Windows 7 likes and dislikes

[stiltman]

So what do ya think?

I've seen so much positive press I had to install it.

It does seem faster than Vista.


What the hell happen to right clicking on my computer and selecting "explore" instead of only "open"

DAMN that ticks me off

I hated explorer in Vista, and now I hate it even more in 7

[redwudz]

I had the first public release version running on one box for a couple of weeks and I wasn't impressed that much. But I didn't really get a chance to run it with many programs to see how it really performed. I don't have any spare PCs at present to try it on.

To me it seemed like a stripped down version of Vista. But I'm willing to try it again.

MS is bound to get it 'right' eventually. (I think. )

[rallynavvie]

My bedroom HTPC is running it and it keeps freezing when I load up my video library. I'm also trying to get used to the new MCE interface. Not sure I like it just yet but I need to give it more time.

Overall it's OK for a desktop interface. I'm not going to get all mushy over a Windows operating system ever so don't expect me to turn into one of these Windows 7 fanatics.

BTW our MS TAM was telling me that the free open test of Windows 7 is a baiting tactic. MS wants people to love their new OS and what better way to do that than to offer it for free? However once the OS goes GR it is going to require validation (waaaaaay more so than Vista or any previous OS) whenever updates are downloaded. Essentially you'll have to "sign in" everytime you install updates and if they see identical keys downloading identical updates from IPs that are obviously not from the same ISP they are going to shut down update access to that key. So yes, you'll be able to pirate the OS and use it free but you won't be able to get any security updates. We're already seeing an interesting byproduct of this when developing on an enterprise key, it actually generates a hashed value for each key to "phone home". However for those of us that actually buy our OS properly this won't be an issue.

[MJPollard]

Did they finally come to their senses and restore the Windows Classic visual interface in the RC, or are we still forced to endure the butt-frakkin'-ugly Aero? If the latter, then I'm hoping that someone (like Stardock with Window Blinds) steps up to the plate.

[rallynavvie]

You were always able to dumb down the interface to Win2k standards on Windows 7. In fact the first time I used it was on a VM at work that was set up with that interface.

[MJPollard]

You were always able to dumb down the interface to Win2k standards on Windows 7. In fact the first time I used it was on a VM at work that was set up with that interface.

That's good to hear, then; I'd read reports on earlier releases that said the Classic mode was gone (along with the classic Start menu, which I can probably learn to live without). Hell, I'd even take the XP Luna "Fisher Price" theme over Vista Aero's steaming mound of pure fail.

[stiltman]

I'm trying to get rid of the crummy background with the dove on it.
I did find some instructions but so far it hasn't worked.

Win7 is even worse when it comes to security permissions.
Geez, if I know where the folders and files are, and I want to take ownership of them, why do I have to jump through 30 hoops to do it. Geez this freaking annoying

[rallynavvie]

I'm trying to get rid of the crummy background with the dove on it.
I did find some instructions but so far it hasn't worked.

It's as simple as it has always been. Open up a picture file in Picture Viewer, right click, and set as desktop background.

[stiltman]

I'm trying to get rid of the crummy background with the dove on it.
I did find some instructions but so far it hasn't worked.

It's as simple as it has always been. Open up a picture file in Picture Viewer, right click, and set as desktop background.

Nope, this is the logon/off screen.
This is what I mean
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5382-log-screen-change.html

[disturbed1]

To me it seemed like a stripped down version of Vista.

Same thing I thought. I had to triple check to make sure I actually installed Windows 7. I did not find it that much lighter than Vista. Seems like they just recompiled some apps with better optimizations, and turned off a couple of services. No different than hand tuning Vista. Under the hood, there are some minor differences.

IMO This should have been Vista SP1.

However once the OS goes GR it is going to require validation (waaaaaay more so than Vista or any previous OS) whenever updates are downloaded. Essentially you'll have to "sign in" everytime you install updates and if they see identical keys downloading identical updates from IPs that are obviously not from the same ISP they are going to shut down update access to that key.
---------
However for those of us that actually buy our OS properly this won't be an issue.

For some reason I don't believe those of us that actually buy our OS properly this won't be an issue. I still deal with Vista and XP licensing issues at least 5 times a week. It's a serious pain in the ass to have to call Microsoft to verify a customer's license is legit. At least it's pretty much automated now. Better than having to speak to someone where you can't understand each other's accent.

I'm interested in seeing a final price and product list. Hopefully it's better than what they did with Vista. Lower is always better as well

[edDV]

I'm going to download the Win7 RC this weekend. Do you use your old issued key or do you start fresh?

[stiltman]

you get a new key

[Dv8ted2]

I'm going to download the Win7 RC this weekend. Do you use your old issued key or do you start fresh?

Microsoft will give you a new key.

[Dv8ted2]

BTW our MS TAM was telling me that the free open test of Windows 7 is a baiting tactic. MS wants people to love their new OS and what better way to do that than to offer it for free? However once the OS goes GR it is going to require validation (waaaaaay more so than Vista or any previous OS) whenever updates are downloaded. Essentially you'll have to "sign in" everytime you install updates and if they see identical keys downloading identical updates from IPs that are obviously not from the same ISP they are going to shut down update access to that key. So yes, you'll be able to pirate the OS and use it free but you won't be able to get any security updates. We're already seeing an interesting byproduct of this when developing on an enterprise key, it actually generates a hashed value for each key to "phone home". However for those of us that actually buy our OS properly this won't be an issue.

If this is true, rather than an opinion of that individual, why did they wait until now to do that? Why not do it before?

[minidv2dvd]

m.s. always starts off all high and mighty. "pirated copies won't get updates, pirated copies will run in reduced functionality mode, etc, etc..." then they see all the unpatched security holes out there becoming parts of bot-nets and spam making machines and they relax it a bit. it's a scare tactic.

[rallynavvie]

I've been buying my keys for personal use ever since I built my first computer. It's part of the build cost plain and simple. Only lazy people pirate an OS.

The reasons posted directly above are the reasons they didn't implement it to begin with. I'm thinking it's going to be somewhere in between, meaning a LOT more nag screen popping up at odd intervals until you check in. If I had to guess it would probably kick out nag screens when in full-screen mode to really irritate the gamer population who tends to be a good-sized portion of those OS pirates. I'm basing this on friends who are big gamers that refuse to pay for their operating systems. Most of my engineer and developer friends buy licenses (or have TechNet Pro or MSDN licenses where you get them for free).

[edDV]

If you have any kind of small business you get constant reminders from Microsoft that all OS and applications must be registered or they will have the feds on your doorstep. Their associations also offer rewards to employees to turn in violations.

[minidv2dvd]

careful about getting too attached to your installed win7 rc. when the time comes to actually get a real version all programs and data will have to be re-installed from scratch.

“The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. You’ll also need to install the programs and data that you want to use.”

[stiltman]

Another dislike. I would love to have the "classic" style start menu. XP had it as an option, so did Vista. Not so in Win7....You're now forced to the new version even if you select the "classic" theme.

[disturbed1]

careful about getting too attached to your installed win7 rc. when the time comes to actually get a real version all programs and data will have to be re-installed from scratch.

“The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. You’ll also need to install the programs and data that you want to use.”

That's crazy!!!!!! Almost as bad as the application limit for the home version.

They should offer an activate option. Once activated and authorized, things go on as normal. An even better idea would be to offer a discount for just the purchase of a valid license. Since you would not require the delivery of physical medium.

No wonder piracy runs rampant.

[wtsinnc]

Windows 7 is a slight improvement over Vista in terms of speed, but the user is still dealing with bloat and unnecessary procedures in order to get (some) things done !
This RC release gives something to play with, but I'll probably pass on purchasing the OS because I value the familiarity and ease of registry hacking in XP and Windows 2000 far more than visual effects.

-Additionally-

I'm still trying to comprehend the validity of the claims that Vista as well as W-7 are inherently more secure than XP or W2K.
A secure browser, virtual technology, sandboxing, and solid third party security software are all available for free and the proper combination will render XP and W2K as secure as Vista or W-7.

In the coming months, watch for news of how easily hackers are able to exploit "7"; you know they're working on it as you read this.

If you need or desire the enhanced photo, music, and video capabilities of Windows 7, by all means go for it, but be aware that your security concerns should remain;
Windows 7 is a panacea for nothing.

[Dv8ted2]

Windows 7 is a slight improvement over Vista in terms of speed, but the user is still dealing with bloat and unnecessary procedures in order to get (some) things done !
This RC release gives something to play with, but I'll probably pass on purchasing the OS because I value the familiarity and ease of registry hacking in XP and Windows 2000 far more than visual effects.

-Additionally-

I'm still trying to comprehend the validity of the claims that Vista as well as W-7 are inherently more secure than XP or W2K.
A secure browser, virtual technology, sandboxing, and solid third party security software are all available for free and the proper combination will render XP and W2K as secure as Vista or W-7.

Sorry, but you are misinformed. Windows 7 removed features, has a different version kernel, and has features that were not present in Vista. Vista is kernel version 6.0. Windows 7 is version 6.1, hence the different kernel version.

Vista is and will continue to be more secure W2k and XP. Vista was a realization that not everything needs to be installed and ran as an admin. Windows 7 is slightly less secure than Vista. People did not like the security of Vista so convenience won over security.

You are also leaving out driver signing, Bitlocker drive encryption and other components that were not integrated until Vista came along.

If you use it for any length of time, you would see that it is less vulnerable to garbage such as spyware protect 2009, and so on.

You are also someone who admittedly doesn't use Vista, so you have no leg to stand on.

[wtsinnc]

Dv8ted2:

User configurable driver signing has always been available in W2K and XP. The change in Vista primarily involves the number of user options.

http://www.vista123.net/content/driver-signing-changes-between-windows-xp-and-vista

In any OS, the process of installing drivers is ultimately dependent on the user, not the signing process as that can be altered and/or warnings ignored.

The bitlocker drive Encription feature is useful only if your computer system board incorporates the chip necessary to employ.
Additionally, Bitlocker has been found to be susceptible to various cracks.
It is virtually useless.

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/cmosby/archive/2008/02/22/researchers-crack-bitlocker-f...eweek-com.aspx

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2008/02/researchers-crack-filevault-bitlocker-with...d-air-hack.ars

I am aware that W-7 incorporates a different kernel;
no big deal, the OS is really no more inherently secure than Vista, XP, or W2K.

How can you assume that I have never used Vista ?
I purchased Vista Ultimate Nearly two years ago (July, 2007).
What statement in my original post are you referring to ?

[Dv8ted2]

Dv8ted2:

User configurable driver signing has always been available in W2K and XP. The change in Vista primarily involves the number of user options.

http://www.vista123.net/content/driver-signing-changes-between-windows-xp-and-vista

In any OS, the process of installing drivers is ultimately dependent on the user, not the signing process as that can be altered and/or warnings ignored.

The bitlocker drive Encription feature is useful only if your computer system board incorporates the chip necessary to employ.
Additionally, Bitlocker has been found to be susceptible to various cracks.
It is virtually useless.

http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/cmosby/archive/2008/02/22/researchers-crack-bitlocker-f...eweek-com.aspx

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2008/02/researchers-crack-filevault-bitlocker-with...d-air-hack.ars

I am aware that W-7 incorporates a different kernel;
no big deal, the OS is really no more inherently secure than Vista, XP, or W2K.

How can you assume that I have never used Vista ?
I purchased Vista Ultimate Nearly two years ago (July, 2007).
What statement in my original post are you referring to ?

Purchasing is not the same as using it and administering it in a corporate environment. I have done both. Bitlocker and the TPM chip stop the Bootkit that is designed for Windows 7, so your assertion that the drive encryption is useless is baseless.

You are incorrect on your assertion that it is not more secure than XP or W2k.

[DereX888]

Been testing RC since morning.
I see not much difference from Vista (yeah I'm sure under the hood they tweaked some things because its footprint is much less, but resource-wise the difference is about 30MB on the same machine ROTFL that's no difference at all of course).

here are my findings so far as regarding the resources:

1.25GB old P4 2.4GHz
WAY NOT ENOUGH
Yes it runs, but its like that crummy Asus EEE with XP I've tested few months ago. It just runs as itself that's all I can say... if you want to use it for anything it is such pain in the ass.

2GB old P4 2.8GHz
Same as above, but surprisingly worked without hiccups just for browsing (and possibly emails and some other light load stuff I didn't test). Yet it choked on mere DVD-Video playback, hahaha! I just couldn't believe it, haven't seen choppy dvd playback since I had Pentium MMX 0.2GHz I think
As such I would rather install Ubuntu on this machine and use it for the same purposes for free.

3GB fast Rambus RAM, old P4 3GHz
first tested machine that is actually working somewhat "normally" as standard user would expect it.

going for 4GB dual core now, but I expect *this* rig will work as it should.


so much for MS claims of Windows 7 needing only 1GB of RAM LOL


As someone said earlier, this thing should be called Vista SP2 rather than new Windows version.
And IE8 "final" absolutely sucks. It is IE8 RC2 rather than any final version!
Crash/crash/crash, WTF is this shit! Not more useful than old IE4 when it came out

/edit
forgot laptop:
amd x2 /2gb with radeon 1250 surprisingly had MAJOR issues with display, which I couldn't fix.
(while it worked fine on Vista even with aero)

[wtsinnc]

Dv8ted2:

Amazing how many times you can be wrong in the same thread !

From where do you get the assumption that I have not actually used Vista ?

From where do you get the assumption that I have not employed Vista in a business environment ?

-Perhaps no evil will escape your sight, but it's obvious you have lots of trouble comprehending what it is you see !

I purchased and have used Vista, not exclusively but enough to know that it is slow, bulky, and obtrusive; it has been repeatedly panned by the general public and software reviewers for good reason; it sucks !
Vista has been rejected by the vast majority of the business community due to stability and software compatibility issues, some of which exist to this day.

In my second post, I included two links to articles detailing particular vulnerabilities in Bitlocker. Had I chosen to do so, I could have included dozens more.
Bitlocker, as is it's host operating system, is a failure.

If you choose to employ Vista in a corporate environment, that's your choice, but the record clearly shows that the vast majority of your contemporaries have found it lacking.

And in the future Dv8ted2, please resist the temptation to post assumptions that are baseless.

-Now, back to the original topic.

I thought it might be useful to post software applications that are known to work with Windows 7. To date I have used
Internet Explorer 8 (the default browser) as well as Firefox 3.5 with AdBlock and No Script.
Avira (free) and Avast (free) antivirus.
CCleaner, Glary Utilities, TempCleaner, Malwarebytes, CloneDVD2, AnyDVD HD,
DVD43, DVDFab Platinum, DVDFab 5, 1clickdvdcopy5, Nero DiscSpeed, DVD Shrink, Imgburn, Adobe 9 Lite, and Abiword Word processor.

There are others, but this represents a start.

-Anyone else ?

[Dv8ted2]

Dv8ted2:

Amazing how many times you can be wrong in the same thread !

From where do you get the assumption that I have not actually used Vista ?

You would see that it is more secure if you use it.

I purchased and have used Vista, not exclusively but enough to know that it is slow, bulky, and obtrusive; it has been repeatedly panned by the general public and software reviewers for good reason; it sucks !
Vista has been rejected by the vast majority of the business community due to stability and software compatibility issues, some of which exist to this day.

SP1 fixed many of the issues you are referring to.

In my second post, I included two links to articles detailing particular vulnerabilities in Bitlocker. Had I chosen to do so, I could have included dozens more.
Bitlocker, as is it's host operating system, is a failure.

I can come up with articles that contradict you. Do you believe everything you read?

I also said that Windows 7 is less secure, so I have stayed on topic.

[Marvingj]

7 is faster than Vista, but not as fast as XP
7 is fully compatible with Vista (uses the same kernel)
7 is a lot more like mac now (gadgets, shortcuts on taskbar, etc)
7 RC1 has compatibility with XP service pack 3
7 is not easily upgraded from XP, same as XP to Vista

It seems that Microsoft has forgotten end users when it introduced a very restricted module of driver signature enforcement in Windows Vista and Windows 7. All drivers and system files must be digitally verified or they cannot run when using both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. In the past, it was possible to turn that feature off in Vista, but due to new kernel security updates, it is impossible to turn it off without degrading security and stability of your operating system or putting your master boot records in risk by using other software alternatives.

So what is the problem with digital certificates? Well, the problem is… developers have to pay Microsoft to receive verified certificates, and that makes many applications inaccessible under Windows Vista and Windows 7.

[rallynavvie]

It seems that Microsoft has forgotten end users when it introduced a very restricted module of driver signature enforcement in Windows Vista and Windows 7. All drivers and system files must be digitally verified or they cannot run when using both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Actually the end user was the reason for that restriction. If you force all drivers to be validated by MS (or partners) then you run much less risk of issues with the OS. Think of how many people bypass the warnings saying the drivers are untested and then call MS for support when their system has issues with them. I'm not saying that every unsigned driver will suffer from this but they're covering themselves from a support standpoint by requiring that level of restriction.

And really, those enough knowledge will use workarounds for this anyway. If you don't know the workarounds or think they're too complicated then you probably shouldn't be messing with it.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

What the hell happen to right clicking on my computer and selecting "explore" instead of only "open"

DAMN that ticks me off

I hated explorer in Vista, and now I hate it even more in 7

How about window key + E?