 "Way to go, Microsoft -- this could be a hit!" | 2009-11-13 |
| - Reviewed By ekohl24 |
I'm happy to say that I am -- for the most part -- very pleased with this upgrade so far. I came from Vista 32-bit, and I have now officially entered the 64-bit era by installing Windows 7 x64. For quite a few months I read about people's experiences with the betas and release candidates, and was excited about the good news I kept hearing. I decided to just be patient and put in for my pre-order like most people did, which meant waiting for the October 22nd release date.
Let's go through this topic by topic:
INSTALLATION: It was easy, almost too easy. For some reason I was half expecting to wait more than an hour to get this on my machine, but instead I was up and running in roughly 25 minutes or so (I performed a clean install, not an upgrade). And on top of that, all of my primary devices were recognized (see the end of my review for complete system specs). The Windows Easy Transfer utility was an enormous help in getting my user identity and files into my new configuration.
USER INTERFACE: Personally I thought Vista was very handsome, what with its transparency, 3-D effects, color schemes, and usability improvements to Windows Explorer, and I believe Windows 7 continues that trend by looking just as sexy -- if not more -- while at the same time adding its own valuable features and enhancements. It just seems like a great deal of effort was put forth into making everything slick, polished, and logically consistent, and I've already fallen in love with many of the additional improvements, such as the revamped and more versatile taskbar, jump lists, and customizable themes. I haven't yet become accustomed to some features like Aero Shake, but hey, those things are there if I need them. But the attention to detail and even minimalism in certain areas is certainly appreciated. And sure, some people might scoff at the shiny facade and dismiss certain parts of it as being "bells and whistles," but honestly, isn't it actually USEFUL to have the ability to see full-screen previews of running applications, or to be able to hide all of your open windows and take a quick glance at what's underneath? All of these niceties simply add up to a more functional and usable desktop.
PERFORMANCE: I think it's actually better than Vista. Overall the system feels more responsive and, well, "snappier." Gaming is as smooth as could be. No complaints as far as startup, shutdown, and resuming from sleep mode are concerned.
STABILITY: Very good, but I'll give 7 an A- here. I got just ONE blue screen of death so far, and that was during the installation of a particular piece of software (I forget what it was to be honest -- maybe a browser plug-in). Other than that, it's been rock-solid, with absolutely no crashes. I've even gone through some software development debugging sessions in which the program I was working on was repeatedly throwing up on me, and Windows 7 recovered gracefully every time.
SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY: Pretty high marks, but not perfect. I think some of it has to do with my transition to 64-bit anyways, like the fact that I'm having trouble with a specific component in Visual Basic 5 (I use it to support a piece of software I designed for work). No big deal, though -- I'm going to circumvent it by using my copy of Windows XP in Sun's VirtualBox to run it, so problem solved. Another issue I had was the fact that the installation of Samsung Media Studio 5 (for my MP3 player) causes Windows Media Player to fail to launch when you try to open a media file, but again, that's not a show-stopper because I can manipulate that device directly in the OS anyways without that application. And don't laugh, but it looks like I might have to give up Publisher 95. Heh heh ... yeah, I've been using that program for years now to do miscellaneous desktop publishing, but guess what? Its installer is 16-bit. So again, that's a 64-bit lack of support for 16-bit issue, not really a problem with Windows 7 per se. Plus I guess I could still run it in my virtual XP machine if I wanted to. Other than those snags I just mentioned, the majority of my applications and games run just fine -- and thank goodness Cakewalk Music Creator still works with my MIDI and audio interface devices. (I admit I'm still having trouble with this game that I wrote that uses DirectX and has a tendency to start running very slowly, but that might be Nvidia's fault and not Microsoft's -- and it did the same thing in Vista, too.)
WINDOWS LIVE ESSENTIALS: I guess it was a smart move on behalf of MS. A little less bloat for people who would rather choose alternatives to those programs, but still available as a free download. Personally I feel that Microsoft has been blessed with a lot of talented people who are really experts at design -- the basic necessities such as Live Mail and Calendar (and all of the other apps) are wonderful in my opinion.
OTHING THINGS I LIKE: The Devices section in the Control Panel is now much better, and ejecting USB devices is quicker and easier. User switching works flawlessly. I adore the fresh new visual styles of the built-in tools like Paint and WordPad -- I'm looking forward to upgrading from Office XP to Office 2010! (Even Calculator is better!)
BUGS OR QUIRKS: The link for opening the backup applet is broken, but not when you launch it via the new Action Center. Also, unlike in Vista, Mozilla Firefox seems to have developed this strange problem of occasionally reporting that it can't find the server when you try to connect to certain websites -- but if you just click the browser's "back" button, it will then load just fine (and usually sites load properly when you open them via the Bookmarks menu). I don't perceive it as being severe enough of a problem to make me want to stop using Firefox altogether (yet), but it is kind of annoying. Internet Explorer 8 doesn't exhibit this behavior at all, so for that reason and others I'm switching back and forth between the two (I tried resetting my router, and it didn't seem to have any effect).
In summary, I think Microsoft did the right thing by listening to its users and trying to correct Vista's shortcomings, whether real or just perceived. I can't say this is a revolution; it's more like evolution (boy, how many times has THAT been said about a software product?). But to me it's a step in the right direction, and if things stay the course, Windows could have a bright future.
SYSTEM SPECS: Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 case | Corsair TX750W PSU | EVGA nForce 780i MOBO | Intel Core 2 Quad (Yorkfield Q9300) | Tuniq Tower 120 CPU cooler | 4 GB Kingston DDR2 800 | HannsG HG281DPB 28" LCD | BFG Tech GeForce GTX 280 | Western Digital Caviar SE16 500 GB SATA | Samsung DVD+/-RW (SATA) | Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 | MOTU FastLane USB MIDI interface | E-MU 0404 USB audio interface | Yamaha YST-M15 speakers | HP Photosmart 8150 printer | HP Scanjet 4070 scanner | D-Link DIR-628 router | Microsoft Natural Keyboard & Optical Mouse | Logitech RumblePad 2 | Windows 7 Home Premium x64
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| "Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade, with reservations" | 2009-11-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1XY7QJPPUZFYY |
Windows 7 is a significant improvement over Windows Vista. It boots and runs more quickly, but there are some down-sides. The first one noted was that it will not do a simple upgrade for Vista Business. You have no choice but to do a clean upgrade, which means you lose all your programs and they must be re-installed. OK. that takes time, but in the end you will be happy with the result. The second point is that it obliterates Windows Mail. You lose it all unless you take some complicated precautions before you do the upgrade. I learned to my sorrow that all the mail was lost, on one computer, and before I install the upgrade on the other computer I AM taking precautions, and reading everything about it beforehand. Microsoft pushes you into Windows Live, but getting a Live ID is tricky. I have failed a dozen times, and still do not have one. Some day, maybe, I will actually get an email account.
After all preparations have been made, the installation itself is rather brief. 30-45 minutes seems to do it. Your internet access is recognized, as is your printer and other equipment. This is the easiest installation that I have experienced, and I have installed EVERY Windows version that has come along.
To all who are hesitating, I say: Go to it. |
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 "Do a custom clean install if you have trouble with the upgrade option!" | 2009-11-11 |
| - Reviewed By User: A30TNMIVVXXZEJ |
So I've noticed that many of the bad reviews on all Windows 7 upgrade products came from those that have upgraded from Vista to Win 7. If upgrading works for you, then good for you, but for those that get errors and a bad experience, give it another try by backing up your data and doing a CUSTOM CLEAN install. You will notice a big difference(positive) from an OS that was freshly installed and an OS that was overwritten over another(Vista). Like many have said before, overwriting a new OS to an existing OS is never a good idea and may be a flaw from Microsoft because of a high risk of error formation. I have Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit freshly installed on my desktop and my Acer Timeline laptop; both computers have had no problems. Since my laptop qualified for windows 7 upgrade, I used the upgrade disc to do a clean install instead of upgrading over Vista.
Win 7 is fun to use if you have it cleanly installed, so if you experience problems after upgrading to Win 7, back up your data and try a clean install. That's the best thing you can do to save further headaches.
Upgrade: 2-4 hours
Clean install: 15-30mins |
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| "Live Indexing is Amazing!" | 2009-11-11 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2MHXLH6HS28IX |
This is NOT a full review, you can find that anywhere.
I want to just touch on the live indexing feature.
After pressing the start button, the typing cursor defaults to a search area where you can search for any program, file or document.
I find myself no longer browsing the start menu or using the file browser, I simply tap the windows key and type. Example, I want the calculator, I press the windows key, type c a l c and press enter and there is my calculator. In addition to opening programs, it searches your documents for words that match (great if I forgot the name of a document).
No more cluttered desktops, no more endless searching, for me its just type and go! |
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| "Looks like Vista, but operates like XP (which is good on both counts)" | 2009-11-10 |
| - Reviewed By rbenjamin |
We have several computers in our house and had been running XP just fine for a number of years. We upgraded our computers this year and they came loaded with Vista and a free upgrade to Win 7. Vista looks beautiful, but constantly crashed and had tons of errors.
We got the upgrade DVDs this past weekend and easily upgraded several computers to Win 7 HP. This has the good looks of Vista and the stability of XP. All of my accessories work perfectly with Win 7. The upgrade even automatically downloaded the updated drivers.
So far, several days in, no problems at all.
Although Win 7 seems a bit faster than Vista did, I do not notice any decrease in the start-up time. |
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 "It's a downgrade from Vista" | 2009-11-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1QMARDM7M9NNR |
I just "upgraded" a brand new notebook, which came with Vista 64-bit Premium installed and a free Windows 7 upgrade from the manufacturer. And compared to Vista, Win7 is a complete disappointment. Win7 was supposed to be a better Vista, but in reality it's rather the opposite.
Taskbar is broken. There is no Quick Launch bar anymore, instead you can "pin" your applications to the task bar. It wastes a lot of space, and you can't launch a new instance from Taskbar because Win7 instead gives focus to the running instance. It's also totally unusable if you have a vertical Taskbar - the favorite configuration among those who have many running applications. Win7 just as Vista does show the thumbnail of the running applications when cursor is hovering over Taskbar button, but adds an additional close(x) button.
Task manager does show a smaller OS footprint, but that's nothing more than curiosity. What is important is the amount of memory an application can comfortably allocate, and as far as my testing goes there is no difference compared to Vista. There is also no perceivable difference in OS boot time, application start time, and the sleep/wake up are just as instanteneous as in Vista. There is no difference in the speed of most applications running in either Vista or Win7. The only factors that would influence application performance is the amount of OS background work, which is negligible and the performance of hundreds of system DLLs, which every application uses. The DLLs seem to be pretty much the same performance and memory-wise and even if they were carefully optimized, performance of most applications only slightly depends on the performance of the system DLLs. Those unfortunate applications that heavily depend on system DLLs some run better in Vista, some better in Win7.
Win7 doesn't include popular applications that come with Vista. For example, Vista has a nice Windows Mail, Win7 offers to download Windows Live Mail, which is a complete joke.
Win7 also installed it's own primitive drivers for my printers, so I had to clean up after OS installation to revert to much better manufacturer's drivers.
The worst part of Win7 - it hangs, sometimes for seconds, sometimes forever, which never happened to Vista. In Vista Task Manager was always responsive, you could kill any stuck application from there, in Win7 even Task Manager and Start button can become unresponsive, so you can't gracefully shut down and restart. I just tried to "pin" Live Mail to the Taskbar, right-clicked on its name and the whole Taskbar and Start button with its menu are hanging. After 10 minutes or so W7 finally shows completely black screen with a message "Failure to display security and shutdown options." The only thing you can do after that is to turn power off. So much for the improved stability. |
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