Windows 7 experience

[Yellow.Y]

Thanks for your quote.It's wonderful!

[Xwerty]

Speed

6. I got some long loading times with the "programs" menu under start (got a pretty old HD but it wouldn't inflict that much)

The looks

7. All customizable nothing to look down for, nice and clean exactly as I want it.

Overall

7. Nothing that disturbs me, well maybe the control panel look, in some way the classic menu are harder to orient in than XP if you ask me.

The machine in short:

Motherboard: Asus P5Q

memory: DDR2 Corsair SMX 800 Mhz

CPU: Intel dual core 3.16 Ghz

Graphics: Gainward GTS 250

[eilegz]

Windows 7 its a big improvement over windows vista in any sense, from speed to usability, vista have a wrong tendency of make you click mores to do the same thing that we did in xp with less clicks (like connecting to a wireless network). The only thing that i think that vista its better its the clock on the systray it looks better and more detailed.

One thing that i find ironical its that windows experience rating on vista its 3.6 the lower goes to my pentium M procesor, in Windows 7 my experience rating goes to a new low 1.5, but windows 7 obviously seems to be faster that vista.

Specs

Intel Pentium M (740) 1.73 GHZ

2GB DDR 533Mhz ram

Ati Mobility Radeon x600 128mb vram

80gb hard drive

Edited November 2, 2009 by eilegz

[GuJu]

it is noticeably faster than vista.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

7 - install was easy and did it itself. Should have been a 6 though as partitioning took a while (and actually stole 100Mb away from me!), but redeemed as the hard disks are in the order I want them (as in, drive letter).

6 - I have had the "windows explorer has stopped working" already. A few programs (winamp (although I use an old one!)) have played up a bit, but everything seems to be ironing out.

6 - I haven't had a chance to really test it out yet.

Maybe I should have waited to vote.

[spike232]

Install - my computer failed to post after both reboots during install.

Compatibility - i have had more bsods in a week than i had in a year with vista.

Features - its not missing anything vista had

Speed - Nice and snappy

The looks - likeing the superbar

Overall - its a nice step forward just hope SP1 will improve the stability and compatibility

[fjh]

I did have a problem with Zonealarm and Mcafee antivirus which in XP I was able to work around with but not in Windows 7. So tried Norton Internet Security 2010 boy was that a mistake big time. Went back to Zonealarm and will be looking for an additional antivirus program in addition to Zonealarm's.

[morganjonathan7]

7

7

7

7

7

7

7

I am in LOVE with my Windows 7.

I run a HP Pavilion Slimline s3023w, which came with Windows Vista that ****ed up ALL THE TIME. I have had zero problems with Windows 7 and am only running it on 1 gig of RAM.

[skylinestar]

i have just installed windows 7 ultimate on my 4 year old rig.

AMD 1.6GHz sempron

1GB DDR400 RAM

onboard nf6100 gfx

80GB 7200rpm SATA HDD.

in my opinion, startup is a lot more slower than XP. lot's of hdd activity after startup up which make my system a crawl. hit the start orb> all programs, i can see the pc struggles to show the icons in the program list.

should i disable Superfetch?

[Guest xiphi]

i have just installed windows 7 ultimate on my 4 year old rig.

AMD 1.6GHz sempron

1GB DDR400 RAM

onboard nf6100 gfx

80GB 7200rpm SATA HDD.

in my opinion, startup is a lot more slower than XP. lot's of hdd activity after startup up which make my system a crawl. hit the start orb> all programs, i can see the pc struggles to show the icons in the program list.

should i disable Superfetch?

No, but if you have any large (recommended size should be twice that of your RAM) USB thumb drives laying around, trying sticking one in and use it as ReadyBoost, which requires Superfetch, to boost app launches even more.

[skylinestar]

No, but if you have any large (recommended size should be twice that of your RAM) USB thumb drives laying around, trying sticking one in and use it as ReadyBoost, which requires Superfetch, to boost app launches even more.

the poor thing is that the USB controller on my mobo has died. I'm now using a 4-ports-USB-PCI card. 1 for Wifi adaptor, 1 for printer, 1 for mouse, and 1 for my working thumbdrive. (no additional ports left) Besides that, I've read many comments that Readyboost is purely crap.

any other suggestions?

[Guest xiphi]

the poor thing is that the USB controller on my mobo has died. I'm now using a 4-ports-USB-PCI card. 1 for Wifi adaptor, 1 for printer, 1 for mouse, and 1 for my working thumbdrive. (no additional ports left) Besides that, I've read many comments that Readyboost is purely crap.

any other suggestions?

Not from what I've seen and based on my experience it works as advertised. I would say get more ram since it's dirt cheap, but sounds like your PC is on its last leg.

[iamwhoiam]

I did have a problem with Zonealarm and Mcafee antivirus which in XP I was able to work around with but not in Windows 7. So tried Norton Internet Security 2010 boy was that a mistake big time. Went back to Zonealarm and will be looking for an additional antivirus program in addition to Zonealarm's.

MSE and Comodo. Great combo.

[Glowstick]

The UNPOSSIBLE happened, I'm switching back to Windows.

[cyrl]

one word says it all "its better than vista" !

[tsupersonic]

Just put in an OCZ Vertex 60GB SSD, and it flies (not that it didn't fly with the previous 500GB WD drive). Install was 11 minutes, boot up times is around 18-21 seconds.

Jumped from a 5.9 WEI to a 6.9 WEI, the SSD is my lowest component :x

[-Himanshu-]

Install - 7 - Very quick. Around 20 mins. with DVD and 15 mins. with USB.

Compatibility - 7 - Every device and software I use runs flawlessly on Windows 7

Features - 5 - It doesn't have everything. One very important but missing features is virtual desktops(multiple desktops). And then, in future, many features can be invented so it is wrong to say that it has everything.

[Jen Smith]

I toyed with 7 a couple times in a virtual machine since it was in early beta. From the beginning I was of a "it's still Vista" mindset and never installed it. (Which it is.. Windows 6.1.) I've been a die-hard XP (and Linux) user since SP1 and I could finally let go of Win2K. Over the weekend I picked up a new high capacity hard drive, and figured "what the hell", and installed the RTM. System's nothing fancy, Core2Duo running at 3.7GHz, 2GB memory, ATI HD 3850 512MB video. Running in 32 bit as I don't really have the memory to make 64 bit worth while.

Hokey smokes, was I surprised. Yes, it's still technically Vista under the hood (greatly revamped of course), but I was floored when I saw how fast the thing works. Startup time especially impressed me. In XP, with the desktop, firewall, a few background apps and whatnot, it took a little bit to get going. And it was fairly sluggish on loading bigger apps, Visual Studio and the like. Windows 7 on the other hand gets to a workable desktop in an absurdly small amount of time. Firing up applications is also retardedly quick. Gaming is a non-issue; everything worked as good, if not better, than XP. Overall, I was very surprised with the results and I'm quite happy. I finally put XP to rest. (Still gonna have to pry Arch Linux out of my cold dead hands however.)

So, my numbers..

Install - 7. Windows has always been ridiculously easy to install, and 7's no different. Time wise more or less the same as previous builds. Zero complaints or surprises.

Compatibility - 6.99. Most of my software is running flawlessly. No virtual machines, it just works. I was especially surprised to see some of my really old games run, including Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. The only reason I'm not giving it a 7 is because Atomic Bomberman runs, but with a distorted color palette. (I'm an AB junkie.) All my hardware is working perfectly, granted I needed to snag drivers for a few items, mostly the video and audio.

Features - 4. The default installation has the typical Windows roundup, nothing surprising, and you'll obviously want to install "real" apps, like an Office suite, your browser of choice, etc etc. The new UI is mostly fantastic, but there's a few things that I'm either puzzled about why they changed it, or just downright annoyed that a feature was removed entirely. The one that really irked me was that they removed the overlay on a folder icon showing that it's shared. Yea, its trivial, and you can see it on the status bar or MMC. But it's just an inane decision to remove the visual indicator. Still a few missing features I wish were added instead of relying on an external app. WizMouse for example I can't live without.

The biggest hurdle for me was getting out of the NT mindset. First thing I'd typically do is go nuts on disabling a ton of services. Completely unnecessary with 7, in fact can make your system run worse or problematic. (Learned that one the hard way.) The only ones I disabled are ones I absolutely do not want running, most notably the Remote Registry and the like. Otherwise, leave it alone. It doesn't hog memory or CPU time anymore. Win7 handles memory much better than XP.

So if you're one of those die-hard XP holdouts.. it really is time to let it go. Vista this ain't.

[Haptic]

After using Win7 for a while, I wish there was a easier way to change themes

[Chrysalis]

I have windows 7 x64 on 3 machines.

the RC build on a spare machine.

the RC build I had on my laptop for few months and now it runs the RTM build.

very recently for a week the RTM on my main computer which was running XP 32bit before that.

On my laptop my experience with windows 7 is good, very few problem and I feel it performs well. Even played some old games on it and worked fine.

On my test machine I didnt really strain it but it seems to work ok.

On my main pc unexpectedly (given my laptop experience) I have hit a number of technical issues which I will explain below.

1 - The CPU seems to be weaker as in everything is slower. examples.

(a) 2d performance is bad, scrolling web pages can be jerky (same pages smooth in XP), toggling aero no affect, MiRC is extremely laggy on windows 7 on this machine, scrolls extremely slowly maxing out the cpu, outlook scrolling html mails is slow and maxes the processor. If I choose the same screen res as laptop the laptop is outperforming my main computer yet this computer has over 4x as much processor power to it, my laptop cpu is only 3.4 in the rateing and this one is 6.1 and slower.

(b) nod32 takes forever to scan files, if I download a 5meg file, nod32 takes 17 seconds to scan it, the same settings in XP its takes 1 second, my laptop can scan it in 3 seconds. The version of nod32 is the same on my pc and the laptop, was also the same in XP except XP was 32bit. On some files I download I got a connection reset error as it times out waiting for the nod32 scan. Adobe reader was one such file. Even if I turn of advanced heuristics in nod32 there is a long scan delay, with it turned off on the laptop every scan is almost instant.

© creative audio console gives me a spinning circle and I have to wait when switching between sections on it for 2-3 seconds, there was a delay in XP but was a fraction of a second.

(d) general slugginess, the disk speeds in windows 7 are outstanding, the hdd is barely active, copying files etc. very fast compared to XP, however cpu responsiveness seems sluggish eg. using outlook when clicking new email sometimes there is a processing delay, opening tabs in IE sometimes a processing delay, saving a file sometimes a processing delay and so on.

I am starting to suspect my hardware (probably my motherboard) is not compatible with how windows 7 operates as these problems seem unique to this machine.

2 - Intel ahci drivers, I installed windows 7 in ahci mode. When I install the 8.9 stable drivers from intel, then on the reboot it stays on the loading logo for 5 minutes doing nothing and then suddenly comes to life and finishes booting. Then after another delay detects the boot drive and tells me to reboot, on the 2nd reboot it stops on the logo again but this time indefenitly, I had to use f8 and select last known good configuration to recover the system. Tried other newer beta versions they all exhibited the 5 minute delay but this time didnt detect the boot drive properly it simpl was labeled 'disk drive' in device manager but at least were able to reboot on subsequent boots however with the 5 minute delay every time. The 8.7 version of the drivers (which officially do not support windows 7) boot without delay but the drive is still 'disk drive' in device manager. The drive is recognised on the microsoft ahci drivers. The intel matrix console also recognises it.

3 - I cannot disable write caching on one of my drives, it hangs/crashes device manager. It could be done when I was using XP.

The motherboard is a asus p5wdh deluxe. CPU intel core 2 duo 6420 clocked to 333fsb 2.66ghz, 6 gig ram running at 677mhz and 4-4-4-12 timings.

Non technical problems which amount to annoyances and as such affect all my machines.

1 - cannot completely disable cleartype in aero, at the very least it remains on in the taskbar, tooltips and titlebar.

2 - msn messenger by default uses a very lame stay in taskbar behaviour but luckily found a decent workaround to run it in vista mode.

3 - quick launch by default disabled but again luckily is a workaround to bring it back.

4 - folder settings not remembered, annoying but will probably get over it.

5 - crappy library system and general rubbish explorer interface.

6 - windows search and superfetch not allowing my system to stay idle, turned them off so now ok.

7 - messy cluttered control panel, will eventually get over it.

8 - missing always on top option in taskbar.

9 - default power options fit for a laptop but silly when on desktop machine.

[Tim the Enchanter]

Most wonderful experience of any windows yet... :)

Although I'm one of the few that liked/didn't mind vista.

[iron2000]

Not bad.

Testing it out now.

Some stuff I don't like about 7:

- can't click the taskbar button to minimize a group (trying to get used to Win+down or disable grouping)

- can't maximize a tabbed browser by clicking the taskbar button (need to get use to 2 clicks or disable grouping)

- some installers can't seem to run from partitions outside the OS partition

[Guest xiphi]

Not bad.

Testing it out now.

Some stuff I don't like about 7:

- can't click the taskbar button to minimize a group (trying to get used to Win+down or disable grouping)

- can't maximize a tabbed browser by clicking the taskbar button (need to get use to 2 clicks or disable grouping)

- some installers can't seem to run from partitions outside the OS partition

1. Hold Shift when you right click on the icon.

2. Same as above, unless, obviously, there's more than one window.

3. Sounds like a problem with the installers rather than the OS.

[iron2000]

1. Hold Shift when you right click on the icon.

2. Same as above, unless, obviously, there's more than one window.

3. Sounds like a problem with the installers rather than the OS.

I know about the classic right-click menu but Win+down is faster.

If only they can add the minimize option to the jumplist.

For the installers, they worked outside the OS partition in XP but not in 7.

Which is why I found it strange.

[rocky1984]

Well i Would Give Win 7 About 7 Rating,Its Nice Its Better Thn Vista,Installation Is Fast & Specially The Compatibility Option ASre More Thn Vista (OS In Drop Down List).................. So For Me Its Good. Better & Faster ~~~~~~ :)