Windows 7

Is anyone using Windows 7 yet? Is it better than Vista? Or is it just more eye candy.

Every time I see a commercial for Vista, I hear about the new Snap feature. Is this really the best part of this new operating system?

I'm not a Mac guy; I've always liked Windows. But if this feature, one that is only a visual step up from alt+tab, is the soap box upon which this new operating system is being touted, then what's the point? What other new, helpful, innovative technology is incorporated into 7? Or is this just a lateral move?

I really don't care either way. But I keep hearing about Snap and my curiosity finally got the best of me.

 

I'm using Windows XP professional (corp) and very happy with it. Never was very impressed with Vista, nor had any need for it. Sort of the same situation with Windows 7. I've heard from a few people that it's stable and works fine. However, the thing to keep in mind with Windows is that the underlying OS structure really hasn't changed all that significantly from Windows 95 as far as I know. If all the old software still runs on Windows 7, then I would think it's probably more or less the same OS back end (just with a more polished front end). I would bet the DLL's are all probably more of less the same, etc.

Ray

 

I have Windows 7 since the Release Candidate came out. Have been a mac user for years and really like it.

The trial is going to expire next week, so I will go buy it from my school. (Only 20 bucks)

I think it is a much better OS than Vista. I used Vista for a while on a separate computer that I used and didn't like it.

 

Thanks, Ray!

Alex, I'm interested in what you like about 7 and what you didn't like about Vista.

 

I used Vista for three (?) years, and never really had problems with it. On my particular PC, it was not unstable or prone to any particular crashes. The constant nagging about security during installations and such was bothersome, but not exactly a deal breaker in the O/S for me.

With each successive update/patch, it did get better and better. I have used Windows 7 too. After being a long time Vista user, I didn't think Windows 7 was really that much different. A new skin, and some slightly different navigational items was about all I could discern. It was solid, and crash-free while I used it. My Windows 7 experience was for about one week, back in December. I have not used it since.

I am a Mac user now, with no plans to switch back.

 

i have been using windows 7 ultimate edition for a few months. i like it more than vista and xp. it is almost as good as snow leopard.
i still prefer the mac operating system.
so why do i use both operating systems?
unfortunately, some software still is written for just the pc.
i am run windows 7 as a virtual machine inside the mac environment on vmware fusion. i have a second monitor connected to my 27 in imac, and when i want to run a program in windows, i simply turn on the second monitor and type away. when finished, i suspend the virtual computer and shut off the second monitor.

 

OS - February visits - %

Win XP 153,161 44.5
Win Vista 72,795 21.2
Mac 64,893 18.9
Win 7 30,358 8.8
Iphone 11,558 3.4
Linux 2,735 0.8
Blackberry 1,996 0.6
Win NT 1,947 0.6
other 1,838 0.5
Win 2000 1,602 0.5
7 operating systems not shown, each with 1,602 visits or less

 

A lot of making the Windows OS perform well is in the configuration and tweaking of it, not so much in what version you have. I have seen people with XP where it's out of control (same for Vista), yet others have a clean install which runs fine. I have used Windows since version 1.0 and never really had any major issues with it. Most of the problems that people have usually relate to a driver from some hardware manufacturer more than Windows itself. I've been running Windows XP pro since it came out and it's been rock solid. I dare say a properly configured/hardened XP pro installation is nearly as stable as a Unix machine (well, maybe not quite that stable, but darn close).

Making Windows perform and making it stable has a lot to do with how you configure it and what you install, etc. My brother in law is sort of a good example: I've done installs on XP for him and within 2 weeks he's loaded so much junk that the machine is a mess. On the other hand, with my installs, they have run for years and years without so much as a blip. My current XP install runs flawlessly. Even when something like Firefox dies, I can almost always go into the task manager and clear it out without any problems.

Windows has really been a pretty darn good operating system since Windows 95 hit the scene. It gets a bad rap more because of poorly written drivers from hardware companies that anything else. However, if you stick to top quality hardware, then you shouldn't have any problems. I think one of the reasons Apple is less problematic is because they have tighter control over their platform and hardware. However, as a result, Apple is also more limited in some ways too. It's always a trade off in one area or another.

Like I say, a properly tuned Windows XP install on high quality hardware is very, very stable. As stable as any Mac OSX install pretty much. Nothing against Mac, it's come a long way and I think it will continue to steal market share - no matter what Windows does. Mac has recently gained the image of "the less headache alternative to Windows" and I for one believe they can milk that for probably the next 5 to 10 years without too much problem. I am long Apple stock for that very reason. I suspect in 10 to 15 years, Apple will have a 50% market share on the desktop - if not more. As college kids start having families and die hard Windows users start aging, I think there is going to be a significant shift in Apple's favor here at some point over the next 10 to 20 years.

Ray

 

What the heck is an "OS visit"?

"...lies, damn lies, and statistics."

 

I have 1 PC running Windows 98, 5 PCs running Windows XP, 1 PC running Vista, and 2 PCs running Windows 7.

All run perfectly well, stable, and fast on the proper hardware. I like Win 7 the best, can't put my finger on a single standout feature, but it just looks good, and has tons of little features that add to the useability.

 

The # of times F-chat has been visited by a user with each OS. Also helpfully listed as a percentage. So, XP is still "dominant" at 44.5% thus far in February. Vista 21% and so on.

The # of visits from iPhone's I found a little surprising, and if you look back, OSX is steadily increasing

Cheers,
Ian
PS - IIRC, it is however pretty trivial to "fool" the code that's capturing this info. I know it's trivial to do with a browser.....[Tell the server you're using IE when you're not for example.....]

 

From what I understand, Win 7 is snappier than Vista, uses less RAM and hard drive space, and is a major improvement over Vista.

 

A major improvement in what way?

I understand that we all use computers differently, and to myriad degrees. So it might be a major improvement for one person uses it for, while only slightly better for another's capabilities and uses.

 

The bar was set pretty low with Vista......

Seriously, +1

 

FWIW, these are the stats I have on Ricambi, from mid-November until today:

1 Internet Explorer / Windows 62.06%
2 Firefox / Windows 19.56%
3 Safari / Macintosh 8.76%
4 Firefox / Macintosh 3.55%
5 Chrome / Windows 2.56%
6 Safari / iPhone 1.01%
7 Opera / Windows 0.93%
8 Safari / Windows 0.48%
9 Firefox / Linux 0.25%
10 Mozilla / Linux 0.11%
11 Chrome / Linux 0.10%
12 Mozilla / Windows 0.10%
13 Chrome / Macintosh 0.09%
14 Safari / Android 0.07%
15 Safari / iPod 0.07%
16 Safari / (not set) 0.03%
17 Konqueror / Linux 0.03%
18 SeaMonkey / Windows 0.03%
19 (not set) / (not set) 0.02%
20 Netscape / Windows 0.02%
21 IE with Chrome Frame / Windows 0.02%
22 Camino / Macintosh 0.01%
23 Lunascape / Windows 0.01%
24 BlackBerry9000 / BlackBerry 0.01%
25 BlackBerry9530 / BlackBerry 0.01%


We have Google Analytics back to day 1, but I'm not sure how relevant it might be.

 

I like Windows 7. The useability feature I like the best is the single directory that points to lots of places. Also the sleep and hibernate is much faster which I like since I use so many machines and leave them all running. So I've switched my core OS on the machines to 64 bit W7 and use VM's to run my corporate images with are Vista Business, XP, and Win2k3. It also seems to crash much less than the XP laptops would when I would run several VM's at once and suck up lots of resources.

 

It is snappier/quicker, more stable, uses less RAM and less Hard Drive space. That is all I heard about it so far, but that is enough for me to call it a "major" improvement because I know Vista hogs a lot of RAM and uses a lot of hard drive space. I suppose the hard drive space is not that much of an issue because we are talking about Gigabytes of hard drive space computers now have, but the quicker/more stable/less RAM usage is a major plus for Win 7.

 

VMWare...now THAT brings up some memories. I bought like $6k of their stock the day it IPO'd on the market at like $20. Sold it a month later for over $100/share. The guys who were able to get the IPO got it for like $15/share.

 

I don't know anything about computers, to be honest. But my new laptop with Windows 7 is very nice in regards to how it stores and how you are able to find your files much easier versus my XP system on my home PC. It also starts and shuts down MUCH faster.

 

I support windows XP / Vista / 7 on a daily basis.

7 is a HUGE improvement over vista, with all the improvements being made under the hood. If you are familiar with vista and move to 7, there will not be many changes that will be noticable, but the computer will suddenly get screaming fast. This is especially evident in early vista-era machines, such as Core Duo boxes with 2 GB ram. If you have a Core 2 machine with 4 GB, then Vista and 7 will run equally well.

Would I recommend the upgrade as an IT professional? Absolutely.

Having said that, I use a mac at home. Why? I don't want to take my work home with me

 

Lots of people made bank on VmWare. Considering we bought that company for around 600M, and then sold off about 12% for over a billion. Now that was a good return. For a while we were really thinking we would get bought out only so someone could control our remaining 88% of VMware.

The product works as expected and saves companies a ton of money. It's really changed the landscape of DR centers and storage.

 

I have two pcs with Vista and two laptops with Windows 7. While I have not had any particular problems with Vista, it seems to be a memory hog and takes a long time to boot up. Windows 7 seems much more efficient and so far is faster to boot up.

Some of the features of W7 seem more Mac like and I am considering upgrading the Vista pcs to W7.

 

Great idea!

 

Windows 7 is loads faster than when I was running vista. I'm running it on an HP bottom of the line laptop (about two months old). The shut down and reboot are light years faster than vista. It also seems that the wireless networking feature is almost automatically connected as soon as the computer boots, much better than having to wait a few seconds for vista to search for and connect to a network. The file system is simpler to navigate, and they finally put a "new folder" button at the top of every window in the explorer which is very convenient.

Looks wise I like the new features they've come out with as well. The taskbar is much simpler, and when you mouse over open programs a small window pops up showing you what's open. Also you can cycle through open windows with the windows+tab keys which is just a cool visual trick but I like it.
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I used Vista for about 3 years and have been using Windows 7 since Nov. I see very little difference in the two. There is no speed improvement that is discernible to me, other than it boots up and shuts down much faster than Vista. Shutdown for Windows 7 is about 20 seconds vs around 2 minutes for Vista. There are no other "Gee Whiz" features that I have found.