Anyone playing with Windows 7 yet?

[Big Dan]

I got my mitts on a copy and installed it on my laptop earlier this evening. I really like Win 7 so far. It's hard to explain it looks and feels much like Vista but feels much more fine tuned. The install was blazingly fast when compared to both Vista and XP. Perhaps the nicest thing about the install process is it's able to be left unattended you aren't asked any questions until the system is fully installed then the only questions asked are username/password and a couple of network questions. A big plus is before I even logged in for the first time it showed me wireless networks detected and asked me which I'd like to use as the default.

My laptop definitely feels a lot more responsive. For Linux users the speed increase is like going from a full Gnome desktop an XFCE desktop but without sacrificing any of the Gnome functionality. For you car guys it feels like going from a Chevy to a Cadillac; It just feels better but you cannot quite put your finger on it.

So far I've installed a whole host of programs that I normally install on a new install and everything just works. One thing that surprised me is Avast AV just works lots of times with new OS's AV needs to work out the box. cCleaner, Putty, WinSCP, Yahoo Messenger, Firefox, Paint.net, Opera, Safari, Adobe Reader, Notepad+, and Chrome work exactly as they do on Vista. Gimp crashed on load but Gimp has always been iffy on Vista so I'm not sure if that's a Win 7 issue.

Overall for a beta it's really nice I hope they don't add a whole bunch of fluff before RTM.. I'm going to write up a blog post shortly if yous are interested I'll paste it here.

[Greg]

Sounds interesting. But it sucks that it will be another $200.00 to get a working Vista.

[Big Dan]

Sounds interesting. But it sucks that it will be another $200.00 to get a working Vista.

I thought that too but the latest press release says different: http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/11/08/microsoft-provides-latest-windows-7-roadmap

It looks like Vista users will have the option of upgrading to Win 7 free of cost. Or maybe that's just on new machines, I'm not sure. I think Microsoft knows it really fubar'd Vista and maybe they want to make it right? <--- Hey a guy can hope right. :D

[Greg]

I'm on board to at least listen up for such an offer. I don't hate vista, I brought enough computer to run it, but I bet it could be better.

It crashes whenever I use a samba drive on some apps. That drives me nuts!

[Zero Tolerance]

Sounds as if what Ive been thinking all along might come to fruition.

That would be that the PIG we all knew as Windows Me was followed by something that turned out ok....alas XP.

Hope this holds true...as I wont even THINK about putting Vista on any network I am responsible for the upkeep on.

[Dave420]

they are trying to make vista more like mac os. anyone who uses a mac knows its biggest selling point is its simplicity.when you get a new mac home it asks 3-4 questions at startup then it just works.while mac os is not the "rock solid" os that many mac people claim it to be(don't get me wrong it is great and wayyyyy better then any ms os -but you still will have some crashes-like from the new version of itunes -and will probly need to do a reinstall more then one time a year if you are a power user)it is a great os and the cleanness of it is a huge selling point.According to what MS is telling the people who sell their software(I am a registered system builder)you should sell people on vista now and the windows 7 update will be available to them as a download when the os is released.Windows 7 is more of an update then a total rewrite of the os -look at it more as a service pack then a upgrade.think windows 98SE .As with 98se all the updates in windows 7 will be available for download through windows update.

[Greg]

Great info, Dave. Thanks for the heads up.

[najkiie]

Really cool info, i installed a copy of Windows 7 on my laptop as well. It worked surprisely better than i thought it would. I like the look, its a lot cleaner, as Dave420 said abowe, it feels more like an update for Vista.

Right now it feels like Vista is a beta release. It wasn't really what i expected from MS, they can with no doubt do better.

Windows 7 is just a beta release. If they come up with some more fancy things for it and fix some bugs it will be a great OS. Right now im using Windows XP mainly because i can't handle that Vista doesn't run all my applications, it drives me nuts!

[bigH2O]

Well, the way to look at it is that MacOS is really only closed source linux. It's always going to be better than Windows, because Mac has a much broader base to draw from.

I'm looking forward to 7, but I'm not willing to invest the few hours of sleep I get now to beta test it. I'll always have a vested interest in Windows, because so many of the apps I need for my day to day business activities requre it. As usual, I'll be six months behind the curve when it comes out, as I don't have the time or patience to debug Microsoft's code for them.

[Big Dan]

I wrote a whole blog post on Win 7 but it's still sitting in my drafts folder. :eek: I've since formatted and reinstalled Vista because MS nulled my copy. I think Dave's right it's more of an update for Vista. It feels just like Vista only a lot more polished. On another forum, I posted the same post and one of the MS techs mentioned that Vista was a lot nicer like Win 7 before the RTM, and that most of the resource eating crap was adding between the beta and RTM. Here's to hoping MS doesn't change much between now and the RTM.

For the Linux guys: I'm still a Linux user, mainly Ubuntu but Vista has pulled me back to MS for my main OS. For me it just works all my apps run great there's no mucking around in config files to fix one nuisance or another. All the Ubuntu guys yak up Compiz Fusion the desktop effects plugin that is now standard in Ubuntu and how much better it is than Vista's desktop effects and uses so much less memory. The truth is for me at almost all my window title bars go blank in between switching tabs in either Firefox or Terminal. Compiz dims Firefox so that I cannot use it every so often just for chits and giggles. This is with the default Compiz settings that supposed to be 'stable' for everyone.

KDE? Forget about it. KDE4 is a slug even on recent hardware that runs Vista with ease.

Add that to the fact that Firefox loads pages significantly slower than on Windows. Ubuntu and Linux isn't ready for your average user. I'm a power user but spent a majority of time in a browser. Give me a browser, text editor and ssh client I'm happy but Ubuntu cannot even deliver that trouble free for me.

[Big Dan]

Okay so I finally published my blog post. You can view it here: http://www.bigdan.us/computers/windows/windows-7-a-first-look.html

I've uploaded the screen shots here so yous can take a look. :) If you want descriptions you can ask here or see my blog post.

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