Windows 7 experience

By MrChainsaw
in Microsoft (Windows)

 Share

Windows 7 experience  

1826 members have voted

  1. 1. How was installation?

    • 7 - Awsome, very fast, no problems!
      1163
    • 6
      394
    • 5
      171
    • 4
      54
    • 3
      20
    • 2
      7
    • 1 - Couldn't be worse. Got nasty errors, couldn't install.
      17

  2. 2. How is compatability

    • 7 - Everything compatible (programs and hardware)
      750
    • 6
      611
    • 5
      319
    • 4
      99
    • 3
      27
    • 2
      7
    • 1 - Nothing at all, not even crucial things(processor, etc)
      13

  3. 3. The features

    • 7 - It has everything
      713
    • 6
      626
    • 5
      354
    • 4
      85
    • 3
      20
    • 2
      11
    • 1 - It has nothing, windows 1 was better.
      17

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

sn00pie

Posted
Posted

Just installed it on my Macbook. My previous computer used XP, so I never got a chance to really see the issues and problems people complained about regarding Windows Vista. But with Windows 7 its so far rock solid and it is very pleasent to use.

I really just love the way everything looks. The taskbar is very dock-like. Which to me is a good thing, even though some could argue Microsoft copied Apple.

For any Mac users who want to install 7 its a breeze. I think it took me less than 1.5 hours including burning the Windows 7 install DVD, its a breeze of a process by any regards.

Grand Master

freak180

Posted
Posted

Windows + [Number]

Programs (and new instances) pinned to your Taskbar can be launched by hitting Windows and the number corresponding to its placement on the Taskbar. Windows + 1, for example, launches the first application, while Windows + 4 will launch the fourth. We realize that this is actually one key-press more than just clicking the icon with your mouse, but it saves your hand the trouble of leaving the comfort of the keyboard.

:)

Grand Master

»X«

Posted
Posted

Wonder if anyone else is experiencing this issue. I'm running both Vista and Win7, using an ATI x1900xtx. Both installs have the latest drivers from ati. When I load up Win7, the fan on my graphics card speeds up as if I'm running something like Crysis. Even if its just at the desktop. It's very annoying and very loud. In Vista, its almost silent as it should be. Any thoughts?

Grand Master

Dogan

Posted
Posted

Have the beta installed on 3 computers. The only issue I've had is that sound didn't work at start on one of the computers.

It works now so I give the beta 7/7 thumbs up (Y)(Y)(Y)(Y)(Y)(Y)(Y)

One of the computers I installed it on is a netbook (MSI Wind), and it runs way better than I thought it would.

Everything is smooth and the boot is really fast. Even Aero is enabled :)

Proficient

rakeshishere

Posted
Posted

Is this common that i cant see Gadgets when i have disabled "Show Desktop items" on my desktop . Is there a way where i could see all the gadgets and not icons since in my previous experience the Aero peek feature becomes useless if i cant view running gadgets

Enthusiast

Mizuian

Posted
Posted

I installed it a few weeks ago, when it first came out, and so far, I've been very impressed with it, I have a slow spare computer which I've installed it on, and so far, Its been very quick, no freezes or slow down. It seems fairly compatible, but I've yet to try everything I want to try out. So far so good!

Neowinian

X-Warlock

Posted
Posted

Pretty impressed so far. I installed the 64 bit version friday night and while it was a quick instal, I ran into a handful of headache problems regarding driver installations. The driver package for my Asus p5ql-e motherboard required a little bit of editing on the config files to get it to recignize win7 as a compatible OS to an end result of not everything even being recognized by the OS. The ATI Catalyst drivers for my HD 4650 1gb card just refused to work. I tried the commercially available 64bit drivers for Vista, died half way through the instal. Found the Catalyst beta drivers for Win 7, and even they bombed out. Also found the OS was using a rather large chunk of ram to do essentially nothing.

Downloaded the 32 bit version if Win 7 this evening, and wow. Total difference! OS installed in less than 15 mins (including a drive format). Still needed to do a little hacking on my Asus motherboard package but everything was recognized and installed with minimal effort. ATI Catalyst beta drivers for 32 bit installed with no issue what-so-ever. Resource management seems vastly improved this time as well. I'm currently running several tabs of IE8, 2 concurrent downloads, and running mp3's in WMP and the OS is barely using 800 megs of ram. I seriously cannot recall the last time I've seen a Windows OS use so little ram.

Now to see how well the OS handles a little gaming...

Neowinian

LeonG

Posted
Posted

So far I'd give it a 6+ - I like it very much but would I pay $189.00 (or whatever they end up charging for their "Home Premium" full version? Probably not.

I will never again buy an "upgrade" product from Microsoft again unless they go back to their old way of confirming ownership - insert a valid previous version. I don't see that happening - too many ways to cheat them - but I will never again install another OS just to get the latest OS on my machines.

I also believe that this does seem like it should be an update to Vista but I do see why a name change is necessary. Obviously we can't see the code but aside from the new pretty face and a few things that could have just been added to Vista was the underlying code improved? Normally even this would not be a concern to me - I've used Microsoft products since the old DOS days and believe that they should be paid for their efforts - but are superficial improvements a valid reason to call this a major upgrade and charge accordingly?

I feel like we are going to be charged twice for Microsoft to get Vista right. If more time had passed since this change I might not feel this way but it hasn't and I do.

As for the rating..... like I said a 6+ across the board. This is going to be a GREAT product! Vista done right! I especially like the 64-bit version. Works flawlessly on my machine. I MAY buy this when available just for the 64-bit OS. There would be less tears when spending the money that I don't have because I would be buying an additional product - not updating something that I already have.

Veteran

Lord Ba'al

Posted
Posted

After running the 64-bit version for a while, here are my results:

Installation: 7

Very nice and fast installation in 20 min.

Compatability: 6

Just micro-issue like Opera won't save vertical window size, or I needed Vista mode to install Intel X48 drivers.

Otherwise, anything runs fine.

Features: 6

I like the new Superbar and other things, but no absolute uber-features here.

Speed: 7

Very fast, love it.

The looks: 6

I like the looks, but it would be nice if you could customise themes more, not just changing the glass colour.

Overall: 6

Certainly a huge improvement over Vista, but there's still room for some fine-tuning.

Grand Master

ZonoBurk

Posted
Posted

On Vista both of my graphics index scores were 5.0.

Now on Windows 7 my graphics score is 4.9 and my gaming graphics is 4.7.

Before I updated to the new driver both were 4.9.

I'm gonna put in Crysis Warhead and see how it goes. Even though I couldn't play on all max settings with Vista using a 9500GT 1 GB (you can have everything on but the aa has to be off and it's fine).

post-108961-1233184355.png

Contributor

Lawrens

Posted
Posted

Been using it for a few days, I like it, I skipped vista so I might be getting win7.

I enjoy the new taskbar, I didn't like its appearance that much at first, still don't, but it works well, I even kept it on large icons for a while even though I hated the appearance, I just don't like the bar and block look, but being able to see your status on the msn messenger icon is quite nice, and accessing its options is something I enjoyed, the appearance does a good job, so I got used to it, however I wish the taskbar is a little more customizeable, also I love the jumplist, I do have a lot of free space on the task menu even when I pinned everything there, so I crave for some customizability sometimes.

The screen edge snapping is quite cool, there're times where I would use it, but I wished it's a little more flexible than having the windows always at 50% of the screen size, I find myself resizing one window when I have 2 windows docked inorder to get the most out of the window with the most contents, doing so would block the other forcing me to click on the bottom one again and adjust that, which kind of defeats the purpose of the auto snapping/docking, so I hope there's an option to tile them and adjust both windows size by the center, also, I don't mind them adding more to it, more tiling options (those windows stacking/side by side options on the right click on taskbar could then be put into use more), but I guess it's just small touches they decided to add in to make things easier, not a full blown window tiling management, so I guess I can live with it if they decided to keep it like that, it's still a useful function.

I haven't played with homegroup yet, I kind of don't have many devices that could access it, I only have another mac, 360 and a ps3, i'll mess around with it later, but so far it seems quite convenient since win7 could see my 360 when I turn it on right from the network neighbourhood.

One thing I wish they'd change is flip3d, I find myself using alt-tab and the intellipoint's middle click Instant Viewer more, but it's just something extra, so can't really complain, but imo they should add to it making it better.

I haven't found much bugs or glitches, which is a good thing, and it's quite snappy, I wish windows drawing could be a little bit faster but that is probably my crappy video card or the drivers. Overall I enjoy being in win7, its faster than leopard on my intel 32bit macbook pro, application also launches fast, and I hope they continue to add in more convenient features in windows management, I think they're going towards the right direction, and I hope they continue to polish the interface more.

Contributor

Cojage

Posted
Posted

One of the reasons i went back to XP was because of the decrease in performance when gaming on Vista. And, the menu structure in Vista was a bit ridiculous compared to XP, but not annoying.

So i tried Windows 7.

Installation - 7

Quite faster than Vista, no problems here.

Compatibility - 6

So far everything works, but not everything behaves the way it should be, but usually i just had to turn compatibility mode. And one time an application installer hung and the only reason to quit it was by rebooting it.

Features - 6

No new features that werent in Vista, unless I'm wrong. I also can not stand the look of the standard superbar. The quick launch menu and the applications bar are too vaguely separated. I'm not a apple fanboy(both xp and osx user, like them both equally), but the superbar is obviously inspired by another OS :)

I know this is a beta. But at this point, the only difference besides the looks i can see with Vista is the performance. But, this is still a beta.

Rising Star

Iian K

Posted
Posted

Installation of Windows 7 went well, I've had a few issues here and there and have been reporting them to Microsoft, and I see nothing major to add at this point.

Interestingly enough, this time I didn't have as many issues stability wise as I did during the Vista Beta Program.

Neowinian

mrlopez8

Posted
Posted

Maybe I'm too critical but shouldn't Win7 run all the programs that Vista will run?

I used DAEMON Tools Lite Image Drive 4303-lite on Vista to install software from ISO files but it won't work on Win7. Has to use Isoedit. Doesn't work as good as it did with Vista but I hope MS makes DAEMON Tools work in the RC1 version.

AVG AntiVirus 2009 v8.229 build 1410 wouldn't install so I tried it in compatibility mode for Vista & XP, still won't install. Had to download Kaspersky Anti-Virus ver 8.0.0.1015 free trial until I find another Antivirus program.

I'd love to use the old control panel but I'll just get used to the new one. I also like the LAN monitors on the taskbar near the clock because I could see Internet activity and the little globe that lets me know I have a connection to the Internet. Can it be added to the taskbar in Win7?

Aside from those things I like the OS.

Proficient

McDave

Posted
Posted
I used DAEMON Tools Lite Image Drive 4303-lite on Vista to install software from ISO files but it won't work on Win7. Has to use Isoedit. Doesn't work as good as it did with Vista but I hope MS makes DAEMON Tools work in the RC1 version.

At first I was peaved Daemon tools would not work however Virtual CloneDrive works much better for me running iso files. Can right click the drive from explorer and mount from there + there is no taskbar icon.

I'd love to use the old control panel but I'll just get used to the new one. I also like the LAN monitors on the taskbar near the clock because I could see Internet activity and the little globe that lets me know I have a connection to the Internet. Can it be added to the taskbar in Win7?

Getting rid of classic view has to be the most frustrating change of them all. Takes more clicks to find the tool you are looking for and also got to think what catgory it's in.

Grand Master

»X«

Posted
Posted

So far so bad. For reasons unknown, Win7 refuses to shut down. If I click shutdown, nothing happens but I cant run any other programme, wont log off, wont restart, wont run task manager, NOTHING. So I've been using it for 4 days and each day I have to turn off the power. WTF?

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Microsoft making much needed change to Windows 11, 10 Patch Tuesday security updates

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      Microsoft making much needed change to Windows 11, 10 Patch Tuesday security updates by Sayan Sen Recently, Microsoft delivered its latest Defender patches for Windows 11 ISOs. These definitions are released from time to time alongside the general security updates available during Patch Tuesday. Speaking of Defender, the company has now announced another important change that affects how security updates are delivered to enterprise devices running Windows. According to a recent announcement, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's endpoint detection and response (EDR) updates will no longer be bundled with the monthly Windows security updates or Patch Tuesdays. Instead the company is shifting delivery of these updates to Microsoft Update, bringing EDR servicing in line with several other Microsoft Defender components. If you recall, Microsoft last year moved PowerShell updates to Microsoft Update (MU) as well since it provides automatic updates for Microsoft products and services. Thus the move is intended to allow Microsoft to deliver EDR improvements and security enhancements independently of the OS's regular monthly update cycle; this should enable faster deployment of protection updates without requiring organizations to wait for the next Patch release. For those unfamiliar, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's EDR capabilities are designed to help organizations detect, investigate, and respond to advanced threats across managed devices. Keeping these components updated is critical for maintaining protection against evolving attack techniques. The rollout has already began for Windows 10 devices in late May 2026 (last month) and Microsoft says it will gradually expand support to Windows 11 and the remaining supported Windows versions over the coming months. The company expects deployment across Windows 10 and Windows 11 to be completed by fall 2026 or around Q3 of this year. Once the transition is complete, EDR updates will be delivered through Microsoft Update using KB5005292, provided the required prerequisite updates have already been installed. Microsoft is also introducing a new Defender Update Service as part of the change. Following installation of the first update, devices will automatically create a new directory located at %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Microsoft Defender\Defender Update. Microsoft notes that restarts may occasionally be necessary in case of "rare" failure scenarios. For most organizations, the tech giant says no action will be required as long as Microsoft Update is already permitted within their update management strategy. Admins who rely on manually deployed update packages, however, will need to adjust their processes to ensure the new Defender update package is included. Microsoft also recommends reviewing internal documentation and notifying helpdesk and security operations teams about the updated delivery mechanism to avoid confusion during the transition. As a prerequisite, the tech giant notes that systems must be running Sense version 10.8798.25857.1000 or later and have one of the following Windows updates (or later) installed: Win11 24H2 KB5062660 (2025-07 Cumulative Update Preview) Win11 23H2 KB5062663 (2025-07 Cumulative Update Preview) Win11 22H2 KB5062663 (2025-07 Cumulative Update Preview) Win10 22H2 KB5062649 (2025-07 Cumulative Update Preview) Win10 1809 KB5063877 (2025-08 Cumulative Update) Server 2019 KB5063877 (2025-08 Cumulative Update) Server 2022 KB5063880 (2025-08 Cumulative Update) Server 2025 KB5063878 (2025-08 Cumulative Update) As always, organizations should verify that their update policies align with the new servicing approach before the broader rollout reaches all supported Windows platforms later this year. In case of major problems, the EDR update can be rolled back to the inbox version stored in %ProgramFiles%\\Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) using: MpCmdRun.exe -RevertMde -Product Edr -ToVersion Inbox For those who have access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal, you can view the message here under ID MC1381119.
    • DWARF mini review: the world's smallest smart telescope for night and day sky captures

      By Case_f · Posted

      My problem with these smart scopes is that IMO they're not really an entrance into astronomy, they're an entrance to looking at pretty(ish) pictures that you take by essentially pressing a button and letting the scope do the work. I still maintain that getting some binoculars or a solid dedicated telescope (which doesn't have to mean expensive) and actually spending time learning the night sky and using a telescope is a much better way to actually learn. But, granted, the learning curve is a bit steeper (as it tends to be).
    • "CRAZIER than ever!" Crazy Taxi: World Tour is officially coming soon

      By matthiew · Posted

      I never played Crazy Taxi before, but this looks like a fun game!
    • Browser vendors pen open letter to Microsoft saying "enough is enough"

      By Legend20 · Posted

      The perception of Microsoft Edge is unfortunate as it's a world class browser. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the best browser I've ever used with its feature set, speed, reliability and advanced security. Running the extension Ublock Origin is a must though to deal with advertising and trackers.
    • AMD 9070XT

      By hellowalkman · Posted

      You can check out our latest 9070 GRE review with scores for the XT too, but these are on Windows: Gaming performance Productivity performance

  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      493
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      248
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      73
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      69
    5. 5
      neufuse
      68
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!