only real beef is that I can’t run Fallout 3 on my new laptop. It has absolute crap specs, but it runs games better than my old PC, which does run Fallout 3, if at the lowest settings and with hourly crashes.
I should clarify that you can’t unlock computers and kick someone off unless you have User Switching enabled, which, given how many people we have here, we don’t want to do.
OK, so instead of one simple click to a little icon to do what I want to do, I have to either go to the file menu to open a new window (I already knew that) or I have to right-click it and then left-click another version of the same icon. Instead of just clicking the icon once.
I realize how petty this seems. But it’s the principle here that I object to. Something that used to require only one click now requires two clicks and there is no good reason for it.
Frankly, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to open another window, either. All you have to do is one click on the new tab button beside the last open tab.