Windows 7 is great!

[Mystic]

I have only a few days experience with Windows 7 but so far I very very impressed. At work we are still using Windows XP and the difference is tremendous.

Just the quality of the backgrounds alone (and I realize this is a very small, unimportant example) is breathtaking compared to Windows XP or even Windows Vista. There is some very good quality photography and art in this area.

More important things I have noticed so far with only a few days experience is that my computer starts up and shuts down faster. And everything just seems to work smoother. But my iMac still starts up and shuts down faster.

Another important thing I have noticed is that everything is compatible. All software and hardware works just fine and some of my software and hardware is getting up in years. Whenever I bought a new Mac in the past or upgraded to a new Mac OS on an existing computer I always had to wait a long time before some software or hardware was compatible. In some cases I had to get new software and hardware. For example, my current version of Photoshop is not the latest but it runs just fine on Windows 7.

Software and hardware compatibility is very important. I can't wait months or years for important software and hardware to be compatible with a new operating system. This is the main thing that drove me away from Linux.

All of this is just first impressions so far of course. But I am very impressed so far. I will wait a reasonable amount of time before I form any final opinions. But so far I have to say that anybody that says Windows 7 is just a Service Pack for Vista or another failure on the part of Microsoft either has not tried Windows 7, has tried it but cannot be honest, or is a dyed-in-the-wool Microsoft hater. I think there are more differences between Vista and Windows 7 than there were between Mac OS 10.4 and Mac OS 10.5.

 

[daves87rs]

I'm planning to try it on my desktop...every I know likes it so far...

 

[simple_gifts]

An OS that runs right out of the box, impressive indeed 8)

Now let us rid the world of the scorge of Vista so it doesn't end up on my work PC.

 

[finnautti]

In business use there is no point for going windows wista or 7. XP will handle all you throw at it. Software compatibility is still huge issue in windows wista and 7. If Microsoft would support XP longer, no one in business world would upgrade to wista or 7, there is no point. Microsoft just needs to push something new to get money, that's what business is all about.

Home users are different story.

Just my opinion.

 

[Mystic]

Yes dave87rs, I don't think you will be disappointed with Windows 7. I personally had no major issues with Windows Vista and I ran it for about three years. But Windows 7 does seem to be a major improvement.

I no longer trust the media. I read a PCWorld Magazine recently where there were articles on Windows 7. They bascially said that Windows 7 was only slightly faster than Vista and that applications (expecially Photoshop) took longer to start up. Well, I have not used a stopwatch to time Windows 7 but I can definitely say it is starting up faster and shutting down faster than than Vista.

The version of Photoshop I am using right now is not the latest and if it was the same year Mac version it would not even run on the latest Mac OS 10.6 O/S. I am running Photoshop CS3 (I did not get CS4). Adobe says that the Mac version of Photoshop CS3 is incompatible with the latest Mac O/S.

They were claiming in the PCWorld article that Photoshop took several seconds longer to start up in Windows 7 than in Vista or XP. Well, either something was wrong with their testing or else they were not exactly candid. I have had no such problems, and I am not even using the latest version of Photoshop. When Photoshop CS5 comes out it should be even more compatible with Windows 7. These are real world examples witnessed by me. I don't think I will buy PCWorld anymore.

 

[Mystic]

Where I work finnautti it is hard to say when they will upgrade to Windows 7. There is apparently one item that was actually developed in Unix and was programmed to be able to run on Windows XP desktops that apparently will not run in Windows 7. The problem is a long time ago we were using Unix computers and the desktops were limited in capabilities and were just using Windows 3.1. A lot of software was developed by a company in another state to run in the special user interface that operated on top of the Unix. They would like to go all Windows (including replacing the old Unix servers) but they can't because too much specialized software is designed to work on Unix. And of course governmental agencies are always short on money.

But there are people in IT who can actually do the necessary programming to get the programs to work from the Windows desktops. So it may not be possible to get away from the Unix servers but we may be able to run Windows 7 desktop computers in the future. After all, they got the same programming job done in the past with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. But they will run a computer until it gives up the ghost so it will be awhile until new computers with the necessary graphics to run Windows 7 come into the system.

There are actually a few IT people now who own personal MacBook Pro computers. This is a big change from the past when discussion of Apple Computers was a no-no. But there is no discussion about Linux.

For me personally there are no major software or hardware compatibility issues that I can see. My scanners and printer are about three years old and all I had to do is upgrade the software. Some of my software is kind of old and it just works. Microsoft will soon drop support for Windows XP. For this reason and for the sake of greater security I can see a person going to Windows 7. The average person will probably have no choice anyway when they buy a new computer. And a lot of older computers can run Windows 7 with just the addition of a decent graphics card, maybe a bigger hard drive, and more RAM.

Software and hardware compatibility issues are worse when it comes to Apple Computers. There are Apple Computers that are only three-four years old that cannot even run the latest Mac O/S. And Adobe says that Photoshop CS3 is incompatible with the latest Mac O/S.

 

[mormit]

Virtual Box or Parallels should let you run a Unix or XP application on a Win7 machine. Just a thought.

 

[finnautti]

That's my point, it costs huge money to go from XP to 7 and all for nothing. The girls in the office will still use the same softwares and nothing has chanced, except helpdesk is blocked from calls because everything looks different than before with XP. And of course one has to buy new computers to run Windows 7 and someone will have to install them and so on...

Special softwares are usually pain in the [censored] when is time for updates. And dealing it costs money.

Of course everything must go on some day, but i would like to see it beneficial to everyone not just Microsoft. This is my opinion.

For now i don't see any reasons for moving to Windows wista or 7, but time will come when one has to, but i think/hope many problems have been solved by then.

And what comes to Linux (which origins are here by the way) it's hard to battle whit Microsoft because it has grown kind of "industry standard" windows and office at least. But European Union supports open software, so maybe it will change some day and we will see more Linux desktops too. Linux servers aren't so rare to see.

Don't know nothing about Mac's, here the Mac/PC ratio is about 1/1000, so no Mac's here.

If i were to buy new pc to home i would take it with Windows 7 of course, but that is obvious i guess. Now i have XP and i'm not going to upgrade to 7 with these machines. When XP support stops i will use them as i have used them before or consider linux in some of them.

 

[finnautti]

Originally Posted By: mormit
Virtual Box or Parallels should let you run a Unix or XP application on a Win7 machine. Just a thought.
It's not practical, because you would have to run whole operating system in virtual environment and run your application in there. Needs more resources and is slow and awkward.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

finnautti, the upgrade is not "all for nothing". If anything, we're realizing about $700 savings per PC where we upgrade from XP to Win7.

Win7 runs ALL the apps we have thrown at it. All. Even goofy VPN clients work fine in Win7. Can't say that for Vista.

3+ year old Dell Optiplex GX620's with P4 CPU's and 2+ year old Dell Optiplex 745 with Core2Duo E6600's in them run noticeably faster with Win7 vs XP. Every one of the users who has received a "new" GX620 (it's a GX620 with a fresh hard disk and Win7, that's the only "new" to it, LOL) runs a whole bunch quicker than the "old" XP box. Even with fresh hard disks, XP is still slower by a bunch.

Every user has said "I *really* like it!" It = Win7.

So we don't have to buy new machines, just upgrade the OS and the hard disk. ROI--$700 over 3 years.

It's been such a hit, we're rolling it out everywhere and managers can't wait to get their systems upgraded to Win7 since their end-users are so happy with it.

Honestly guys, it's SUCH a change in end-user mentality like I've never seen with a MS product.

It's about time.

Finally, MS has got it right.

 

[occupant]

7 is beautiful on my wife's desktop. I expect 7 to be great on the laptop I just bought. Vista Home Basic was on my last two laptops and it was fine as long as there was at least 2GB of memory (that first lappy had 512MB to start, it was PAINFUL). And my wife's laptop and my desktop run XP. Pro for her, Home for me. I want to put 7 on each of them but that is as of now cost prohibitive. Since XP doesn't upgrade to 7, it's cheaper to buy new computers than buy the software and new hard drives and upgrade memory and all that.

 

[finnautti]

Quote:
the upgrade is not "all for nothing"
No but it is kind of expensive for something you don't need or want.
Quote:
If anything, we're realizing about $700 savings per PC where we upgrade from XP to Win7.
I don't get it. I have always thought that you have to pay for win7. Think about what you would have saved by not upgrading. Of course if you are in volume lisencing it is "included in the price" so it doesn't matter.
Quote:
Win7 runs ALL the apps we have thrown at it. All. Even goofy VPN clients work fine in Win7. Can't say that for Vista.
Agreed with vista, but you can't say all because even you know that isn't true. I'm talking about hundreds of software in thousands machines here and most software is custom made.
Quote:
Every user has said "I *really* like it!" It = Win7.
It's a tool, you don't have to like it.

The main thing is that it carries out its work quickly and reliably
Quote:
Finally, MS has got it right.
We will see

I have nothing personal against win7, but can't see reason for upgrading yet. Of course if your business softwares work fine with 7, great, go ahead it's the future anyway.

Why won't they do Windows XP Extended Life packs or something like that for businesses who don't like to upgrade, but likes to keep it's systems up to date for security and compatibility.

PS. As i said before it's all about the business use, home use is different story.

 

[Mystic]

It is really nice for a change to see somebody actually praise a Microsoft O/S ToyotaNSaturn. And that is encouraging to me that you have seen positive improvement with Windows 7.

I am still evaluating Windows 7 and until I work with it for a while I don't want to make any hasty conclusions. But so far it is a very different and positive experience. About the only thing I have not liked it was kind of hard locating Windows Defender. It did not appear in the applications list and I had to search for it for a little bit. There are some different control panels and even name changes for some things. Somebody coming from Windows XP might be confused. I think somebody coming from Vista might even be a little confused.

But it just seems to run right. I don't know how to say that better. It seems fast-faster than some people and some publications give it credit for. Sure, a person still has to have a computer that is fast enough, has enough RAM, a big enough hard drive, and decent graphics. And it seems to run really smooth. I think this is a very good operating system but I will wait a while.

If I find any problems I will be honest with what I find. I have said this before and I will say it again-this is technology we are dealing with. It should be evaluated fairly and honestly. In the future there will be better technology, but for now this may be the best technology for computer desktops. We will see.

I highly recommend the book 'Windows 7 Secrets.' It helped me the most.

 

[mormit]

Originally Posted By: finnautti
Originally Posted By: mormit
Virtual Box or Parallels should let you run a Unix or XP application on a Win7 machine. Just a thought.
It's not practical, because you would have to run whole operating system in virtual environment and run your application in there. Needs more resources and is slow and awkward.


Understood that it may or may not be the perfect solution. I just threw it out there as something to consider. I don't know what the situation is with these older Unix applications Mystic uses and maybe only a few dedicated machines actually need to use them.

I just got a Win7 laptop for my wife and it runs fantastic on Win7. HP G71. It's a pretty big laptop.

I have distro hopped quite a bit and love Linux but I have had zero complaints with Microsoft. Of course I skipped Vista so that could be why.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Originally Posted By: finnautti
Quote:
the upgrade is not "all for nothing"
No but it is kind of expensive for something you don't need or want.
Quote:
If anything, we're realizing about $700 savings per PC where we upgrade from XP to Win7.
I don't get it. I have always thought that you have to pay for win7. Think about what you would have saved by not upgrading. Of course if you are in volume lisencing it is "included in the price" so it doesn't matter.


You don't *think* you need it, but when you start finding the good things, it's really nice.

What I didn't explain fully was the 3 year replacement schedule. If a PC is replaced every 3 years, but the replacement is skipped due to a Win7 license and a hard disk, there's the $700 saved. In this day & age of restricted budgets, it's been a win-win (no pun intended

). Gotta love when an upgrade truly costs a business less $$ over the long haul.

"Agreed with vista, but you can't say all because even you know that isn't true"
Disagree. Everything we have thrown at it works A-OK. We have one corporate fat-app, it adds a good 25MB to the registry, POS if I've ever seen one! It works FINE in Win7 32 & 64. Even in-house apps that are only supported on IE6 (yeah, IE6) work fine on IE8. In fact, one goofy app that requires .Net 1.1, then with SP1, then a hotpatch for all versions of Windows (the target app won't install without all 3 of these installed ....ughh) works GREAT on Vista64 & Win7-64 but never installs properly on any old 32 bit versions of Windows, which it supports.

It's a nice feeling to move forward with a 64 bit client that works better, for our needs, than 32 bit w/o worrying about things working or not.

Try it, you just might like it.

On the other hand, PC's that are really old, P4 2.8's & older aren't worth upgrading. Many of them have the bad capacitors from that era. For those, they can ride into the sunset and directly into the PC trash heap. LOL

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Originally Posted By: Mystic


I highly recommend the book 'Windows 7 Secrets.' It helped me the most.


Paul Thurrott wrote that. I was just listening to his podcast with Leo Laporte today. Good to know that book is worth it. I'll pick up a copy this week.

 

[finnautti]

ToyotaNSaturn you just don't get it. Your corporate has only few softwares that work ok. Great. Some of us aren't so lucky, most propable are but not all.

Most software work ok, some won't work at all, and those are usually those special ones witch have been made only windows 98/2000/XP in mind and newer updated since and will not be updated so what can you do? Answer is not update to win7, until those problems are solved. Like i said i'm talking about HUNDREDS of software.

But ok lets stop arguing it helps no one. I'm glad that you like your windows.

 

[Ed_T]

I still use Vista Ult. but have 7 on the laptop. What I don't like about 7 is that to start another running instance of IE you gotta rick-click the IE icon on the taskbar and then scroll down and left-click IE...what a PITA. Maybe there is a QuickLaunch bar to put on the left end of taskbar, I just haven't played enuff with it to find out.

Also, if you want to run taskmanager in the tray upon startup automatically, even if you start it through Task Scheduler, in Vista you can make it stick as "always visible", but in 7 it always gets buried in the tray's invisible zone on reboot. That sucks.

I like 7 and will eventually move to it maybe or wait for its successor, but there seems to be a couple interface things I don't like at all.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

finnautti, i do "get it". Why do you think I'm moving forward rather than living in the past (where possible of course)? Our organization has a boatload of software that was written for Win32 many moons ago. None of the groups say "oh, yeah, we've tested this on Win7 (or even Vista)!"

As a result, our options are stay with XP or go with Win7. So far, I can't find any that doesn't work properly on Win7. Sure, the dev groups say "oh, that's not supported on anything but XP SP2". Yeah, SP2. It works great on Win7 no matter how behind-the-times developers are with their projects.

Installers for drivers can may need a bit more coaxing, but they will work, just lie to the installer and tell it say it's a Vista SP1 system using the Compatibility tab. HP driver installers are the ones where we have needed to use this trick.

I do understand that for many, the upgrade to Win7 may not make sense. For us, and those who have took the plunge, have found the upgrade waters to be warm and inviting like a pleasant pool rather than a shark-infested inlet like most Windows upgrades are. LOL

Ed_T, you can Pin any program to the Start Menu, like before if you wish. Also, have you tried this trick for restoring the quick launch bar? http://mintywhite.com/windows-7/windows-seven-7-restore-quick-launch-toolbar/

 

[Volvohead]

No OS is perfect.

But I like W7.

Better than Vista.

Better than XP.

Better than any Mac OS through Tiger.