Windows 7 - would you recommend it?

[chris128]

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

[gep13]

Hey,

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

Gary

[JuggaloBrotha]

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.

[RobDog888]

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

[Nightwalker83]

@ 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.

[chris128]

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

[JuggaloBrotha]

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

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

[gep13]

Hey,

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

Gary

[JuggaloBrotha]

Hey,

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

Gary

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)

[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.

[gep13]

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

[gep13]

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.

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!!

[Lord Orwell]

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.

[chris128]

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..

[gep13]

Buy it, buy it, buy it!!!

[Nightwalker83]

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

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.

[chris128]

Buy it, buy it, buy it!!!

Well I went ahead and took your advice 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

[Nightwalker83]

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

Maybe I should buy it off Amazon.

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

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

[gep13]

Well I went ahead and took your advice 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

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!!

[RobDog888]

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!

[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.

[RobDog888]

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'

[Lord Orwell]

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.

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.

[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?

[Lord Orwell]

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?

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

[chris128]

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?

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

[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).

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.

[chris128]

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.

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

[JuggaloBrotha]

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

[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.

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.

[JuggaloBrotha]

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.

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.

[RobDog888]

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.

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

[Jenner]

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

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

[chris128]

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

[chris128]

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

[Justa Lol]

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

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

[chris128]

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.

[oceanebelle]

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!

[chris128]

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

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
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...

[Nightwalker83]

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

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

While Windows 7 Ultimate:

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

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

Edit:

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...

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.