Windows 7 - would you recommend it?

I'm surprised there are not more threads in here about Windows 7 yet as it was released a few days ago...
But anyway, I am considering buying it mainly for the speed increase that a lot of people report when compared to Vista, as well as for some of the other nice little features they have added. However, I am slightly put off by the fact that it is still brand new and as such will probably have a fair amount of bugs and problems, plus it is pretty expensive (especially considering it is basically just a slightly improved version of Vista).

So I just wondered if any people who have already got it (the release version, not the RC or the BETA) have got any comments on how good or bad it is and if its worth paying so much money to upgrade from Vista?

Thanks
Chris

Hey,

I will get back to you once I finally get my delivery from Amazon.

Gary

I've been running Win7 Ultimate x64 RTM (the release version that went public 2 days ago) for a month now, I LOVE IT. Hands down it's much easier to use than XP (and supports the newer hardware better) but best of all I HAVE YET TO CRASH IT, unlike Vista, which would crash on me twice a week on the same computer before I got win7.

Hands down, Win7 is very nice, it runs everything I need, it runs faster on my laptop than Vista did. No complaints.

100% would recommend it hands down no argument no ifs ands or buts about it!!! :D

@ Chris,

I heard you can buy an upgrade version rather than having to buy the complete Win7 operating system. If I buy Win7 this is what I'm going to do! At the moment my pc is running Vista Ultimate.

Yeah but the upgrade is way more expensive than the normal version here!

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Originally Posted by chris128

Yeah but the upgrade is way more expensive than the normal version here!

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Even with the win7 full dvd's you can insert them and it'll ask you if you would like to upgrade your OS.

Hey,

In all honesty though, I would never upgrade an OS, I would always do a fresh install.

Gary

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Originally Posted by gep13

Hey,

In all honesty though, I would never upgrade an OS, I would always do a fresh install.

Gary

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As do I, but I have the skill and knowledge to backup all of my files & programs so doing a full install is very easy, the average computer user on the other hand.... doing a full install usually causes them to loose 50% of their data because they simply forget to tell me that they use OutLook for email (even though I explicitly ask them what they use to check email)

To these days I believe I made the right decision to not to upgrade to Vista.
My patience was paid off - new Windows 7 is by far best OS ever came out of MS workshops.

Hey,

I totally agree, I have run into that myself.

The new way that I have found to do a fresh install, without having to first back everything up, is to create a Virtual Machine from my physical machine. This is possible using VMWare Converter. Bascially, create a VM from your machine, do a re-install, then you can fire up the VM in VMware Player, and then you can start moving everything over that you want. When you are done, get rid of the VM.

This means that you don't have the worry that you have forgotten something, as it is all in the VM, in exactly the place that you left it.

Gary

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Originally Posted by RhinoBull

To these days I believe I made the right decision to not to upgrade to Vista.
My patience was paid off - new Windows 7 is by far best OS ever came out of MS workshops.

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Me too. I didn't upgrade to Vista, and I am glad that I didn't!! What they got wrong with Vista, they seem to have fixed in Windows 7, and I can't wait to start using it properly!!

odd. I never had any real issues with vista. The only lockups i've had are due to the frankly ridiculous hardware setup i have and the same issue was occurring in an xp install in a 2nd partition. Sp2 makes it uber-stable. I will be upgrading though. I only use ultimate for the media center and it's included in 7's home premium. If anything, i've had more issues with tivo desktop. It won't even run in 7 rc1. This annoys me due to the much better digital tv support in 7. With cablecard lockdown no longer an issue, i expect i will most likely have to upgrade anyway when i get a cablecard tuner.

I've never had any real problems with Vista either, not particularly keen on the way a lot of things are arranged in it (I've had it for about a year now and still not used to it) but I just hear that 7 is supposed to be so much better so I'm considering getting it... I'm trying to save up for a new car as well though - decisions decisions..

Buy it, buy it, buy it!!! :)

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Originally Posted by chris128

Yeah but the upgrade is way more expensive than the normal version here!

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Ah ok! I was just looking at an Australian site and the difference in price between the upgrade versions of Windows 7 to the full package is not that great.

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Originally Posted by gep13

Buy it, buy it, buy it!!! :)

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Well I went ahead and took your advice :thumb: just ordered a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate off Amazon :)
Have you got your copy from Amazon yet?

Oh and I bought Red Alert 3 at the same time just for good measure :D

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Originally Posted by chris128

Well I went ahead and took your advice :thumb: just ordered a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate off Amazon :)
Have you got your copy from Amazon yet?

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Maybe I should buy it off Amazon.

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Oh and I bought Red Alert 3 at the same time just for good measure :D

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RA3 is a great game! You are going to have a fun time playing it.

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Originally Posted by chris128

Well I went ahead and took your advice :thumb: just ordered a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate off Amazon :)
Have you got your copy from Amazon yet?

Oh and I bought Red Alert 3 at the same time just for good measure :D

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Woo hoo!!

Well know, but in fairness, I don't think it is Amazon's fault. It is DHL's. Finally got through to someone at DHL who knew what they were talking about yesterday. Seemingly, they attempted delivery last Thursday, 22nd, to my work address at 1759. I was in the building (working late recently) but because there was no one on reception, they didn't get in. However, when I phoned on Friday to see where the parcel was, they didn't seem to know a delivery attempt had been made, so there was nothing they could do, as they saw it as out for delivery. So when I phoned back yesterday, they said they hadn't attempted re-delivery, because they were waiting for instructions from me, but I didn't even know they had attempted delivery. Vicious cycle!! Got quite angry with the DHL guy on the phone!! Anyway, they should be sending it out today, and I have asked them to deliver between office hours, so, fingers crossed I should get it today :)

Gary

P.S. You will love it btw!!

Never had a single issue with Vista, love it still too. Sure 7 has many new features but its still built off of Vista. The real issue is probably that more manufacturers have now made their needed changes to work with the new security and design changes in Vista. So when you now get Windows 7 there are no issues like before because the manufacturers have cleaned up their acts.

Either way, Vista & 7 FTW! :thumb: :D

Yeah I do think it is quite unfair that Vista got such a bad reputation so early mainly because of the lack of compatible drivers when it launched - that is not really Microsoft's fault, that is the hardware manufacturers' fault.. but oh well. Dont get me wrong, I know there are other problems with it but that is why most people hated it to begin with.

Yup its always the same story. Im sure we all remember all the yelling and complaining when XP came out and even more so when SP-2 was applied. But then when Vista came out we all heard them say "OH XP is the greatest OS ever! I will never change it". Now its just a cycle and people are so afraid of change when it comes to OS'

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Originally Posted by chris128

Yeah I do think it is quite unfair that Vista got such a bad reputation so early mainly because of the lack of compatible drivers when it launched - that is not really Microsoft's fault, that is the hardware manufacturers' fault.. but oh well. Dont get me wrong, I know there are other problems with it but that is why most people hated it to begin with.

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it kind of was their fault. They changed the driver model and did not give manufacturers enough time to learn the new way before the OS came out. Coupled with the fact that xp 64 and vista 64 take different drivers as well, it is just an ugly mess. It's why xp64 had such a bad rap. It enforced driver signing, which xp32 did not, and this was a pain because there weren't that many drivers available for it anyway. I have a wireless n dongle now that doesn't have 64-bit drivers.

I've seen a couple of reviews that say performance seems to inexplicably drop off after a few months of use (must be RC).
Did anyone here use the RC long enough to see/not see this effect?

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Originally Posted by agmorgan

I've seen a couple of reviews that say performance seems to inexplicably drop off after a few months of use (must be RC).
Did anyone here use the RC long enough to see/not see this effect?

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after it's full of spyware, most likely. Or dozens of software uninstall/reinstalls that testers do.

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Originally Posted by agmorgan

I've seen a couple of reviews that say performance seems to inexplicably drop off after a few months of use (must be RC).
Did anyone here use the RC long enough to see/not see this effect?

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I thought that just happened with every Windows OS and was just one of those "facts of life"

I've been running Windows 7 Ultimate now for about 2 weeks and am somewhat impressed. There are some peculiarities I'm not too keen on such as all the controls being some shade of blue regardless of what the window border in Aero is set to (the blue clashes hardcore with my black Halloween wallpaper and pumpkin-orange windows).

While a lot of the control screens are easier to get to and navigate, I still consider it a step backwards from XP. At least in Vista, when you opened the Control Panel, you could show the "Classic View" which was nothing more than "show me an icon for each control panel item". Everything was up-front, on a single page for you to access. Windows 7 doesn't even give you that option; instead forcing you to navigate through several menus to hunt down what you're after. If there's a registry tweak to put it back to Classic Mode, someone PM me please. :)

Lastly, Windows Explorer is just starting to get way too cluttered on the left-hand treeview. Now you got libraries that auto-expand, your homegroup, your network neighborhood, computer with drives... 99% of the time, I work in Computer and directly manipulate files on my drives. I wish there was a way you could simply remove some of these unused tree-items. Just get them the heck outta there. I'd be overjoyed if all I had was my drives, desktop and network.

Try as I might, Libraries just aren't growing on me yet either.

The UAC changes are wonderful. I'm actually running it now. In Vista it was the first thing I disabled.

The windows sensitive screen zones I'd like to disable at this point. They were nice at first, but now they're getting annoying as I find myself accidentally docking a window to the side or making it fullscreen when I was just moving it out of the way. If there's a way to turn it off, I'm probably going to do it.

It's a good OS. It has some beautiful core features I wished XP had. Likewise, XP seemed to have a better grasp of GUI design for navigating around the technical parts of the OS that I wish they'd return to. I honestly put it on-par with XP overall. It's newer tech, it's prettier, but some things take longer to accomplish now than they did in it's predecessor. Sometimes I have to click through 3 screens to get to the spot I could get to in 1 on XP. I'm sure it'll catch on but it's not the two steps forward I was hoping for.

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At least in Vista, when you opened the Control Panel, you could show the "Classic View" which was nothing more than "show me an icon for each control panel item". Everything was up-front, on a single page for you to access. Windows 7 doesn't even give you that option; instead forcing you to navigate through several menus to hunt down what you're after.

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awww what! I hate that 'new' view so much...

I can also see myself not using libraries or other new organisation features at all - I just stick all of my files under My Documents and be done with it.

As for explorer being cluttered, I just use the view that does not have the tree on the left - I find that I dont really need it now that you can click in parts of the address bar to select other folders at the same level as the part you clicked. So that one wont really affect me.

All things considered though - as I'm using Vista at the moment, as long as it is an improvement over that then it will be worth the purchase :)

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Originally Posted by Jenner

I've been running Windows 7 Ultimate now for about 2 weeks and am somewhat impressed. There are some peculiarities I'm not too keen on such as all the controls being some shade of blue regardless of what the window border in Aero is set to (the blue clashes hardcore with my black Halloween wallpaper and pumpkin-orange windows).

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I agree, I wish it would be a semi-transparent color that I pick instead of semi-transparent blue, I have Office 2007 set to the black theme and the overriden aero blue makes it look really bad.

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Originally Posted by Jenner

While a lot of the control screens are easier to get to and navigate, I still consider it a step backwards from XP. At least in Vista, when you opened the Control Panel, you could show the "Classic View" which was nothing more than "show me an icon for each control panel item". Everything was up-front, on a single page for you to access. Windows 7 doesn't even give you that option; instead forcing you to navigate through several menus to hunt down what you're after. If there's a registry tweak to put it back to Classic Mode, someone PM me please. :)

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Set the view to small icons and hopefully Win7 TweakUI will support a "classic" config. Although this is an extremely minor thing since I view the control panel from the Windows menu (formerly the Start menu) since WinXP anyways.

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Originally Posted by Jenner

Lastly, Windows Explorer is just starting to get way too cluttered on the left-hand treeview. Now you got libraries that auto-expand, your homegroup, your network neighborhood, computer with drives... 99% of the time, I work in Computer and directly manipulate files on my drives. I wish there was a way you could simply remove some of these unused tree-items. Just get them the heck outta there. I'd be overjoyed if all I had was my drives, desktop and network.

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I agree here too, perhaps TweakUI will let you customize that when it's out.

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Originally Posted by Jenner

Try as I might, Libraries just aren't growing on me yet either.

The UAC changes are wonderful. I'm actually running it now. In Vista it was the first thing I disabled.

The windows sensitive screen zones I'd like to disable at this point. They were nice at first, but now they're getting annoying as I find myself accidentally docking a window to the side or making it fullscreen when I was just moving it out of the way. If there's a way to turn it off, I'm probably going to do it.

It's a good OS. It has some beautiful core features I wished XP had. Likewise, XP seemed to have a better grasp of GUI design for navigating around the technical parts of the OS that I wish they'd return to. I honestly put it on-par with XP overall. It's newer tech, it's prettier, but some things take longer to accomplish now than they did in it's predecessor. Sometimes I have to click through 3 screens to get to the spot I could get to in 1 on XP. I'm sure it'll catch on but it's not the two steps forward I was hoping for.

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Overall I have to say Win7's UI is a little better than Vista's but is much better than XP's. I even like it how you can change the Logon screen's background image in Win7, which can be done in XP but not-so-much in Vista (that I know of, but I dont have a Vista comp anymore). I've been running Win7 Ultimate RTM for 1.5 months now.

I wish I could create a JumpList for drives on the TaskBar. Instead they get piled in with the folder's I have, I just wish the drives would be 1 icon list and folder's be a separate icon/list. Same goes for network locations, they get their own icon. Right now I have all 12 stacked on a single list.

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Originally Posted by Jenner

At least in Vista, when you opened the Control Panel, you could show the "Classic View" which was nothing more than "show me an icon for each control panel item". Everything was up-front, on a single page for you to access. Windows 7 doesn't even give you that option; instead forcing you to navigate through several menus to hunt down what you're after. If there's a registry tweak to put it back to Classic Mode, someone PM me please. :)

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Actually, I found the "Classic View". I was just looking in the wrong place and apparently blind for not noticing it this whole time. After getting used to XP's left-panel and Vista's option bar in the top left, Windows 7 tossed a "View" option in the upper right of the Window where you can change the Control Panel to "Large Icon" which is about as close to the Classic View as you're going to get.

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Originally Posted by Jenner

The windows sensitive screen zones I'd like to disable at this point. They were nice at first, but now they're getting annoying as I find myself accidentally docking a window to the side or making it fullscreen when I was just moving it out of the way. If there's a way to turn it off, I'm probably going to do it.

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I've found this to be one of the better things they've added. If I could find a way to add it to XP at both my jobs, I would.

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Originally Posted by Jenner

Actually, I found the "Classic View". I was just looking in the wrong place and apparently blind for not noticing it this whole time. After getting used to XP's left-panel and Vista's option bar in the top left, Windows 7 tossed a "View" option in the upper right of the Window where you can change the Control Panel to "Large Icon" which is about as close to the Classic View as you're going to get.

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See, Windows 7 is like that Prego commercial ... "Its in there!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJjD7UF-6k

Dont knock it til you try it
:lol:

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Originally Posted by RobDog888

See, Windows 7 is like that Prego commercial ... "Its in there!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJjD7UF-6k

Dont knock it til you try it
:lol:

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Haha! "Windows 7: Prego for your computer!"

My Windows 7 disc was delivered today :D just about to format and install it now. see you on the other side :)

Well almost exactly an hour after my last post, I am now running Windows 7 :) (it didnt take an hour to install, I just installed Office 2003, Opera and visual studio before coming on here ;))

So far so good :)
Taking me a while to get used to having the "Show Desktop" thing down in the bottom right rather than on the bottom left (as I normally have it in the Quick Launch area) and I've also already changed the task bar layout so that it shows text as well as the icons for windows that I have got open. Other than that, I'm liking it so far... but I'm not going to install much on it or set it up properly because my solid state hard drive should be arriving in a couple of days so I'll reinstall it on that :)

I'm supposed to get my copy of windows 7 tomorrow :D

hope its a lot less errors then in vista... lol

Well I havent had any errors so far :P Its not quite as fast and responsive as I was hoping. It does things like installations really fast (installed the entire Office 2003 Professional suite in about 50 seconds) but just like clicking on things and opening new windows etc isnt quite as instant as I would like lol probably because I havent installed any drivers yet, although it detected all of my hardware and used the built in drivers, I found that even though Vista did that I got much better performance once I installed the drivers from the manufacturers website, so I'll give that a go when I get it installed on my SSD drive.

One thing I am amazed is still in Windows is the "Move" menu item that appears on the context menu when you right click on a window's main title bar/border. Its the most pointless thing ever because all it does is put your cursor on the title bar (where it must have already been to click that Move menu item) and change the icon of the cursor. It doesnt enable you to do anything at all that you couldnt do by just left clicking and dragging (and you still have to do that even after clicking Move!).

Oh and one complaint I do have about Windows 7 is that there is no longer a Windows Media Player toolbar option (where it shrinks media player to a 'mini player' in the taskbar) :( You can skip a song or pause it by hovering the mouse over the media player taskbar icon but that doesnt let you change the volume or skip part way through a song like the old version did.

Having used Vista Ultimate 64 for a couple of months prior to July when I got my Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit copy, I'd say Windows 7 all the way.

First noticeable goodness: Vista used 30-40G disk space on a fresh install, whereas Windows 7 only used 11G. Now that's good because I had disk space issues stemming from I don't know what, probably all those Vista security fixes and bloated software that I can't remove and am not using ughh...

Second: My laptop became noticeably faster! Add it to the first goodness and I felt like my laptop shed not a small amount of burden! Even I feel lighter using Windows 7 now.

Third: During installation, I didn't need to rummage for my device drivers installer CDs. Basically, Windows 7 got all manufacturer drivers ready for me (even for my graphics card). It's like Install and you're done. Windows 7 sure made me lazy in that aspect but I enjoy it lots. Fresh installation in less than 30 mins!

Fourth: All the awesome improvements in the desktop, library, the new taskbar, the date time display, the widgets and even the wallpaper! Plus, unused apps found in Vista are missing in the Windows 7 install.

Fifth: File Sharing between computers is quite nice too. If you're a person that is a stickler for organization, you'd definitely love Windows 7 because organization in Windows 7 is a breeze!

I could go an and on.

All in all, I'd say Windows 7 is the best PC OS so far! Had I not gotten myself a free copy, I might have been compelled to spend a fortune on it!

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Vista used 30-40G disk space on a fresh install

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I dont think so... Even after I had been using my Vista x64 OS for a few months the system drive was only using about half of that.

Anyway, I agree with all of the other things you said :D
One thing I dont get is the new 'peek' function that lets you look at your desktop by hovering your mouse in the bottom right corner of the screen. Why would you want to just look at your desktop? The only purpose of the desktop as far as I can see is for you to click on things on it to launch other programs/folders etc and considering that when you move your mouse off that little 'peek' button for a second then the desktop disappears and your open windows come back up, I dont understand the point of it...

According to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle, Vista Ultimate support is due to end in 2012:

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source: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=11734

Products Released General Availability Date Mainstream Support Retired Extended Support Retired Service Pack Retired Notes
Windows Vista Ultimate 25/01/2007 10/04/2012 Not Applicable 13/04/2010

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While Windows 7 Ultimate:

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source: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=14498

Products Released General Availability Date Mainstream Support Retired Extended Support Retired Service Pack Retired Notes
Windows 7 Ultimate 22/10/2009 13/01/2015 Not Applicable

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I might get a Win7 laptop next year to replace my current WinXP one.

Edit:

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First noticeable goodness: Vista used 30-40G disk space on a fresh install, whereas Windows 7 only used 11G. Now that's good because I had disk space issues stemming from I don't know what, probably all those Vista security fixes and bloated software that I can't remove and am not using ughh...

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Tell me about it! My 1TB hard drive in my pc is about 1/4 - 1/3 full because of the space Vista needed to install as well as system updates, etc.

i've installed ultimate dozens of times. It's the biggest vista and it maxes out at 20gb with everything installed. quite possibly it's larger however if you're running the 64-bit version.

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

i've installed ultimate dozens of times. It's the biggest vista and it maxes out at 20gb with everything installed. quite possibly it's larger however if you're running the 64-bit version.

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Yeah, but the Windows Updates are another matter.

Hey,

Part of the issue with Windows Updates is that the installation files remain on the hard drive, which allows you to uninstall the update if you need to. If once you have installed the update you know you are "never" going to uninstall it, you can delete these files. This is one of the techniques that we use to keep our Virtual Machines low in hard drive space.

Gary

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Originally Posted by chris128

One thing I dont get is the new 'peek' function that lets you look at your desktop by hovering your mouse in the bottom right corner of the screen. Why would you want to just look at your desktop?

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In Win7, the sidebar is gone and those sidebar widgits are now "on" the desktop. Correct me if I'm wrong (because I'm not in front of my Windows 7 machine right now) but can't you still see those when you cursor over the peek area?

Yes, that is correct. The gadgets are now able to be directly placed and individulally moved on your desktop. Kinda like advanced desktop icons.

Ah yeah, I guess that is the only real purpose of the peek thing then... that and if you want to just stare at your wallpaper for a moment. Seems a bit odd that they included this feature (and quite heavily publicise it) just for that

There has to be some amount of bling in a new OS release as regular users care more about those then developers do IMO.

lol I suppose.

I have to say I'm not impressed with the speed so far. It takes either the same time or longer than Vista did to start up and nothing seems any faster once I am actually logged in - I'm guessing it makes much more difference to slower computers, my PC was pretty fast even with Vista on so maybe I just didnt see the slowness that most people saw with Vista so 7 doesnt seem any different to me. SSD hard drive came today but no one was in so they are going to attempt to deliver it again tomorrow :) that should make it boot up a lot faster ;)

Im sure it should be ok to post this from Feb's summit

Rob, do you know the specs of the computers that the drag race was happening on?

Gary

I can see if I can find the video, to hear the specs if they did say anything more then brand/model, but they were both identical systems and Windows 7 blew Vista away!

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Originally Posted by chris128

Ah yeah, I guess that is the only real purpose of the peek thing then... that and if you want to just stare at your wallpaper for a moment. Seems a bit odd that they included this feature (and quite heavily publicise it) just for that

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No, you're a little mistaken at Microsoft's marketing lingo. When they talk about "Peek" they're primarily talking about how when you hover over running programs in the taskbar, it pops up micro shots of the window(s). It's basically video game technology called "Viewporting". It's not a snapshot of the window, it's the actual running window being viewed scaled down.

The Peek system even allows you to customize it. For example, play a video in Media Player, now minimize it. Now hover over it. See your video playing in the peek window? See how it even includes some basic controls right on the peek window? You can theoretically write a program with a custom peek-mode and include some hot-buttons or something right on the peek screen.

The mouse-cursor to the bottom right to see your desktop is nothing more than a "show desktop", that's not "peek"; at least as far as Microsoft's marketing department is concerned. :)

@RobDog888: I'll tell you this for nothing, my system I have Win7 on boots faster than WinXP which I had freshly installed about a week prior to test my new hardware. I don't know how much faster, perhaps only a few seconds, but it boots amazingly fast.

After reading these posts i feel i must be missing something. I cannot imagine anyone using vista over xp. I develop my app in vb6 on xp. I bought a new pc and put vista ultimate on it, just to test my vbapp. Many users download and install my app so i made it vista aware.
Vista seems to boot faster,but opening new screens it seems that it is deciding if it going to allow me or not. Seems everytime i try to do something it prompts are you sure? And sometimes prompts for password. Was having a problem i thought was a corrupt dll in system32. Took me about an hour to rename the dll and install a new one. On xp i put a file somewhere and it will be where i put it. On vista i sometimes have to search to find the file. I realize there may be settings to set in Vista to overcome some of these issues, but I just do not see a reason, when i can just use xp. Am i missing something ?

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Originally Posted by chris128

Ah yeah, I guess that is the only real purpose of the peek thing then... that and if you want to just stare at your wallpaper for a moment. Seems a bit odd that they included this feature (and quite heavily publicise it) just for that

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that's not what aero peek is. If you hover over an open application on the task bar, you get preview windows of it, and if you hover over that, it makes every other window transparent except that one. That's aero peek. It lets you peek at the open window without selecting it. It's actually very handy for viewing spreadsheets, IM conversations, etc. The button on the side is an extension of this function except that the window that stays visible is the sidebar (yes it's still called that even though it's not a side bar)

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Originally Posted by isnoend07

After reading these posts i feel i must be missing something. I cannot imagine anyone using vista over xp. I develop my app in vb6 on xp. I bought a new pc and put vista ultimate on it, just to test my vbapp. Many users download and install my app so i made it vista aware.
Vista seems to boot faster,but opening new screens it seems that it is deciding if it going to allow me or not. Seems everytime i try to do something it prompts are you sure? And sometimes prompts for password. Was having a problem i thought was a corrupt dll in system32. Took me about an hour to rename the dll and install a new one. On xp i put a file somewhere and it will be where i put it. On vista i sometimes have to search to find the file. I realize there may be settings to set in Vista to overcome some of these issues, but I just do not see a reason, when i can just use xp. Am i missing something ?

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Yes. Most likely you are running xp on an admin account. Run it on xp on a limited account and you will probably break your programs. If vista's moving a file, you most likely didn't save it where it belonged in the first place. There exist shortcuts for the xp locations for document folders, etc that point to the correct vista locations.

And microsoft's boot speed seems to be directly tied to the system, not the OS. Anything with an intel chipset seems to boot blazingly fast. My wife's dell booted from power button to desktop under 30 seconds in xp, vista, and 7. So did both of our dell laptops. My system is closer to a minute no matter what OS i run.

There are always going to be those that want to blame Microsoft for everything that went wrong in their lives. I could not get Vista to load because my machine was an old piece of junk and it was clearly not on the hardware compatibility list. This is not Microsofts fault, it is mine. It is a hardware issue because I did not want to fork out the cash for a new machine when I could just go back to Win 2K and have one that did everything I needed.

I tried several flavours of Linux and quite frankly the problems were far worse and the support involved a lot of idiots who wanted to appear as if they knew a lot more than they did and spent their time abusing those that just asked a simple question. Strangely when somebody worded a question in a manner that indicated they might know what they were doing they all became remarkably quiet.

I dropped out of high school, got a dirty hoe preg when I was 18, I've worked at McDonald's for 7 years since, and when I get home my computer takes 10 minutes to load Windows... all of this is Microsoft's fault.

Yea, there's always going to be those who blame MS for everything.

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Originally Posted by isnoend07

After reading these posts i feel i must be missing something. I cannot imagine anyone using vista over xp.

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What has that got to do with this discussion? We are talking about Windows 7, not Vista.

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Originally Posted by isnoend07

Seems everytime i try to do something it prompts are you sure? And sometimes prompts for password. Was having a problem i thought was a corrupt dll in system32. Took me about an hour to rename the dll and install a new one.

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That is UAC, which you can turn off. Go into Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Turn UAC On or Off. Reboot and now you have no more annoying prompts.
Also, as others have stated, UAC is much better in Windows 7 and does not prompt you anywhere near as much.

Seems many people just cant get over one OS or another. The past is the past. Windows 7 is hte future :D

im still "angry" about dos 6. The only version of dos that required a service pack. It corrupted my hard drive.

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Originally Posted by RobDog888

Seems many people just cant get over one OS or another. The past is the past. Windows 7 is hte future :D

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Here's to the future!! :afrog:

Finally got the install disk from Amazon, (long story) so now I just need to dig out my computer from underneath all the decorating I was doing at the weekend and get it installed!!

Gary