Your Opinion of Windows 7

[frieday]

What do you think of the new windows? I got it preloaded with my new laptop and dont really care for it. The navigation is much slower to me to just do simple things and loading times particulary startup times are very slow. I have also a lot of issues with many programs freezing up or giving me errors. I found Video performance problems as well as playback of some 1080p videos wont allow me to seek through the file without windows media player or media player classic freezing up completely... however the strange part is the video file plays fine as long as I dont try and skip ahead in the movie. Dunno if its OS related or not... So if I was to load XP on my machine would I still be able to take advantage of the 4 GB Ram on the machine and the duo core processor? Lemme know any of you still using XP on new systems cuz I seen some folks say they only get XP to recognize 3.5 GB but there is some tweaking you can do to allow XP to be able to utilize 4 gig? Oh and BTW I have XP Home...

Appreciate the advice

[JohnnyMalaria]

You won't get 4GB with a 32-bit OS. 3.5GB is the best you can hope for. Your processor will still function as a dual core.

FWIW, I'm running 64-bit Windows 7 and am very happy with it. I find it an improvement on Vista (which I also had no real gripes about).

A word of warning - if you want to put XP on your new laptop then do your homework and ensure that all the drivers are available for your laptop's hardware and you know what to do if it goes horribly wrong and need to put the original OS back on. Also, the sluggishness you report may be more a symptom of the bloat that the manufacturer puts on rather than the OS specifically.

[yoda313]

Haven't gotten it yet. I have xp on my older emachine and vista on my newer dual core hp (though I upgraded the chip myself from single to dual).

I figure I'll get it with my next computer. I don't know when that will be and I don't know if it will be oem or custom built.

[frieday]

yea there is considerable bloat from Toshiba lot of BS popups etc from them.

I will maybe try tweaking with the settings and see if that helps before changing back to XP if anyone has a link for a guide that I could use to optimize windows 7 for performance thatd be great

Appreciate it...

[guns1inger]

We use Toshiba laptops and tablets here. I like Toshiba hardware, but like most manufacturers, they do put a lot of crap on their machines (unlike some, it is mostly Toshiba apps, not everybody else's). It is amazing just how fast the same hardware will boot and react once this stuff is removed. I run Win7 on a toshiba tablet, and it boots in around 30-40 seconds from a standard HDD (the new models with year will all be SSD), and shuts down in even less. It is very responsive, and I happily run Photoshop CS4 in 2 GB ram.

I also run both XP and Win7 at home on a dual boot, although frankly, I haven't used XP in a while now. Some of the features and changes do take some time to adjust to, like any change. I would certainly recommend that anyone using Vista upgrade, and anyone using XP on newer hardware seriously consider it. I would not necessarily put Win7 on an older machine, as it still has pretty steep hardware requirements.

Personally, I will keep XP around a little longer while the last of the software migrates across (although I haven't found much that wont run that I need), and then kill it off for good. Win7 is more robust and more secure.

[ahhaa]

Well, there's that current M$ ad saying how fast w7 starts up; I'msure not seeing that when equipped with Norton and using Wifi.

Microsoft is becoming the next GM; their products have become about as exciting as a new fridge. Where are the home control devices, the security & medical implimentations, the telepresence and for that matter- why -still - is there no simple built in means of archiving email for the future?

There is voice recognition software builtin in both Vista and w7, you might find that of some interest.

[frieday]

Cool guns1inger. Thanks for the reply.

[frieday]

yep well im going to stay with a bit longer see how it goes but someone give me a link to a tweak guide of windows 7 to help remove some of the bloat

thanks

[guns1inger]

Most of it can be done through control panel by uninstalling the Toshiba software you don't need. What that is will depend somewhat on the features you can live without. For example, the fingerprint scanner, the hot keys and what Toshiba call Flash Cards.

I tend to start from the other direction - I do a clean install on Windows, then install just the drivers I need to get things working, then the applications. I find this produces a better outcome that using the recovery disc and then trying to work backwoods to a cleaner system.

[redwudz]

I have W7 running on three PCs at present. No major problems. A few gripes. Paint has been made very hard to use. No idea why they screwed it up. I dislike Explorer 8 generally. Again, IMO, it worked fairly well in earlier versions, now it doesn't. If you can fine tune W7 and get rid of a few of their 'improvements' the OS works well enough.

Is it worth the upgrade from Vista? Not really, IMO again. To me it's still a rework of Vista, not really a new OS at least in operation.

But you asked for a opinion.

[samijubal]

Beats the crap out of Vista.

[Ron B]

Waited to build a new computer until Windows 7 came out; I think most serious computer enthusiasts didn't care for Vista.
That being said; in my opinion; Windows 7 doesn't have any real significant performance gains over XP Pro. Seems like mostly eye candy. I don't like the fact I have to do "end runs" around the software as the computer administrator to get into some of the computer's folders and files. The "helpful" pop-ups and reminders seem like XP Home. I've had some programs that are supposedly "Windows 7 Compatible" crash and burn; but I hope problems like that will be ironed out shortly. Takes a lot of RAM; my workstation has 8G, my Sony VAIO has 4G.
As for the Sony VAIO; which also has 64 bit Windows 7; can you put more crap nobody wants on a computer? Guess I'm used to building computers with OEM operating systems; but cut the bloatware. Just put links on the desktop for all the "free" software and let the new owner decide what to install. The VAIO is a great little computer; but I'm still picking through the bloatware without wrecking anything.
All in all; I reckon Windows 7 is not too bad. Gotta have it to run new software like Adobe CS4(you can use it on XP, but it seems to run better on Win7), it's better than Vista and Microsoft is not going to let XP hang on forever. Typical Microsoft; you don't really have a choice for PC operating systems(please don't say Linux, just not refined enough at this time but I hope it will be sometime soon) and Windows 7 is better than the last MS offering. If I can give up my desire to build my own computers; my next rig may be a Mac.

[neomaine]

Going from XP Pro 32-bit to Vista Ult 32-bit I saw little in i/o change. Going from Vista Ult 64 to Win7 Ult 64 I saw my sustained data transfers go from 45-50 MBs to 70-75 MBs. (sata) Very pleasantly surprised.

[sohaibrazzaq]

I recently had a hardware failure so i built a new system and decided to put Windows 7 64bit on it. Before that i had been using Vista 64bit for around 2 years now, i can tell you that although i had some problems from minor to more irritating like MSCOMCTL.OCX errors (but its natural when u install new OS) overall its a huge step from Vista and i am very happy with it. Windows load really fast and displays less nag screen unlike vista's infamous user control screen. it runs low on resources, before that i always used to disable my antivirus because it slow down everything to death and keep it for on-demand scanning purpose only but in 7 for the first time i keep it loaded and don't feel much slowing if any at all. So for me, Windows 7 is a win win.

[p_l]

Still (mostly) happy with Vista on my main rig (quad core, 64 bit, 6GB RAM), but have installed Win7 on a couple of secondary machines (2.53 GHz, 32 bit) and though stated system requirements are 1GB RAM, believe it or not Win7 runs quite adequately on 512 MB of RAM. I wouldn't try that with Vista!

[TBoneit]

I was surprised how quickly Win7 64bit boots up on a cheap ($329 new) single core AMD laptop.

I grabbed it for bill paying and online banking only.

[TimA-C]

The unwanted bloat software helps to keep the price of the new laptop/pc down.

I've set up several PCs and one laptop with Win7 on but still have XP all my home PCs. There's no doubt that Win7 is much improved over Vista but I still don't have a clue why the MS Muppets changed where all the various settings were accessed from when they 'designed' Vista. (Don't get me started on Office 2007!) Then there's IE8! IE7 was stable and always quick for me (quicker than Firefox pre-version 3) but IE8 seems to crash at least once a day, not be able to open websites on it's first attempt, and is definitely slower than it's predessor. Thank The Great Maker for Firefox which I find I'm using more and more. It will be interesting to see what Windows 7 SP1 installed on a next generation solid-state HD is like.

[luigi2000]

I am not a Microsoft cheerleader. But Win7 definitely kicks WinXp arse. Huge (several gigabyte) file transfers are 50 to 100% faster on Win7 (32-bit and 64-bit) than WinXp (32-bit) on my Asus M2N32-Deluxe mobo w/Athlon 2.7GHz/2GB/WD1TB(black). The startup and shutdown times are finally acceptable to me. My biggest WinXp peeve is the sluggish interface. The Win7 interface responds appropriately to user input, i. e. much faster. The process count is reduced. The folder structure is much improved and simplified. There is too much goodness to mention in a short blurb.

[lordsmurf]

Like anything else, a lot of people like Win7 simply because it's new, or because it fixed problems in XP/Vista that they never figured out.

At best, the OS itself isn't anything special.
At worse, the resource needs make it run like crap on non-new computers.

I have a system slated for a full-time Win7 upgrade here soon, because the Vista install crapped itself for no reason, and won't boot anymore. So far I've only tested it on test boxes and inside VMs.

[aedipuss]

i put one of my production boxes onto win7, from xp. boots and shuts down much faster. uses about twice as much ram to load, but it does run all the same programs, no problem. but, i can't find any of the xp boxes with it on the network and it's pissing me off. i've tried every online guide and win7 will not network at all with xp here.

[SatStorm]

Win7 it's OK, but I don't need them.
Win XP remains enough for my needs.

[Ron B]

Interesting posts about data transfer rates. Since my Win7 is on a new i7 rig with 8g of RAM; I can't really have a direct comparison on my "old" P4 3.4G, 2G RAM system. I don't think it would go that well on the perfectly good, but outdated P4 computer.
I will say this; a fast hard drive like a WD Black or Seagate 7200.12 is a real bottleneck in my i7 system; the HD is a 5.9 in the Win7 evaluation dealio; everything else is 7.5 or higher. Thinking seriously about an SSD boot drive. Is the OS facilitating the better performance; or is it MS mumbo jumbo?

[pirej]

Like anything else, a lot of people like Win7 simply because it's new, or because it fixed problems in XP/Vista that they never figured out.

I have a new PC with Win7, and i like the OS because its new, and because it runs smooth with no errors...
But... my new PC is new, and its much faster than my old one(with XP -SP3) so there can bee no real comparison.
I do a lot of installing-uninstalling of all kind of software just out of curiosity, and i (almost) never had any problems with my XP setup for a couple of years without any formatting and stuff..(with regular maintenance from my side)
So.. XP rocks , and Win7 its next for torture-test , so far so good, except for the UAC.. i turned it off because its annoying.

[TimA-C]

i put one of my production boxes onto win7, from xp. boots and shuts down much faster. uses about twice as much ram to load, but it does run all the same programs, no problem. but, i can't find any of the xp boxes with it on the network and it's pissing me off. i've tried every online guide and win7 will not network at all with xp here.

I've got a Dell laptop here with Win7 on that I'm setting up for someone, and it's networking OK with my other machines all of which are running XP. Sure it's not a firewall isssue?

[ocgw]

i put one of my production boxes onto win7, from xp. boots and shuts down much faster. uses about twice as much ram to load, but it does run all the same programs, no problem. but, i can't find any of the xp boxes with it on the network and it's pissing me off. i've tried every online guide and win7 will not network at all with xp here.

I've got a Dell laptop here with Win7 on that I'm setting up for someone, and it's networking OK with my other machines all of which are running XP. Sure it's not a firewall isssue?

I have Windows 7 on all 4 of my PC's and they network fine, they even network w/ XP PC's I am working on fine after I figured out something

If I change my network password to something easy to remember (on all the PC's of course) I always start having problems, once I stopped changing the password and just left it what Windows assigned and changed all the other PC's password to what the first PC's password is I stopped having problems and it just works

weird glitch I guess

ocgw

peace

[Sartori]

My opinion "its alright but nothing special" , Ive used Vista 64 previously , like someone else above , my system died and I rebuilt it with Windows 7 , but then decided to dual boot with Vista 64 , currently it defaults to Vista , which says it all really . Vista has matured so the drivers and "those little apps you use for little things" all the time , are now there ..............but not for W7 .

[rumplestiltskin]

I found that video performance may suffer if you switch to "best performance" which, apparently, bypasses any video card or chip and routes the video directly through the CPU. I have two machines here and one has this issue (which, If I turn on just a bit of the eye candy, actually runs faster because it then uses the dedicated video chip). Blame my hardware. Bottom line: W7 sucks less than Vista. However, it's still a poor imitation of 2008's OSX. (Flame if you want; I won't respond.)

[neomaine]

... Thinking seriously about an SSD boot drive. Is the OS facilitating the better performance; or is it MS mumbo jumbo?

Will probably make your bootup faster, but I think SSD is not geared toward being a boot drive. Too much read/write going on for that technology. If its a mostly read use drive and you need the extra throughput, then I'd find them useful - once the price/size comes down some more. I recommend reading up on it some more before you make that descision.

[lenti_75]

running 64bit since Aug 09 (msdn subscription)...perfect. upgraded from 64 bit Vista after 2+ years which was running just fine. so far seems smoother, I like the new "eye candy" effects
and my pc runs 24/7

64 bit is the way, 32 is so slow and old I hope they get rid of it next time

just do a reinstall of OS and get rid of that preinstalled junk

[redwudz]

I will say this; a fast hard drive like a WD Black or Seagate 7200.12 is a real bottleneck in my i7 system; the HD is a 5.9 in the Win7 evaluation dealio; everything else is 7.5 or higher. Thinking seriously about an SSD boot drive. Is the OS facilitating the better performance; or is it MS mumbo jumbo?

I use a 150GB Raptor 10K RPM boot drive and it still shows as 5.9 in W7 (32 bit). The HDD controller is more likely the 'bottleneck'. When I had a WD Black drive in there before, same 5.9 and the Raptor is much faster.

I don't use my SSD for boot any more because of dependability problems and too small size (60GB). I don't really recall the W7 rating for it, but I think it was also 5.9. I wouldn't recommend one unless you get a 120GB or larger. $$$ And they require some setup and maintenance, more than a rotary HDD. It did allow me to boot faster and load programs faster, but no real improvement in editing or encoding speed. Maybe if you had three or four of them in there.

I run Vista and XP on my other networked PCs and they all have about the same transfer speeds. I didn't see any improvement with W7 for that as it's still using the same HDD controller and software. If it was slower before, maybe a driver or settings problem caused that.