Windows 7 post-launch impressions, questions, frustrations

[BabyHeadCrab]

So far I'm quite enjoying it. I'm one of those guys who never did the MSDN trialware period and I've gotta say it's probably the most intuitive, flexible and user friendly OS I've ever worked with since XP. Oh yeah, and it's actually beautiful! The stacking dock / start menu and snapping windows are pretty and useful. It does a lot of things I wish OSX did, which I never thought I'd say. Performance seems better and I've had basically zero driver and compatibility issues.

What are others' experiences with it so far?

 

[hool10]

I have Vista but it appears to be Vista with a new name so people feel safe that it is not Vista. That is my opinion anyways.

 

[Evo]

It isn't just Vista with a new name, it is a much improved system overall and I would use it any day over XP or Vista.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

For me it's just Vista SP3. There is nothing really impressive about it, when i used the RC version it wasn't all that better than Vista. The only reason people think it's so much better is because Win 7 can use Vista drivers and so people aren't getting the same headache of poor driver support that plagued Vista. Deep down in the core of the OS very little has actually changed.

 

[CptStern]

surprisingly enough it's on topic


http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/23/windows-7-whopper-claims-its-first-victim-video/#continued

 

[Gunner]

For me it's just Vista SP3. There is nothing really impressive about it, when i used the RC version it wasn't all that better than Vista. The only reason people think it's so much better is because Win 7 can use Vista drivers and so people aren't getting the same headache of poor driver support that plagued Vista. Deep down in the core of the OS very little has actually changed.

The thing is, people told me it was quicker than vista, and it is. I'm not talking games, but I'm talking apps, ALL of my apps start faster. Oh and apply view to all folders sort of works now.

The thing I don't like is the lack of a classic start menu. I got it for free so I can't really complain.

 

[Adabiviak]

Oh and apply view to all folders sort of works now.

Did it not work before? It seems to work fine for me (on XP).

The thing I don't like is the lack of a classic start menu. I got it for free so I can't really complain.

That stinks, although the keyboard shortcuts in the new start menu may be a good alternative. I haven't used Vista or 7 extensively yet, but can't stand the non-classic start menu.

 

[Dinnesch]

I've had the RC on my temporary pc(3.4GHz singlecore, 1gb DDR), and it actually was faster than XP. I didn't try loading alot of programs at the same time, but for normal usage it's much faster.

 

[kupocake]

Installation took about 20 minutes (including formatting / partitioning the entire drive) and did precisely what Vista or even XP never seemed to do straight up: It worked. Completely. Didn't require a single driver or tweak to bring it to a foundational state, I just launched into installing programmes / transferring files from storage.

Generally, it works just fine, looks great (shallow I know, but I am going to be staring at the damned thing all day) and the taskbar in particular feels like a massive step up from all previous versions. I notice it uses about 300mb less of my 4gb ram and just feels more responsive. Mind you, I'd wager Vista had partly started the big slow-down because it was on a cavernous single partitioned 500GB drive anyway.

It was always going to feel like 'Vista SP3', because Vista always felt somewhat like a prerelease product. Having got it at the £45 price-point it enjoyed for a day or so, I don't feel ripped off. But honestly, I wouldn't have paid any more. Vista really wasn't that bad by the time I finally got to own it. Windows 7 is exactly how Windows should be in the year 2009, it's just a matter of whether that matters to you an ounce. For most, surely an OS is just an OS?

 

[Warped]

I just got Vista after converting from XP Media Center 2005 this past January and I'm not sure if I'm ready for the switch. best thing I can do though is buy the $30 upgrade and wait for all the bugs to be worked out (3 more months maybe) and then install it

 

[Ravioli]

First started using the beta back in January, and then the RC which im still using now. Best OS ive ever used. I love everything about it.


But one thing that all OS's need, from Apple to Microsoft to Linux...




TABBED MOTHER****ING FOLDERS!!!! THE **** HAVENT YOU ADDED THIS YET?!?!?!?! All internet browsers have tabs now, there is NO reason for the OS browsers (explorer etc) to not have tabs. It drives me nuts having several folders open. Why not just have 1 folder with tabs in it????


****ing rage, get to work on this asap.

 

[huntingbear]

First started using the beta back in January, and then the RC which im still using now. Best OS ive ever used. I love everything about it.


But one thing that all OS's need, from Apple to Microsoft to Linux...




TABBED MOTHER****ING FOLDERS!!!! THE **** HAVENT YOU ADDED THIS YET?!?!?!?! All internet browsers have tabs now, there is NO reason for the OS browsers (explorer etc) to not have tabs. It drives me nuts having several folders open. Why not just have 1 folder with tabs in it????


****ing rage, get to work on this asap.

lol
here's http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/qttabbar hope it works for ya

apparently it's a little buggy in 7
http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/forum/t-178497/works-in-win-7

 

[PvtRyan]

First started using the beta back in January, and then the RC which im still using now. Best OS ive ever used. I love everything about it.


But one thing that all OS's need, from Apple to Microsoft to Linux...




TABBED MOTHER****ING FOLDERS!!!! THE **** HAVENT YOU ADDED THIS YET?!?!?!?! All internet browsers have tabs now, there is NO reason for the OS browsers (explorer etc) to not have tabs. It drives me nuts having several folders open. Why not just have 1 folder with tabs in it????


****ing rage, get to work on this asap.

My Linux Mint has this, and I think Gnome in general does. But it's not hugely important, I never have 40 explorer windows open like I have 40 Firefox tabs open.

 

[CyberPitz]

At work, having tabbed windows would work awesome. Since I'm always going all around in folders looking for specific files...it would be a god send.

 

[Kadayi]

Been using the RC for a while and personally love it. I was on Vista 64 bit beforehand and I definitely noticed an overall improvement in performance with the switch. Retail copy turned up yesterday.

The pain for me is going to be in reinstalling all my applications. I have over 200 GB of stuff including Steam and albeit much of it I'm going to copy off to an external drive, its still going to be a tremendous ass to go through all the general installation work.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Honestly I just backup what's absolutely essential and trash the rest. Most of it can be redownloaded in a couple days, no bandwidth caps here ftw. Also, I just don't really hold onto a whole lot of video or non-steam games/apps. All my work/school stuff is on my Macbook Pro.

 

[Asus]

I'll probably install it starting next Tuesday. I just got my Win7 Pro retail boxes in the mail (2 of them). But I'm waiting on a couple hardware upgrades (still being shipped) before I install and mess with drivers and moving files all over. One of those upgrades is a gigabit NIC (have a gigabit switch and 1 gigabit NIC already). Also a Samsung F3 1TB drive for my HTPC.

 

[kupocake]

The hardest part of prep for me was rounding up my savegame data. The situation is quite ridiculous. Arguably best when they put it in the 'game directory/save', they started to move to putting in deeper directories a few years ago. Now, saved data is either in the hidden folders (appdata, Program Data) scattered around your drive, or taking the Games for Windows 'standard' of putting it in a folder somewhere in your user-folder. Except they're not even getting this right, because only Halo 2 seems to have found its way to the actual '/Saved Games' folder, whereas EA medically need to put their saves in Documents/EA Games, others put theirs in '/Documents/Saved Games' and the truely special just dump it in a self named directory '/Documents/Bioshock'. FFS sort it out.

 

[Evo]

I just got Vista after converting from XP Media Center 2005 this past January and I'm not sure if I'm ready for the switch. best thing I can do though is buy the $30 upgrade and wait for all the bugs to be worked out (3 more months maybe) and then install it

Bugs? What bugs? Not had any problems through Beta, RC to now with the final product

The hardest part of prep for me was rounding up my savegame data. The situation is quite ridiculous. Arguably best when they put it in the 'game directory/save', they started to move to putting in deeper directories a few years ago. Now, saved data is either in the hidden folders (appdata, Program Data) scattered around your drive, or taking the Games for Windows 'standard' of putting it in a folder somewhere in your user-folder. Except they're not even getting this right, because only Halo 2 seems to have found its way to the actual '/Saved Games' folder, whereas EA medically need to put their saves in Documents/EA Games, others put theirs in '/Documents/Saved Games' and the truely special just dump it in a self named directory '/Documents/Bioshock'. FFS sort it out.

I find EA puts stuff in a variety of EA Game/Electronic Arts/EA Sports folders in Documents!

 

[Escaep]

Just installed it and it was very easy. Total installation took only about 30-45 minutes. I haven't tinkered around much, but I am in love with the visuals.

 

[Krynn72]

I'll probably be building a new PC sometime after christmas if our company gets further funding and I dont lose my job, and ill get windows 7 along with my hardware. Until then though, I have the RC, and its leagues better than both xp and vista. I've run into a couple old game that have compatibility issues, but thats not enough for me to like it any less, since incompatibility is inevitable. The library system is aweshens, and searching is actually useful now. Booting is quick, all my apps seem to be very responsive all the time and its resource management is fantastic.

 

[Destructo-Bot]

One of the issues I'm having is that if you set the window border padding to something less ridiculous like 0 (which is still surprisingly thick for 'none' ) the part you can grab onto to resize the window is only 1px wide which makes it very difficult to use. Any setting higher than 0 is way too thick of a border padding.

So you either have to use the really thick window borders or deal with a finicky resize every single time.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

My network adapter did not work during the RC which meant I had to trail cable through the house just to get a internet connection. I still waiting a reply from Belkin so I know that this problem has been resolved. Regardless I'm going to wait till I get paid next month before thinking about purchasing.

 

[Kadayi]

Honestly I just backup what's absolutely essential and trash the rest. Most of it can be redownloaded in a couple days, no bandwidth caps here ftw. Also, I just don't really hold onto a whole lot of video or non-steam games/apps. All my work/school stuff is on my Macbook Pro.

Presently I've got 4 Sata drives in my rig, but a couple are old 250s which I could do with junking as they are just full of documents I can back up/transfer off (whilst the other drives are 1TB & 650GB respectively) however I've ordered in another 1TB Samsung which I'm going to partition up. For the RC I set aside 50GB, but even installing all my program files & linking all my documents etc to other drives I still found that with updates the OS had eaten up 30 GB or so, so I think I'll go 70 - 80 GB on the OS partition this time as I like to leave a little room for expansion. Transfer off the media from the old C: drive then format that and partition it up as 400GB for applications/600 GB documents.

Things like Steam I'll probably copy the existing directory off and replace it as once the app is installed onto the new apps partition. It's easy enough to just do and I'm such a games whore I like to keep a lot of games installed just for reference.

 

[Paulaner]

The pain for me is going to be in reinstalling all my applications.

Yes, bro. I share your pain.

 

[PvtRyan]

Heh, Windows 7 is pretty cool, bro. Just launched Mass Effect for the first time, and it crashed. Then Windows gave me a pop-up that I had a message regarding the crash. When I clicked it, it basically said "yo bro, here's an update from EA for Mass Effect that should fix that", except that it didn't say "yo bro". And it did fix it! Windows is now actually rather good at resolving problems, I've had multiple times now that it actually solved a problem for me.

Another thing I just found out by accident that Windows Key + Plus/Minus key lets you do a system wide zoom in/out.

 

[Tyguy]

only annoyance i encountered was my own fault, for some reason i didn't think i'd need to reimage my system with the update when it officially came out.

 

[15357]

Oh my god Windows 7 is beautiful. So damn beautiful. It runs so smoothly it's like Jesus on a skateboard hovering in a lake.

 

[Asus]

The only thing I was stumped about so far was getting overscan enabled again for my HDTV display in ATI's drivers. For some reason it turned off when I was messing with wallpapers. Was not in the same place as XP/Vista drivers.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

The only feature I wish they did in 7 was multiple desktops. It's been around forever on Linux.

I meant NATIVE multiple desktops. Third-party apps only go so far.

 

[VirusType2]

Mutoid, you need a graphics adapter with two video outputs. I'm assuming you are overlooking that.

Or maybe they can start making onboard video with 2 display support.

 

[Sedako]

For those of you who are doing a clean install to Windows 7 soon, this site is great:

http://ninite.com/

 

[kupocake]

Mutoid, you need a graphics adapter with two video outputs. I'm assuming you are overlooking that.

Or maybe they can start making onboard video with 2 display support.

I think he means separate desktops, not extended ones.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Yeah, I'm talking about switching between two separate sets of windows. Send a window to a new desktop, switch between them, not stacking windows on top of each other while simultaneously preserving desktop space, and have separate coherent workflows. It's a great feature that belongs in every OS. Hell, even Android phones have it.

 

[PvtRyan]

I don't see the use. Perhaps I just work differently, but my desktop currently has exactly 1 icon on it: the recycle bin.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

It's not for the icons; it's for the windows and widgets (though I don't really use widgets).

 

[Emporius]

Is there any point in getting Professional or Ultimate?

 

[staticprimer]

Professional gives you an XP emulator. That's about it.

 

[PvtRyan]

As well as the ability to receive remote desktop connections. Although with Home Premium you can still invite someone and you can make RDP connections yourself to others.

 

[No Limit]

I've only had it for a couple days but so far I'm loving it. Upgraded from Vista Business to Win 7 Pro. Upgrade took a lot longer than I expected, about 2 hours. I also don't like the fact IE8 comes with it by default and how if you have multiple IE windows open closing one seems to close them all (I hate being restricted to one window with multiple tabs).