What's good with Windows 7?

Yo. I haven't been to these forums in a-forever-ago, but I know that some of the old smart people still post here, so I thought I'd violate your airspace for a bit to ask what's new with Windows 7? Highest I've used so far is Vista, and I'm looking to replace this aging laptop with an Ubuntu-powered machine.

But first I'd like to know what some enthusiastic Windows-lovers have to say about W7. Experience from people who can spell their own name in a sentence without having it become a catastrophe of mispelled words and upside-down grammar.

I'm wonderin' if it's worth getting a machine with W7 pre-installed for dual-boot purposes. Otherwise I'll just keep my old copy of XP around in a virtual machine for compatibility.

You'd probably be better with an Ubuntu-powered machine.

Not sure what you need in detail. I mean, it is like Vista, but, use less RAM and has better user experience. No more double apps that comficts with WL apps (marketing conflict, not technical conflict BTW). And the PC backup is stardard to all editions. That's the reason I moved to Win7 from Vista.

Well, in my experience it's much more reliable than Vista (especially when it comes to print drivers). But if Ubuntu meets your needs then save your money.

magicalclick said:

Not sure what you need in detail. I mean, it is like Vista, but, use less RAM and has better user experience. No more double apps that comficts with WL apps (marketing conflict, not technical conflict BTW). And the PC backup is stardard to all editions. That's the reason I moved to Win7 from Vista.

This.

If you're using Vista then Windows 7 isn't a HUGE jump, but it is a positive one. It feels faster in terms of UI responsiveness (multiple locks!) as well as reportedly using less RAM (*although I'm not sure that is actually true). Calculator got a new version and the task bar is a little better (show desktop button in the bottom right!).

They did ruin MS Paint and the Control Panel is almost worst than Vista.

PaoloM said:

You'd probably be better with an Ubuntu-powered machine.

Playing a renegade eh? Interesting.

Do you personally use Ubuntu? I dualboot Linux Mint (derivative of Ubuntu, somewhat more polished but has few of its own problems), just usually don't have a nerve to select it in grub so I normally run Vista.

@geekling: If you prefered Ubuntu before then there's no reason to switch. I personally think that all major (Windows, Linux/BSD, OS X) desktop OSes are horribly horribly broken and find Windows the least broken of that bunch in ways that matter to me, so I use Windows. For me it's the lesser evil.

Nowadays OS releases don't change that much, if MS won't introduce something like a new Longhorn or Singularity in Windows 8 then it won't be much different to use than Windows 7 or Vista if you only use your PC for average desktop-y stuff. You can run your chosen browser, media player and most of other desktop apps equally well on XP than on 7. The change comes in minor things that average users often won't notice - Vista brought many new security features, 7 is more polished Vista (less memory consumption, less hard-disk trashing, better battey life, etc) with a new shell. I used 7 RC, but now that it expired I switched back to Vista and frankly don't miss it. I could get a lincense key from MSDNAA, but I just don't want to format whole disk and reinstall every app just to use new taskbar in 7 - Vista runs perfectly well (for my needs) on my laptop (despite what you might have heard on ubuntuforums Vista isn't such a monster that they made it out to be).

So in short, unless you find a killer feature in 7 then what it comes to usually is a choice between platforms, so if you are already more accustumed to Ubuntu then use it.

Obligatory links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7

It's pure utter crap! I say go with Windows 2000 or an older Red Hat version, much much better.

What I mean is, you should try it yourself, read about it yuorself. Not to ask for other peoples' opinions about something. You know, we all have one!

Apparently you can re-order items in the taskbar now without a 3rd party utility. That alone must be worth upgrading (even if the taskbar does now look like a childrens toy). Can't think of any other reason to upgrade though.

A reason to upgrade your windows?

Are you nuts!?!?!

That's like asking the ultimate question!

You just do it, don't wonder why, just install!

Oh, and you will have girls when you show them the seven goodness,.. honoust!

And money!

rhm said:

Apparently you can re-order items in the taskbar now without a 3rd party utility. That alone must be worth upgrading (even if the taskbar does now look like a childrens toy). Can't think of any other reason to upgrade though.

I really do like the new taskbar, not sure I agree with the toy look, NT4 taskbar was kind'a boring if you ask me.

To OP :

UAC is also MUCH less annoying since one can alter its behaviour a little more so that is also a good thing.

MUCH faster and snappier experience than XP and Vista for sure. I noticed a difference even on an i7 CPU.

MUCH faster networking is also worth mentioning.

Support for the new harddrive formatting  ( http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=8113 ) with 4096 sectors.

Lower power consumtion for laptops.

It also has Windows XP mode for old software.

  Let us not forget : LESS BLOAT. As someone said, "You Can De-Microsoft It" and remove the crap from it with ease.

...the list can be made pretty long.

 I think if one can afford it, it is well worth the upgrade imho. Windows 7 is a solid and for sure the best operating system ( consumer ) on the planet. There is no fun in sitting on an old OS for most of the day. It depends ofcourse what kind of user we are talking about. An old guy just surfing the web, or a "power user" or a gamer? I think for most people the upgrade is a good choice.

Can't wait to hear people "Why should we upgrade from Windows 7" in a couple of years from now. hehhe... I think Windows 7 is "the next XP" which will be used for years and years to come. I personally don't know anyone who uses Vista or XP anymore. Even all of the gamers I know are running Windows 7 now.

I was not a fan of Vista, but Windows 7 does improve Vista.

IMO, probably the best feature of Window 7 over XP is the type to seach feature of the Start Menu. Sure, that feature was in Vista, but it was overshadowed by Vista's problems: slow network file copy, overly annoying UAC, resource hogging. Windows 7 somewhat fixes those issues (though not entirely).

A big complaint I still have with Windows is the lack of support Microsoft gives to people wanting to alter the operating system. Wether that is installing third party themes, replacing system icons, or creating plugins ins for the DWM. All are still not supported (3rd party themes or icons were not supported by XP without hacks).

And UAC still has issues.

But overall, Windows 7 feels much more solid that Vista did, and I am slowly upgraded my machines from XP to either Windows 7 or Ubunutu (depending on my mood at the time).

sysrpl said:

I was not a fan of Vista, but Windows 7 does improve Vista.

 

IMO, probably the best feature of Window 7 over XP is the type to seach feature of the Start Menu. Sure, that feature was in Vista, but it was overshadowed by Vista's problems: slow network file copy, overly annoying UAC, resource hogging. Windows 7 somewhat fixes those issues (though not entirely).

 

A big complaint I still have with Windows is the lack of support Microsoft gives to people wanting to alter the operating system. Wether that is installing third party themes, replacing system icons, or creating plugins ins for the DWM. All are still not supported (3rd party themes or icons were not supported by XP without hacks).

 

And UAC still has issues.

 

But overall, Windows 7 feels much more solid that Vista did, and I am slowly upgraded my machines from XP to either Windows 7 or Ubunutu (depending on my mood at the time).

IMO, probably the best feature of Window 7 over XP is the type to seach feature of the Start Menu.

/me does the happy dance

The best thing is that Windows 7 was my idea.

brian.shapiro said:

The best thing is that Windows 7 was my idea.

I'm a PC

PaoloM said:

sysrpl said:

*snip*

/me does the happy dance

PaoloM: yup, by FAR

PaoloM said:

sysrpl said:

*snip*

/me does the happy dance

Do a somersault as well while you're at it Paolo.

I really cannot express in words what an essential feature this is. It is the first thing I miss when I am using a legacy OS.

That's a very negative and biased way to frame your question. That said (trolls have rights too!), I've always liked the feature set of Windows Vista, in particular audio and graphics. Many people don't have a grasp of the underlying improvements to the operating system and focus on two things: visuals (insert endless Linux distributions here with various teletubby effects) and speed. I feel speed is something Windows 7 excels at compared to its predecessor, perceived or otherwise. As an end-user (not a developer), a feature about Windows 7 that is really nice is the new libraries concept as well as the cleaner Windows Explorer. There's a lot of nice new small features to list.

I will also say that the search feature in Vista was excellent and continues to be excellent in 7. In the future I'd like to see something deeper like Microsoft Semantic Engine be put into place.

Thanks for all the feedback. I think I'll get a machine with W7 pre-installed, then set it up for dual-booting with Ubuntu. My main concern is ease of use and speed. I use Ubuntu for about 8 hours a day (web development), and at some point in the past few months have realized that pretty much every tool I use on my Vista laptop is a web-app. I've got about 10 "app" tabs in Chrome open right now, in fact, with most of them being email, Meebo, some spread-sheets, that sort of thing.

Glad to know UAC is less annoying. I once had a Java install quietly check for updates on machine boot, so one of the first things I was greeted with when I logged in was the UAC dialog because Java absolutely positively had to install an update, right then, couldn't wait, too important to wait.