It all looks nice and fine but I hope you wont mind me being frank...

1. I remember number of similar "wow great" threads / sites / blogs during Vista beta and at the end it turned out to be pile of crap

2. So far what I read about Win 7 it feels like nothing else but "Vista patch" which is good news for sure but nothing to get me remotely excited...

3. Again, so far, I haven't read anything about fundamental redesigns to OS meaning that most probably we will have nice and fast system when freshly installed and then bloated hog 1 year down the line when we will eventually reach the point of full reinstall just like with every other incarnation of windows... Registry is still there, it is still not based on Unix, security issues are still there etc...

4. I also see constant attempts to rip of OS X - pretty much continuation of Vista experience in that sense which I find pathetic to say at least... why not go for something original, inspire industry and put OS X in such position so its forced to rip of Win for a change...

5. Put functionality aside, aesthetics are still shit... I mean cant they at least employ designer or two so they make it at very least look nice!?

6. Sure... At this point Stardock comes in with Blinds, Dock, Desktop X etc... to fix the disaster. Which is great news but then again this thread pretty much turns into add for Stardock software which user should install to get out from usual Win visual hell... When I was Win user I had more less all of Stardock products installed just to make my experience of using computer remotely comfortable and modern...

7. I am 101% sure OS X 10.6 will take a piss out of Win again...

8. Win to gain trust and driving force again needs to be redesigned from scratch! - Untill then...

9. ... EPIC FAIL!

My 2 cents with hope no one got offended in any way

I know i am probably in the minority, but I will continue to use Vista, even after 7's release, vista has been so stable and "good" to me, never once have i had a BSOD, plus all the years i have been using pcs, vista by far is the easiest to install and setup

I formatted C:\ straight up, all installs and a lot of things I should have backed up but didn't gone.

Anyway. The install of windows 7 was flawless. The only thing that didn't work from the start was my 4870x2. Originally I thought windows 7 had completely broken, because I didn't get any start menu or icons or anything. However, it turns out windows 7 has a new system to arrange multiple screens (which is really good by the way!) and it had put my stuff on the wrong screen. Took me a while to figure that one out, as I did numerous "flip displays" in ATI cc and it didn't help.

So far, everything plays, couple of bugs noticed with the UI, but...

... where's the ZAZZ! THE SPARKLE-CRACK-POP! Not once have I gotten the feeling that I am dealing with something MORE than vista here. Vista may have been a drain on resources, but I had those plenty so windows 7 is definately not an upgrade there. Arguably, windows 7 did configure itself almost perfectly from the start - I think "newbies" will find that invaluable. But - once again - not a reason to upgrade from a working setup. A lot of people also talked about how the start menu has improved - what? It's an identical clone of the start menu from Vista. NOTHING HAS CHANGED! The taskbar finally adopts the "dock" system almost everyone uses anyway. It is good - real good in fact. But is it an upgrade? No.

So far, windows 7 hasn't blown me away. Ignoring a few lacking settings and bugs because it is beta, I would still say I am not better off with windows 7 than I would be with a fresh vista install. I've worked about 12 hours in windows 7, so maybe I haven't found the really neat features yet. I hope I haven't. Because I would hate to upgrade from vista to windows 7 when it releases, to find that all I got was a better way to arrange which display is shown where.

For all of you reading this post here are some of the Stardock applications (skinning) that will work with win 7 (32 & 64 bit):

Will work:

   Impulse

   Objectdock (freeware) - not sure of object plus (do own)

   Rightclick

WILL NOT WORK:

   Iconpackager

   Windowblinds

   Soundpackager

   Bootskins (crashes the system - run restore)

   Logon studio (crashes the system - run restore)

   Windowblind Developer 6 & pro

Thus far these are the only ones I have tested.  I know that Stardock is doing so also, but I am a big fan of being able to skin the OS; so the first thing I tested was the Stardock products.

Also, there are some interesting changes in the "MY MUSIC' folder which could make music collection applications obslete.  It is without a doubt one of the best changes to date.

Sorry, but your post just made me stay away from Windoz even more...

I am also sorry if my post offended you since that was not my intention.

I was Win user for 10 solid years until 2 years ago when another company "persuaded" me that stuff can work as well as look much better than what I was used to...

I will have no problem switching back to Win when Microsoft manage to "persuade" me that it is the right thing to do...

And somehow, I don't think Win 7 will succeed in that mission - but who knows...

All the best man and take it easy

It's a bit more than a patch - they've made some real improvements with the new driver control panel. The underlying driver model is the same, but they've put a lot of work into making the UI a lot better. Same with pretty much everything else: Windows 7 doesn't just "fix vista," it also cleans up and improves the user interface a lot.

Vista was that fundamental redesign, and yes, they're continuing to make progress in the aspect of design.

It sounds like you have invested so much time absolutely hating Vista that you've completely failed to realize that it did improve a lot of the underlying technologies. A lot of the stuff underneath is very different, but you are pretending it is somehow the same.

Everybody rips off everybody else, essentially. If you trace everything back far enough, it all goes back to Xerox . Seriously, though - do you have something in particular you want changed?

What's wrong with the look? I like Aero far better than Luna. Vista and Windows 7 look as good as any other OS, IMHO.

They did, essentially. Vista is about as much as they can redesign without absolutely killing backwards compatibility. They're even doing a lot of virtualization to keep backwards compatibility with things they made fundamental changes to. How much more "fundamental" do you want??

Question: Do you have anything particular in mind that you want redesigned, or do you just think "redesign" is a cool word?

Something's wrong, then. I haven't had to do such a thing. The biggest problem just seems to be my natural tendency to install too much, and that's not Microsoft's fault . . .

. . . usually if I uninstall the hogs, though, I get my performance back.

It's not?!

I thought everything was Microsoft's fault!

[/sarcasm]

A corporation pushing for 64-bit compatability!  I fucking love StarDock!

 Well it is a thread on a StarDock forum, by the CEO, so I think the responses can be forgiven bias.

The very same thing can be said about the Windows Fanbois as you so effectively proved with your post.

Errrrr, coz they dind't know better, or had no other choice because it came pre-installed and getting an XP-Downgrade was hard to come by?

Or because they feared that when XP support ends they wouldn't get any drivers for new hardware?

Also your statement might hold some merrit concerning private end-users, but face it: Almost NO major company even THOUGHT about switching to VISTA. Even MS had to admit that. That's actually why they had to extent XP support and are so hard pressed to release Win7. Even more so eversince a major web book manufacturer stated that they plan on pre-installing Android on all of their machines coz VISTA is such a rampant ressource hog.

Reply to few posts above

Regarding "fanboy" stuff - lol, just forget it... It has nothing to do with being a "fan" or not but about comfortable, reliable and secure work environment. As professional designer and photographer who happens to be spending most of his time in front of computer for me "comfortable, reliable and secure" is imperative and after huge number of years using Win I can only be happy to move away from it... For the time being, OS X is the way to go - no doubt - but in near or distant future it can easily be something else - Linux or perhaps Win again if M$ gets their act together... I will have no problem ditching all my Apple Mac stuff for hardware / OS that performs better...

Redesigning Win from a scratch - I meant exactly that... It is ugly, bloated, insecure, under performing hog from early 90s. It is so out of time and tact its not even funny... When they get rid of REGISTRY they will be on the right track - until then I can only yawn at topics like this and smile while using OS X

Regarding few posts that talked about 'installing too much' on Windows... Well, spot on! Regardless which version of Win we are talking about 95, 2000, XP, Vista and I am sure it will be the same case with Win7 we are always having the same problem. Fresh install works great but as soon as we install everything we need on it performance drops drastically and various problems starts to sneak in. Usually within year or two we are forced one way or the other to wipe the disk and reinstall everything... I mean HELLO!?!?! Anyone there? On my Mac I have more things installed than on all PCs I ever owned put together - and guess what - it performs in exactly the same way as almost 2 years ago when I bought it... Guess another thing - yeah, there is NO REGISTRY in OS X...

Did you ever imagine your computer life WITHOUT REGISTRY? 

I remember when I was Win user dreaming of it frequently

Regarding defensive posts on way Win GUI looks...Taste is personal thing at the end of the day so it is hard to argue about it... Personally, however, I find it extremely ugly hence I was hardcore user of all Stardock products back in the days which did allow me to customise the looks + add much needed yet missing features from the OS itself. 

Looking at various screen shots of Win7 on this and other forums it certainly looks like M$ still didn't invest into their design apartment