Windows 7

[Kryten]

Won't be far around the corner, so I've finally taken the time to install it and take a peek for myself.

Before doing so, had a look at a couple of reputable sites to see what common opinion is:

Windows 7: Windows 7 Walkthrough, Boot Video and Impressions

First look at Windows 7's User Interface

http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/windows_7.asp

First impressions seem positive from most angles, myself included. It's important to remember that 7 is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, as the term goes - however these subtle tweaks seem to make it that little bit more responsive, and as such this could run on slightly weaker specced systems rather better.
The UI has seen multiple improvements, most of them are detailed with pictures in the above links so I won't go into detail, although I'm personally disappointed to see the horribly bulky and unintuitive Ribbon interface included in the likes of Paint and Wordpad, but for some reason other people quite like it. I think it's a step backwards, it doesn't flow, takes too much room and just not easy enough to find what you need to do quickly.
UAC is a huge improvement - it was a constant annoyance in Vista, and it was "on" or "off" - the latter only recommended to people who know what they're doing in the first place. In W7, you have a far greater degree of control as to when it warns you, and of what.
Control panel is better, far less cluttered and it's easy to find what you need now. Graphics control panel is greatly improved - the first, simple section allows you to change resolution, identify multiple monitors and switch primary/secondary. Advanced steps up to allow refresh rate, driver changes etc etc.
That horrid Sidebar is a gonner, thank christ, and the some-useful gadgets are now free-floating, which saves resource and nicking half your screen for the sake of a large clock

I won't go into too much detail as it'd just be mirroring what's already said in those other articles, they're definitely worth a read. The only concern I have is that most of the tweaks, especially performance tweaks, could easily be applied to Vista - something I doubt will happen as MS will want W7 to have a running start :/

 

[throdgrain]

Christ I havent moved to Vista yet. Maybe I wont have to

 

[SheepCow]

First impressions seem positive from most angles, myself included. It's important to remember that 7 is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, as the term goes - however these subtle tweaks seem to make it that little bit more responsive, and as such this could run on slightly weaker specced systems rather better.
The UI has seen multiple improvements, most of them are detailed with pictures in the above links so I won't go into detail, although I'm personally disappointed to see the horribly bulky and unintuitive Ribbon interface included in the likes of Paint and Wordpad, but for some reason other people quite like it. I think it's a step backwards, it doesn't flow, takes too much room and just not easy enough to find what you need to do quickly.
UAC is a huge improvement - it was a constant annoyance in Vista, and it was "on" or "off" - the latter only recommended to people who know what they're doing in the first place. In W7, you have a far greater degree of control as to when it warns you, and of what.
Control panel is better, far less cluttered and it's easy to find what you need now. Graphics control panel is greatly improved - the first, simple section allows you to change resolution, identify multiple monitors and switch primary/secondary. Advanced steps up to allow refresh rate, driver changes etc etc.
That horrid Sidebar is a gonner, thank christ, and the some-useful gadgets are now free-floating, which saves resource and nicking half your screen for the sake of a large clock

Sounds good

I quite like the ribbon these days, it's definitely grown on me. I'd even go as far to say as it's made me more productive when using Office (which I have to sometimes, before anyone starts saying OpenOffice is worth going near).

From what I've seen/read W7 is basically a cosmetic update, most of the changes are at UI level - having had the scary changes done in Vista (redesign of drivers, audio, etc).

It's also supposed to be much better for laptops since it has really nice power management (you can see what's using your power) and should turn off unused things (like wired ethernet if you're on WiFi etc.). Also memory management is better so it'll run on systems with less RAM than Vista needs, which is good.

All in all, it sounds yummy.

 

[ECA]

Windows 7 is Vista for people who are averse to the word Vista.

 

[Kryten]

Probably not far wrong to be honest - looking at it from many people's point of view, Vista is "bad, nasty and horrible" and a mere change of name would automatically increase it's popularity several times over. I think they tried to prove that not too long ago with that daft test which was apparently successful, although as with most marketing tests and surveys I tend to take the results with a pinch of salt.

"99% of users in our survey agreed that Apple products are far better than anything else. according to a survey group of 2000 people called Steve"

 

[Bodhi]

I was forced into using Vista when I got this laptop, and I have to say now I'd find it tough to go back to XP. It just doesn't look as funky....

 

[Kryten]

Don't think you'd be disappointed with 7 then - as I've maintained previously, on a decent enough system Vista is often quicker than XP in most games and certain applications (obviously not all) and with tweaking this is even more the case - however 7 could tip the balance even more, providing the visuals *and* the performance.

 

[yaruar]

Don't think you'd be disappointed with 7 then - as I've maintained previously, on a decent enough system Vista is often quicker than XP in most games and certain applications (obviously not all) and with tweaking this is even more the case - however 7 could tip the balance even more, providing the visuals *and* the performance.

One of the bewst features is sorting out the window manager so it's a lot more efficient i think i've heard it will use about 1/3 the system resources it currently uses which should be a bonus for people on lower end systems.

I'm slightly dissapointed about the sidebar, i think i'm one of the few people who like it, but i do run multiple monitors with very high resolutions so i'm not lacking screen real estate.

I'm interested to see what my collegues at Tech Ed have to say about it as i suapect there is going to be a big push for it there.

 

[Ctuchik]

Probably not far wrong to be honest - looking at it from many people's point of view, Vista is "bad, nasty and horrible" and a mere change of name would automatically increase it's popularity several times over.

i doubt it. i dislike vista primarily because many of my old games that worked in XP dont work on Vista (/edit: probably because Vista is even more NT intergrated then XP is), or can be made to work but with horrible results in game speed etc etc. and i doubt a namechange would solve that problem

tho i have to say that SP1 solved most of the "oh god Vista sucks" thoughts i had but i still like XP better. but i'm gonna stick to Vista for now just to see if more of my old games i can get working.

 

[Chilly]

The UI has seen multiple improvements, most of them are detailed with pictures in the above links so I won't go into detail, although I'm personally disappointed to see the horribly bulky and unintuitive Ribbon interface included in the likes of Paint and Wordpad, but for some reason other people quite like it.

do you use office a lot? If not then I can forgive your PoV, although I don't approve. Ribbons are simply better. Unless you are unable to learn new things or have some weird problem where icons need to be tiny, ribbons are better. Faster, easier to hit the right target, and lots of stuff available in an easier manner than spamming menus or memorising 5000 icons.

 

[dysfunction]

I think Windows 7 is what Vista should have been but MS didnt have the time to program everything into it.

Can't wait!

I only use Office 2007 at home and even then not very much. As a result when in use it at home I am really slow as i am so used to the 2003 version I have at work. I wish we would upgrade!

 

[PLightstar]

Vista has grown on me, my feelings remind me of what I thought about XP after deciding wether to switch from 98SE. In some ways it is better than XP and it others its not. I still use XP at work but as the days go by I prefer my Vista Ulitmate at home. Will prolly stick with it for a while before I switch to W7, seen some previews and it looks alot like Vista.

 

[Kryten]

do you use office a lot? If not then I can forgive your PoV, although I don't approve. Ribbons are simply better. Unless you are unable to learn new things or have some weird problem where icons need to be tiny, ribbons are better. Faster, easier to hit the right target, and lots of stuff available in an easier manner than spamming menus or memorising 5000 icons.

Yeah, almost daily - I just can't seem to get on with it. It might be god knows how many years of being used to a certain style, and my mind is very slow with changes like that, but it'll just probably be a matter of time

 

[soze]

Windows 7 could show up with no improvements just a different name and people would say its a great step forward. Didn't Microsoft sit some fortune 500 IT Admins who publically slagged off Vista infront of Vista with a different name and they said it was great and they would use it. The most important thing MS can do is change the name.

That being said it looks nice and i really like the Ribbon and have always liked Sidebar. The idea of a netbook version where office runs in a web browser is a great idea too with netbooks selling so well its a smart move.

 

[ford prefect]

Yeah, almost daily - I just can't seem to get on with it. It might be god knows how many years of being used to a certain style, and my mind is very slow with changes like that, but it'll just probably be a matter of time

I'm with Kryten here. I rolled back to office 2003 after a week of not getting on with the ribbon interface. Probably the best part of 14 or 15 years using an interface that has been very similar since word in win 3.11 has got me thoroughly set in my ways. Bah! change!

I think the problem with Vista is that it took so long to be released and for very little improvement over XP. I mean seven years, several code names later, and lets face it, for the end user, it is hardly revolutionary. Meanwhile linux devs made huge leaps forward, and apple took a lot of their lessons onboard. People were expecting something new and special from Vista, and it simply didn't deliver. It doesn't look like windows 7 is going to ground breaking either really does it?

 

[old.Osy]

I'm the one that's going to change the OS when:

A) Hardware limitations will occur (XP not supporting certain mainboards, peripherals that i might use, etc, we've seen it with 95 OSR2 > 98

B) Software limitations will occur (pretty much the same thing, and the situation where it wouldn't be feasible for me to use XP anymore -- people using some software which outputs or does something that I also want/need)


As an example, I've moved to XP after SP2 was released, and I've moved to 98 only after 98SE came out. Need I mention I was still running DOS Navigator and DOS 6.2 before OSR2 came out?

Yeah, i'm picky.

 

[dysfunction]

I'm not...I rush into the new stuff! I love new stuff!
Give me more!

 

[throdgrain]

The thing about Vista for me is this : I can't see what I can get from changing to it. I have it on my laptop, it irritates me that it operates functions without me clicking on them. It probably wouldnt do that on a PC, I realise that.

But I have a XP disc here, when I format every so often I think shall I go get a Vista disc? Then I think, oh yeah, an extra 2 gig of ram too, and even then I dont mind, until I decide it wont improve any of the games asfar as I can tell. I know it uses DX10 but is that any better? Not for CSS, but I know CoH uses it, but then what I've read says its no big improvement ...

 

[dysfunction]

I only have 2gig of ram and vista runs just fine...
I'm sure you can switch that laptop "feature" off throd...

 

[liloe]

Well, gonna have to test is. In other words: How does it work with all shiny shit turned off AND with all the "are you sure you wanna do that?" shit turned off =)

The standard desktop seems to look a bit cleaner, but I really don't like the new Explorer, cause it's too shiny and therefore confusing for my liking (even in classic view, tested on a Win 2008 Server).

 

[SheepCow]

it irritates me that it operates functions without me clicking on them. It probably wouldnt do that on a PC

Out of curiosity, what are these "functions" it does?

 

[dysfunction]

Out of curiosity, what are these "functions" it does?

He means he runs the mouse over a an application shortcut eg Excel and it starts excel up without him actually clicking on it...

 

[TdC]

eh? my vista doesn't do that for me....and it's a straight out of the box Ultimate install?

 

[dysfunction]

I know but this is Throd we are talking about. If its not a motorbike or a shotgun he doesn't really know how to work it properly.





And now for a "useful" feature for Windows 7!!

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081103/shake-up-your-windows-7-with-aero-shake/

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

no RSI there then

 

[soze]

I like that its a cool little add on. No wonder MS do not try to add new things if people link that to RSI they should just give up

 

[dysfunction]

This also looks pretty good as a more integrated feature:

Sandbox users with Windows 7 PC Safeguard - istartedsomething

 

[TdC]

I know but this is Throd we are talking about.

Throd sounds like my mum She also complains about her laptop doing "things" without her giving the commands. In her case it's prolly because she's 71

 

[yaruar]

He means he runs the mouse over a an application shortcut eg Excel and it starts excel up without him actually clicking on it...

Sounds like a case of needing to turn off the trackpad tapping feature, which is the worst invention ever. i've yet to see someone not occasionally click on something they don't want with the tapping feature of a trackpad turned on, it's especially bad for dragging and dropping folders without realising...

 

[Sar]

What I DON'T like about W7 is the taskbar.

It's horrible. It looks like it's designed purely for touch-screens with huge buttons. Oh, that and the ribbon interface. I fucking despise it. I still use Office XP/2003 because of its inclusion in the most recent versions of Office.