Is Windows7 just a repackaged Vista

Well, there were a lot of driver issues, so that is a big hit against "It just works".

The major hit on credibility was MS once again issuing minimum system requirements that are drastically understated. You would think they would have learned this lesson by now?

by fregeus Dec 21, 2009

Agreed.

PEOPLE were buying systems withotu researching their needs. The class action suit against MS was dismissed by teh courts as it held mo merits as was based on too many different complaints that were not substantiated.

It's not MS fault if manufacturer's were offering Vista Capable systems (which was CLEALY defined on their site)and expecting them to be Vista ready or run all the Aero tools that again MS clealy stated would NOT work on such hardware.

Instead of reading industry blogs from people with an agenda and no time or interest to actually investigate something, why don't people read the actual manufacturer's information before making such false claims? If people paid attention to MS's website before makign such purchases, they'd have been easily able to identify such underpowered machines and also recognize the difference between CAPABLE and READY.

CAPABLE merely meant that it woul run teh CORE OS, the MS website stated straight up that it wouldn't run things like Aeroglass and other user features but would mere;y enable them the added security of running Vista over XP.

by brenton keegan Dec 21, 2009

I skipped vista all together. I just started using Windows 7 and I am loving it. Now provided I'm on all new hardware but I think Windows 7 is just a better operating system.

Better than Win98? NT? XP? Why? What is it that makes Win7 better than anything?

Please note, this is NOT a bash, I am just trying to find out from people who have "been there, done that" on WHY/WHAT is better.

Of course, this does nothing to answer my original question of if it is just a marketing repackaging of Vista or not... ;\

Thanks.

by brenton keegan Dec 22, 2009

It's better than XP.
I work faster when I am using Windows 7. Personally I think it utilizes hardware much more efficiently than XP. It is as advertised "snappy and responsive".

I like the interface better than XP.

thing came with 512M ram.

The thing is a dog.

This is NOT a "capable" system as it came with Vista on it, not an upgrade to it.

by notsochiguy Dec 22, 2009

While he was waiting in line, did they manicure his nails by inserting bamboo shoots underneath them, too??

How they can release an OS and not manage every hardware vendors builds is just wrong. They should be responsible, they should also repay all parking tickets obtained while shopping for Windows based PC's, time wasted in long line ups etc. I mean if they are forcing us to go out and buy underpowered systems from retailers, and not allowing us to learn about the requirements first, then they should pay for all repercussions.

It's Micosoft's fault, always.

[i]"A new PC that carries the Windows Vista Capable PC logo can run Windows Vista. All editions of Windows Vista include innovations in security, reliability, search, and the organization of information. [b]Some features available in the premium editions of Windows Vista, like Windows Aero,might require advanced or additional hardware.[/b]"[/i]

I have also seen a Vista capable machine runnign 512MB. It gives you the added security of Vista that XP lacks. It is slow and needs to have almost all eye candy turned off, then it will run enough to be used. If it doesn't run at a speed found acceptable, then as the MS website explains, you will need better hardware.

I thought it was in English, I don't know why so many people blame MS for speaking plain English when they are just too lazy to resarch before buying.

When you buy a car do you just buy what the dealer says will do teh trick or do yuo look around and learn as much as you can abou the new car market first?

Face it, JD, some people are just plain 'kin ignorant and deserve to lose. Anyone who ruins out and buys new technology without doing thier homewrok dserves all the pains that come with making stupid decisions. I wouldn't even run Win2K on 512MB.

by jamesrl Dec 21, 2009

I'm not running it yet, but my team are doing certification of our apps against it.

Windows 7 is a less aggravating version of Vista. Performance is better. The UAC is not as obnoxious. But its not as radically different from Vista as Vista was to XP.

Personally, I am waiting till I upgrade to a 64 bit environment, then it will make some sense to go. I always wait till SP1 anyway. My computer is 64bit ready.

James

Is it really going to take the pulling/discontinuing of 32bit to get software developers to get off their lazy a$$es and start writing their apps for 64 bit?

Win7 allows for two sets of program files, the standard 64 but program files and a program files (x86) for all the 32 bit apps.

I have a heap of software, the only issue I've had was with a proprietary Ford service program that the developer is updating and should have ready for me in the New Year.

No longer do I care about eye candy, run it all full on and it still outperforms Win2K as a speed demon, compared to XP there's no comparisson, it's just faster, more secure, more stable and more convenient.

and I also jumped to 64 bit....I figured if I was going to do one, I may as well do both.

And speaking of "both"...it started out that I was just going to get a new system/OS for my wife as her old system was having a number of issues....then mine blew a MB so all of a sudden we had to get 2 new systems.

I went way over the min specs for win7 when picking out the peices. I've been very pleased with win7 so far & haven't encountered many issues with going 64 bit (but I have all new hardware).

On a side note....they networked together very easy and we can share files across the network much faster than when we were both on XP...my daughter's computer is running XP pro & it networked with our computers very easy but there does seem to be a few limitations in what she can connect to on our computers but sharing printers, burners, etc seems to work well.

I haven't tried win7 in a server environment yet ;)

Just how much to you lock down your shares on your LAN?

With Win7, what are your choices for AV/malware/firewalls?

by purpleskys Dec 21, 2009

what the specs are for these said machines...he went a bit over the top...i'm not complaining grant you cause they're very nice machines
:)

The 2 computers I purchased for Purple & me in the fall both came with Vista Business & a free upgrade to Windows 7 Pro...we had Vista on for a little over a month before installing Win 7.

The differences I noticed weren't "really" the same as between win98 & winME as I think with ME they tried to make it look "pretty" whereas with win7 I think they tried to tone that down & make it more "business" friendly.

But when it comes right down to it....I made my Vista install look very much like win2000 as I prefer the "classic" menus & find all the extra graphics some people have on their desktop & menus just slow things down....my win7 installation looks very much like win2000 also....so I see very little difference between Vista & win7 "visually"....in "operation" I'd have to say they're very similar & it seems like they just changed many of the default settings to be more user friendly.

When going to Vista, we also took the jump to 64 bit from 32 bit XP so I noticed a few differences there but I didn't notice anything regarding drivers between Vista & win7....all mine appear to be interchangable...same goes for programs I've tried.

But like I said earlier....I've only been playing with the 2 of them for a couple months......so being a "newbe" to both of them....I'd say they're very, very similar.....you could be correct in suspecting it's just a repackaged Vista.

Why didn't I make that connection before? A big issue that cause Vista to be so slow and bloated was all the wizbangs running all over the place.

Vista was focused on eye-candy instead of function. Just turning that off is a step in the right direction for business systems.

Of course, it would be a better comparison if you had gone with a default install, huh?

it would have been a better comparison....not only that...I just let win7 do a "upgrade" install...I didn't do a wipe & load so many of my settings carried over.

I was going to do one computer as an "upgrade" & the other as a "clean" install but after seeing how smooth everthing went on the upgrade I didn't take the time to do a clean install.....come to think of it....maybe because they are so similar is why the upgrade worked so well.....hummmm...something to think about.

Now back up to XP's release. I'm sure there are many comments buried in the TR trenches, perhaps even some frmo yourself, about how horrifically bloated XP is, how it requires expensive hardware upgrades, is insecure (most initial exploits and security flaws of AMY OS that MS ever released).

How soon people forget the horror show that was XP. Vista was FAR better out of the gate than XP ever was, you just had to use it and forget about the bad press. I took on my Vista notebook very grudgingly after reading all teh crap it had received. I started using it and found NONE of the issues people were complaining of, shutting off UAC or even slowing it down a bit was no problem, speed was no issue (though I did run in Classic mode as I don't really care for eye candy, another reason I didn't like XP).

So with Win7 (64bit) offering an improved feature set, which greatly speeds up my computing experience by reducing steps needed to perform even the simplest tasks, and having the speed of an old WIn2K box on steroids (again on an entry level notebook)I couldn't be happier with Win7. No matter who made it, MS, Apple, Linux or whomever, it is by far the best OS I've used to date. Compared to Vista, I like the added features, other than that I liked Vista too becauise I forgot about teh BS slung online, mostly false anyway, and just got used to the new features and learned how to make my user experience better.

If you just use it the same way you used XP or prior and don't learn the new navigational steps, new window control, new minimized program controls etc, you are missing out on what Win7 does better and XP will seem just as good, I guess.

I haven't seen a lot of differences from XP....that IPv6 seems to be giving me some grief...I set a static IP but somehow IPv6 is changing it & I haven't taken the time to look into accessing the settings for it yet....there's some encryption stuff or something that has to be set up first.

I mostly rely on my own AV & malware detection software & I don't think there's anything changed there anyway....the firewall has changed a bit but I don't know if it's any more secure.

Now this is something I have noticed different between Vista & win7....and it's ticking people off! ---okay, with Vista, they scrapped Outlook Express & introduced Windows Mail....well, now they took away Windows Mail & are using Windows Live as their mail client....now here's the real killer....if you were using Windows Mail in Vista & do an "upgrade" install to win7 it wipes out all your old mail settings if you didn't back them up properly beforehand....it doesn't give you much in the line of a warning about that either....there's ways to recover & get around it but it's a real pain!!

by purpleskys Dec 21, 2009

Does size really matter? :p

by purpleskys Dec 21, 2009

considering how smoothly and quickly this machine runs...ummm, yeah... ;)

Will YOU be moving to Windows7, for home or work?

Is there anyone that already has?

Why or why not?

by marie.truman Dec 21, 2009

I have moved one of my home machines from Vista to Windows 7 and plan on moving my primary home machine in the next few days. I had some issues with Vista which seem cleared up with Windows 7.

1. Startup and Shutdown are much faster than in Vista, basically the same that I get with XP.

2. Windows 7 requires less resources than Vista. It appears that Windows 7 does not enable as many processes on an initial install as Vista did.

3. No more strange hard drive activity shortly after startup that I experience with Vista.

4. The UAC is not quite as annoying.

I'll see how how things work with my primary machine as I use it for web development and for gaming. Though since it is three years old now I am thinking about something new.

At work we skipped over Vista and until our vendor packages are certified for Windows 7 I don't see us moving anytime soon.

exactly the kind of feedback I am looking for. :)

Needed a new notebook. Bought the cheapest one on sale, a Tosh Satellite (4GB RAM, AMD L65 processor).

WHY? It came with the new notbook and I like 7 better, even though I liked Vista too.

Is there also anything in Vista that you liked better than Win7?

by tony hopkinson Dec 22, 2009

as I've got to develop compatible apllications for it. Specifically using some of it's extra functionality, is however unlikely as we can't force the upgrade on all our customers. We did a quick compatibility check, and there was little we had to change.

At home, unlikely. I've never upgraded an OS, and my latest box I bought to last and has lots of trimmings.

What I've seen of it looks nice, but not that nice, to shell out the cost of upgrade from Vista business.

by jamesrl Dec 22, 2009

For work, we decided to skip Vista. We are working on supporting 7, still finalizing a few things. Our customers should be able to run all our products on 7 in a few days.

At home, I have a comp with 2 partitions - XP for me(gaming) and Vista for the rest. I don't see the point of spending the money just yet.

James

by tink! Dec 21, 2009

until it's been out a while. Was the same way with Vista. Was going to avoid it altogether but we needed more home computers [i](yes - [b]NEEDED[/b] - with 3 kids and 2 adults all wanting on the internet...)[/i]

At the time all the new PCs defaulted to Vista. Turned out it was ok. Didn't work with my old scanner, but we were given a new one free so it didn't matter. Has worked with all other accessories (cameras, printers, etc.)

So far, based one what I've seen, Windows 7 doesn't look much different than Vista. The TV commercials have been touting that it simplifies everyday tasks (oh big whoopdeedoo). One of the things pointed out was how it displays a little window when you mouseover the taskbar - guess what - Vista does that too.

We're going to be buying a new PC in the spring to replace one that just died recently. Based on a recent shopping trip, I'm afraid we're going to be stuck with Win7. There was only 1 PC that didn't have Win7, it had XP but was basically the desktop equivalent of a Netbook.

by jkameleon Dec 21, 2009

Or maybe SP3.

So, I'm still using good ole XPs. They are doing the job just fine, probably better than Vista.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, my next box will run Ubuntu, with Windows on virtual machine. I've been using M$ for decades because I had to, and I'm sick and tired of it.

Why would yuo even bother to utter that?

You obviously don't know and you are most likely wrong, from my experience you are anyway. YOU are just going on what people have spewed to the media and online blogs.

For that matter, my Ford truck is probably better than a Ferrari. Haven't compared the two but I know I can fix my truck for a lot less than a Ferrari, it still has four wheels and an engine, it costs a lot less, insurance is cheaper, it MUST be better.

You post was fine, save such an unqualified assumption. Whether you are right or wrong, the comment was simply absurd.

You go for that Ubuntu box, then you can go and argue false claims against all the trillions of other Linux releases.

[i]it simplifies everyday tasks (oh big whoopdeedoo). One of the things pointed out was how it displays a little window when you mouseover the taskbar - guess what - Vista does that too."[/i]

The only reason ANY computer is in use by ANYONE is to simplify tasks they already do. Other than that, a computer actually does nothing other than speed up what we did before manually.

Whoopdeedoo! No need for a computer if you're not looking to simplify day to day tasks then.

As for the taskbar wisplay, in 7 it is different than Vista. 7 allows better transitioning between those little windows, better control of the windows too, making the little thumnails much more than just representations of a minimized screen.

'Snap' feature allows you to just drag windows off to the left and right of the screen then it snaps then into place taking up exactly half the screen each for faster file transfers without manually dragging and resizing screens, thus further simplifying a common task. SHAKE feature takes all those piled up windows and hides them all behind the active window until you need them again, then just unshake and they all reapprear just where they were before, kinda like having all the cluttered paperwork magically disappear off of your desk while you focus on the one paper you need, then they all reappear back in thier rightful place when you need to get to them again. Again simplifying tasks.

Internet speed is increased due to better optimized networking.

Search speed is greatly increased, without indexing bogging down the machine.

Every time I do something new I find a new feature that simplifies my workload and the user experience just gets easier and easier but then again, that's why I use a computer to begin with to make my life's tasks easier.

Computers don't do anything we couldn't do before, they just allow us to do it faster and often better. Usability features and do-dads actually are a benefit to most people, who actually use a computer to simplify the way they used to do things. I don't know what other use a computer would have, besides gaming.

by tink! Dec 22, 2009

I'll probably like it's usefulness. Until then though, the day-to-day tasks are simplified just fine. How much simpler do we really need to make them?

Yes, I made some assumptions without having actually tried 7, but then again, so many did that with Vista too.

Switching an OS is like trying to teach my husband to use a new gadget or program. It is highly beneficial if he'd use it, but getting him to actually take the time to learn about it is like pulling teeth.

He fights it with the argument that he can use the old gadget/program to do what he wants just fine. Until he's absolutely forced to use the new thing, he'll refuse to even learn about the new one. LOL.

by brewerj2000 Dec 21, 2009

I'd say the MS took the overall look and feel of Vista and reworked the bugs.
I bought vista when it first launched and got rid of it in 3 days. Mostly driver issues.

Since the roll-out of SP1 for Vista, it was reinstalled and ran very good for me. I have 6 laptops at home and all of them were running Vista w/ no issues.

Ive currently taken 3 of them over to W7. 1 on the 32 bit which runs great, and 2 over to the 64 bit. The 64 bit leaves some room to be desired, but I think the issue is more with the lack of 64bit drivers available. I see very little difference between the two OS's.

by zakb Dec 21, 2009

Vista, from my experience with it, almost seemed to be beta for W7.

by hal 9000 Dec 21, 2009

They claimed then that at the 2 Year mark after Vista's release they would release a [b]Major[/b] Service Pack and at the 4 year mark they would release a new OS that was a Developed version of Vista.

Here I'm assuming that 7 is that first [b]New Improved[/b] Vista and the only real difference that I have seen is that it loads in under 15 GIG on a HDD which Vista didn't.

According to M$ they where going to have a 10 year development cycle of Vista with every second year a new Service Pack and every fourth year a new OS so that's 2 New OS's based on a developed Vista and 3 Service Packs. If anything because of the way that Vista was accepted 7 may have been a bit rushed but it's pretty close to M$ estimation of release dates which is surprising as M$ has never managed to actually meet a Release Date till now. ;)

But if this is any help I can but either 7 of XP Pro for new computers I am unable to buy any version of Vista so I think that says a lot. :D

Col

by jdclyde Dec 30, 2009

notice they have taken the YEAR out of the title of the OS. A lot easier to deal with delayed releases if it isn't tied to the year it is named after! :)

by karydavis Dec 21, 2009

... on several executive laptops and some Tech personnel's PCs. The issues were incompatibility with some legacy software and the performance was substandard on all the machines. The executives eventually brought back the laptops and requested XP be reinstalled.

I was involved in some of the program testing during the deployment testing phase, and the performance was so degraded for what our users do, that the deployment was eventually scrapped. Because of this, I never upgraded at home to Vista, although I did purchase a laptop with Vista basic that ran pretty well.

Windows 7 was under testing here while it was in the beta stage. The testing was so positive...on the exact machines that we used to test Vista...that we began immediate testing for full deployment.

The testing phase has been ongoing for a few months. We have executives, users and tech personnel all using Windows 7 with great results. I was lucky to be able to upgrade my PC just last week and I have not encountered any issues, program compatibility or performance wise.

I immediately upgraded my home pc to Windows 7 and love it.

I do not think Windows 7 is a new OS... but I also do not think Windows 7 is just a "repackaged" version of Vista.

I think Windows 7 is what Vista was supposed to be...and MS initially missed the target.

I used Vista for best part of a year and despite al the grumblings (99% of which were unsubstantiated or entirely false) I still found it to be an excellent OS and a great improvement over XP.

Now, with yet anotgher notebook, I am runnign Win7 and it even offers som egreat features that Vista did not, such as the SNAP and SHAKE windows features, a much more user friendly quick launch bar (WAAAAAAY better than anything else to date) and some of teh great features I found so useful in Vista, such as breadcrumbs navigation.

The networking features are well beyond anythign WIn has done before,connection optimization has sped up my browsing and downloading by well over 25% (and I have a rocket of a connection).

I don't know why so many people are so fond of XP, when it came out it was utter garbage, 3-4 years later it started to become a worthy OS, even Vista was better out of the gate than XP, unless you boughtthe XP user comments against Vista mostly offered by people who had never seen a Vista machine yet alone used one. With Win7 being even better than Vista, I don't know why anyone WOULDN'T jump on it, unless they have very minimal needs and really don't rely on browsing, navigating and application speeds in order to do their job more efficiently.
IN a nutshell, light years ahead of XP and a fair improvement on Vista due to some cool new features. I've been spolied by 7 now and I couldn't dream of going back to a system without the added feature set that eases my workload immensely.

A 64-bit notebook for unider $600 Canadian that runs like a rocketship, even when renderign 3D graphics and 20GB VOB files?

Haven't seen any other MS OS that will do that yet.

Under $600 is an Dual core Athlon 65 (64bit), 512MB GPU, etc. Nothing high end, in fact probably my most entry level notebook ever, but definitely runs better then my much higher end XP desktop ever did.

by thechas Dec 21, 2009

I think Microsoft says it all with the title of every Windows 7 update file.

When you download an update for Vista, the file name usually includes Windows 6. When you download an update for Windows 7, the file name includes Windows 6.1.

Think of Windows 7 more as Windows Vista Second Edition. Not a new OS but a retooled OS.

Microsoft attempted to solve many of the major complaints about Vista with Windows 7.

So far, the most significant new feature of Windows 7 is the carrot for the corporate world. That is that IT administrators can allow individual programs to run with administrative privileges and keep everything else locked down. A big plus in environments where 1 or 2 applications will not run without administrator rights.

Our IT has tried numerous times to lock down our systems. But, so many of the applications we use every day require full administrator rights that IT always has ended up opening the systems back up again within days. Be it commercial CAD packages or most of our in-house code, it just will not run under even power user restrictions.

Chas

by jdclyde Jan 4, 2010

It is distressing just how much software requires Admin rights. Heck, Diablo II, a GAME, would not run if it wasn't run from an admin account.

One more thing for MS to get blamed for, an application that HAS to run as Admin, that has an exploit in it.....

was based at developers, not MS.

how did they make your experience better?

This really is not intended as a win7 slamfest.

And XP, I didn't even LOOK at it until after SP1 was out, so I missed the worst of the whore stories..... :)

The whole basis of a computer is simply to make what we already do each day a little easier. They don't actually do much that we couldn't do before, they just do it faster and allow us to do mroe each day.

That said, the features I've mentioned several times, DO make my daily tasks faster.

Breadcrumb navigation, showed up in Vista and I find it incredible. No more need to open explorer windows and enter paths manually, the address bar drop downs let you move back and forth bnetween folders in a heartbeat.

Snap, i like becuase I often have two windows open for file copying or comparing.This usede ot mean resizing a window to half the screen size, then resizing another to half the screen size and dragging them side by side to ease the process. Now I just drag one off the left side, one off the right side and they SNAP into place taking up exactly half teh screen each.

Searching is AMZAINGLy fast. And yet there is no indexing lag. I also have a notebook with 64 bit, dual core processor and 4Gb of ram, so background activity is not noticable. As for costly upgrading, this one was $529.00 Canadian. Hardly expensive. If I get year out fo it, I'll be pleasantly surprised, yet if not it's nothign to buy another, they are practically disposable now.

So withy just a few features mentioned, Win7 allows me to do what I already did, but more efficiently, which is the entire premise of a computer to begin with. You can't expect a new OS to do something others did not, just allow you to do things more efficiently.

Oh yeah, and the taskbar is just a treat from heaven. So many improvemnts that I wouldn't know where to begin.

I ofund lots in Vista that was new, all of that and more is in Win7.

Win7 is very similar to Vista, as 2K was to 98 and 98 was to 95 but with small improvements.

It's a lose lose situation for MS.

When XP came out everyone complained that things were changed TOO much, there was a learnign curve over a clasic interface. When they keep it similar, and simply improve on speed and functionality, people complain thta it is just a finished product of teh former.

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, people will just look for reasons to complain, usually to justify thier choice to stay put.

by jdclyde Dec 30, 2009

The reason we moved from Win98 to WinXP at my former job was because of system stability, period. XP doesn't crash nearly as often as 98 did, and the saved time from users not losing their work quickly paid for the upgrade.

There was nothing else about XP that improved the way we did business, but that was worth the price of admission.

The average end user doesn't use the majority of the features available. All they care about is they click on a pretty picture on the desktop, and the proper application opens so they can do their jobs.

If 2010 is a better year than 2009 was, I am hoping to have a Win7 system by summer.

by oz_media Dec 31, 2009

I am not a Wondows advocate, in fact the only OS they released that I ever actually liked was XP.

WHat I don't like is when people knowkc Windows JUST because it is WIndows and they have little hands-on knowledge but parrot the same slop that gets plastered all over the Net by other people who are simply anti-Windows.

XP was just too insecure for me and I really didn't like yteh interface, which was nothing new as far as usability but just a new look to buttons etc. I'm sure you've heard me refer to it as the Fisher Price interface more than once.

With Vista I too had read the slagging before actually using it myself. When it came time for a new notebook I cringed at the thought of Vista, I even had a copy of Win2KPro ready for a clean install after I played with Vista for a bit.

But I was shocked as s*** to find out that NONE of th issues I'd read so much about were actually there. It wasn't high end, it was just a basic, over the counter, retail notebook from BestBuy. But it screamed and the new usability features were great too. Took me a little bit to find and learn the new do-dads(I never read page 2 of the manual when it comes to computing)and then had get used to using them. The end result, I couldn't say a negative word about Vista, based on how it worked in my entry level notebook anyway.

SO teh time came again, a little faster tahn expected, new notebook time. This time it was Win7, which I had heard great things about but Vista was running great for me too.

I now absolutely LOVE Win 7, I couldn't say enough about it, absolutely incredible! I see the improvements to Vista so now it is teh best of both worlds, XP speed with Vista security and more.

I would gladly put my name to it that Windows 7 is by far the best desktop OS in Microsoft History.

That's my straight take on it asnyway, perhaps others habe other issues but in almost every case I've read about Vista, it was consumer purchase errors that lead to the problems and complaints, I'm sure the same will go for WIn7 too.

I wouldn't be concerned unless running really old hardware where drivers are not available (haven't found any myself yet, in fact I haven't manually downloaded drivers for anything, including my ODBII ScanTool.

It seems so many peple are gung-ho on getting into 7 that the manufacturers of even obscure hardware are updatign to Win7 64 bit compatibility now.

Win& makes home network setupp almost instantaneous. you can instantly see almost any wireless device, regardless of whether it is a computer a game console, etc. It allows you to stream and play media files in a way that turns it into a music/video distribution system in the whole home ( a top selling feature of new homes these days).

It just does what ANY operating system or computer has done since day one. Nothing we can't already do, but just ways to do it faster, easier and more efficiently than before.

People always expect some new outstanding feature from a new OS, however there isn't anything more they can do except make simplifying tasks even simpler than before.

The computer itself was the big breakthrough, now it's just a matter of refining, and refinement is certainly found in WIn7.

by tink! Dec 28, 2009

Alot sooner than I planned, but I was given some money for Christmas and figured I'd buy that replacement computer for my daughter.

She picked it (out of the ones I coudl afford) based on the way the keyboard felt to her. Of course, it had Win7.

I must say that the network setup was extremely easy. It found the home network quickly with no problems.

I am still getting used to the taskbar - my initial reaction was - YUCK. The darn internet windows were shown only when you mouseover the IE shortcut in the Quick Launch bar. But slowly getting used to that. At least I don't have to use the computer personally. :D

by av . Dec 22, 2009

I've been using XP Pro at work and have just started testing it in our environment. Its way faster than XP. So far, it doesn't work with all of our non-Microsoft legacy applications, so they will have to be upgraded or run in XP mode. I think it will be a lot of work, but its an improvement over XP (unlike Vista).

How is Vista NOT an improvement over XP?

It is more secure.
It offers the same great file system improvements that 7 does.

7 is just faster, if that's your criteria for BETTER, then simply state that Win7 is faster than XP.

If Vista was unstable and insecure you might be onto something, but in the IT world, this is the first time I have seen people so easily dismiss more secure as not being better.

by av . Dec 27, 2009

It doesn't matter if its more secure. It was a LOT slower than XP in our environment. I couldn't deploy it because our critical applications ran slower than they did with XP. The hardware and software upgrades necessary were too costly all at once for my company.

When Vista came out in 2007, most of our PCs couldn't run it and they weren't worth upgrading. Some versions of our critical software would have had to be upgraded as well. It was the snowball effect. Bad timing for Vista in our shop and not a worthwhile upgrade IMO.

In 2010, we now have hardware that can run Windows 7. I haven't tested Windows 7 with everything yet, but so far I'm impressed with how fast it is compared to Vista. Plus, the timing is right.

by hal 9000 Dec 22, 2009

It is M$ Fault because they set such low Hardware Requirements for their Software particularly OS's.

If they set a decent CPU Size, Amount of Installed RAM and so on there wouldn't be the issues with Windows that people do quite rightly complain about. I've lost count of Base Systems that I have seen where the user just wanted a computer to do a specific job and they get a dog.

As the base systems meet M$ Minimum System Requirements it is M$ [b]Fault[/b] when you get systems so slow and underpowered for the OS that is installed on it.

If M$ didn't set such low standards the complaints would not be as loud or numerous as they are.

I didn't think Vista was all that Bad considering what it was and I didn't think that XP before it was terrible when it was released either. I don't think 7 is all that different to the previous offerings from M$ and provided you completely ignore the Minimum System Requirements and at least double them in the case of the RAM you get a usable system where as previously with the small amount of RAM installed the System is a Dog and so slow that it's not funny.

If M$ doesn't supply a decent Minimum Specification they get exactly what they deserve as Computers now are a [b]Appliance[/b] not a specialized device that you need to know what to buy and buy from experts. The average Home user will be guided by the salesperson and overall price as to what they need and the sales people will be trying to flog off what they have excess stocks of to get rid of their stock.

The customer goes to that shop because of the Price that they advertise at in the Catalog.

So you end up with the worst of the worst that is sanctioned by M$. ;)

Col