Windows 7

[Sketter]

Will Windows 7 really be the successor this time for Win XP?

 

We have and many failures (Win ME, Win 2000, Vista) and with Mac capitalizing on their mistakes with their approach with devices with "simplicity", good looks, and 1 OS (M$ has like what.. 3-6 versions of program suit) which seems the be what people want these days. Does M$ need to overhaul the windows series to keep up with what people want these days?

[Drake7707]

I've recently got my work laptop with an SSD drive so for optimal use of that I had to install windows 7 and everything works smoothly. I've had the beta installed as a dual boot on my home laptop before and I didn't run into any annoying problems.

 

Besides Vista is a good OS nonetheless, it might be slow on low end pc's but it wasn't really designed to run on those anyway back then. Most problems were hardware and software related and there are still (lazy) manufacturers or developers that refuse to change anything to support Vista but they will probably die off as it won't work in Windows 7 either.

 

Another problem is that since the launch of XP a lot of newbie users are using a computer that barely know how to turn it on and they have been complaining over and over when they had to switch to Vista because they don't get anything about the security layer in place, they probably got it stuffed with malware too and malware + xp is faster than malware + vista.

[Samapico]

I've only heard good things about Windows 7... Much more smoother than Vista, and all the XP compatibility you can have

 

Next time I format my PC I'll install it for sure.

[LiDDiS]

I'll definitely upgrade to Win7 whenever I make my new pc.

[Dr Brain]

It's loads better than Vista, but I'm not convinced that it's better than XP. I'm using the beta Windows 7 on my laptop because XP wont install with the new hardware.

[»Blocks]

I've had Windows 7 for a week or two now, with the only bad experience being Continuum not saving my default resolution (none of the suggestions in the tech support forums work). I didn't have any trouble with Vista either, aside from finding 64-bit drivers at the beginning. I haven't done much yet besides play games and surf the internet, so I don't know how it holds up to doing useful things on it. I installed an XP virtual machine yesterday, which runs swimmingly. Don't know if it will actually be useful to me though. Every now and then I run into a program that won't work on 64-bit Windows, so it will be good to have XP for that.

[Chambahs]

Ive actually been installing/configuring windows 7 the past 16 hours. Im almost done to set it up exactly how i want it

 

 

Running Win7 Ultimate 64-bit and its so lovely. Previously had Win XP and im currently loving windows 7 much more. I never went with vista since I heard so many bad reviews with it when it first came out. The more I customize/personalize it, the more i love it. Even the small things are useful/fun. Instead of Start->Program Files->spend time searching for a program, just hit your windows key and type "note", hit enter, and notepad pops up. Less time = win. Even mspaint is surprisingly useful now.

 

Installing was simple and easy since it was a fresh install, probably even better if you upgrade from vista, since windows7 backs up all your data from vista. If you leave your computer connected to the internet, it automatically grabs drivers from the internet so you dont have to do it later. As far as 64bit support goes, theres a 32bit emulator built in, so you can run 32-bit programs as well as your 64's, so its pretty much a win-win situation. Pinning applications and folders on the taskbar = win. Rotating desktop wallpaper = win. DirectX10 and soon to be dx11 support = win. I havent really come into any cons with windows7 yet, everything is so smooth. The worst things i can think of, is for a game I play, i cant play fullscreen because i cant alt-tab like i could in winxp for some reason, and alt-tabbing isnt the same as windows xp. You know when you are constantly switching back and forth from 1 program to the next, you just alt-tab once?

 

For example: On windows xp, you have firefox, pidgin buddy list, utorrent, irc, and a multiple IM window. If you are on firefox and alt tab to your IM, xp will switch the order so you only have to hit alt-tab once to switch from firefox->IM.

 

In win7, for some reason it keeps the order, so to switch from firefox->IM, you'd have to alt+tab+tab+tab+tab, to get to IM, alt-tab for firefox, and then alt+tab+tab+tab+tab again for IM.

 

Thats the only annoyance ive come into so far. So if your looking to get win7, then go for it, thats my recommendation.

 

EDIT: PS, i havent run into 1 app/driver that isnt compatible...yet.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Chambahs

[»Blocks]

Running Win7 Ultimate 64-bit and its so lovely.

How much was that? What does it include beyond Professional? All the deals I've seen to get Win7 have been for Home Premium or Pro only.

 

I have run into one problem -- Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro kept crashing when it tried to update. After a bit of frustration, I found the responsible executable and set it to run for XP compatibility, and then it worked fine. What does running for XP compatibility even mean?

Edited October 23, 2009 by Blocks

[PoLiX]

I've had no issues with any software or Windows 7. Been using the RC of it for 6 months (4/22/09).

 

I'd suggest maybe trying a reformat Blocks, maybe bad install?

[»Blocks]

It was an update for the updater, curiously enough, so it only had to run once. Everything else works great now.

 

Well, not everything. I tried running Continuum on the XP virtual machine, so that I could run Continuum fullscreen on one monitor and use another application on the other monitor. That did not go so well. It wouldn't get past the loading screen.

[rootbear75]

Instead of Start->Program Files->spend time searching for a program, just hit your windows key and type "note", hit enter, and notepad pops up. Less time = win. Even mspaint is surprisingly useful now.

That's actually vista feature carried over.

And you can run into problems only typing in "note" and hitting enter.

if you install another program that starts with note, and it happens to put that at the top of the list, it will open that program.

 

Not much harder/faster to hit WIN+R and enter "notepad"

[»Lynx]

Nice vote options Sketter, perhaps you need to understand how to use the console or activity monitor or even if that's not enough the process manager in terminal before you make retarded statements showing your obvious incompetency in both OS X and Unix systems, idiot.

 

Anyway, all around I think Windows 7 looks like a good operating system I've used it for a couple hours doing pretty mundane tasks that didn't really require me to push it's boundaries but ultimately for my own use it's no better than OS X, so I'm going to stick with Mac until it can't do something that I need it to do...

 

If I were to switch from OS X today though, I'd still go Linux and if that's not an option go XP, unless the reviews do stay positive. (When they first released Vista, there was nothing but positive reviews at first... I'm also not sure I agree with their prices)

[»Lynx]

"Installing was simple and easy since it was a fresh install, probably even better if you upgrade from vista, since windows7 backs up all your data from vista." - Chambahs

 

Actually there have been a lot of problems with users upgrading with regards to data loss, I'd suggest backing everything up fully before you attempt any major upgrade.

 

Edit:

 

With regards to the quick launch of applications, rootbeer commented 'That's actually vista feature carried over.' - this is true, however it's actually an OS X feature called Spotlight that has been around since OS X 10.4, however on Win as far as I know this system is still based around Windows Search 4.0, which makes for very slow searches. When I used XP there was a better quick launch application out, I forget what it's called though... If it comes back to me, I'll post it up.

Edited October 24, 2009 by Lynx