What Are Your Current Impressions of Windows 7?
Thursday, April 1, 2010 by Island Dog | Discussion: Personal Computing
So it’s been many months since Windows 7 was released to the public, and during my travels on the web, I have seen praise from so many people about how they are enjoying Windows 7. Some of these are even coming from Mac users which really should tell you something.
My experience has exceeded my initial expectations, and I enjoy using Windows 7 every single day. Performance has been outstanding on my main rig, which is obviously quite powerful, but I can say the same thing for my Acer Netbook which I also have Win7 installed on.
Obviously I run quite a few games and applications, and haven’t had one single issue with one, including older applications. On the customization side, having apps like Fences, ObjectDock, and WindowBlinds make the desktop experience that much better – especially in terms of organization.
Now that many of you have had quite a bit of time to use Windows 7, what are your current impressions so far?
Reply #2 Thursday, April 1, 2010 4:36 PM
I've used it since the RC (it was the way to play GalCiv2 on my Mac). The RC was free, so I used it on my Mac in Boot Camp, bought the GalCiv trilogy, and was happy. I now bought myself Windows 7 Pro through a student discount, and I use it on my Core i7 gaming PC, specifically built because my Macbook couldn't handle Sins of a Solar Empire. Integrated graphics suck. I really have liked using Windows 7. I still have trouble with Windows XP, and hate using it when I have to. But Windows 7 appeals to my Mac-oriented mind, and is fairly easy to use. I can figure it out, which is more than I can say about XP.
I'm now looking at replacing my Macbook with a small PC Win7 laptop that can still handle my games (Core i5?), and yet have enough battery life for college classes. Suffice to say that I really like Windows 7.
Reply #4 Thursday, April 1, 2010 4:43 PM
As far as Windows 7 itself goes....I totally love it! Only issues I had were a couple of my games have to be run in XP mode...but that really is not an issue for me.
The OS runs very smoothly, and doesn't hog resources like Vista did! I have a six year old PC, that just has an Intel P4 CPU, and just 1.5 GB RAM. Vista did not like it, and my pc would always crash on me when I was doing graphics stuff. It behaves very well, and I even will have as many as three different graphics programs open at once, and it never skips a beat!
Now, if we could just be able to skin the ENTIRE OS, I would be in heaven for sure!
Reply #5 Thursday, April 1, 2010 4:52 PM
Built myself a new system recently, and I'm running 7 Ultimate....... it's good as gold.
Reply #6 Thursday, April 1, 2010 4:59 PM
I like everything about it, except the fact that the task bar looks like a piece of Scotch tape -- but Windowblinds takes care of that gripe, so I'm a happy camper.
Reply #7 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:13 PM
I love it. I tend to be picky about thinsg so there's always something that bugs me about anything, Windows 7 included but these couple of small things are so minor I have gotten use to the. I just don't like it when I run an app that is pinned to the taskbar and if it's not the one on the farthest right, it pushes the other pinned icons over so when you look for them on the left side they are not always there so it's kinda like having your icons moved around the taskbar and having to track them down everytime one of the other ones is running. But as I said I only have a few on there and I have gotten use to it already.
Reply #8 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:16 PM
I was quite eager to start using it at release and have enjoyed it very much since then. Good stuff for sure!
Reply #9 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:20 PM
I hate 7. I went back to Vista.
1. I think the best version of Windows Media Player was in Millenium. Starting in XP, the delete command was gone from the pop-up menu when you right-clicked on a file in the list to the right of the now playing screen. You had to go into the library to delete files. Now there aren't even any menus on the now playing screen. You have to go into the library to see the menus.
2. Everytime I opened the same folder, I had to resize the columns.
3. No separate send and receive commands in Live Mail.
What is your current impressions... Very nice.
Reply #10 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:29 PM
Good to see you, Karen! Hope things are easing for you...
As for 7? Love it...with WB (thank G-d for WB!!!!). Performance issues? 0. The way all the others should have been.
Still, XP was pretty darned good.
Reply #11 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:37 PM
I have to agree.
Starting with the release candidate I've seen 0 BSODs
My only complaints.....
I prefer the XP Start Menu's "More Programs" ......I can see everything in a glance...........
The other issue is with 16 bit app support. I've still got a couple I need to use from time to time. I installed VMLite to run them in XP Mode.
Reply #13 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:41 PM
Windows 7 anecdote:
I have a friend who works at Best Buy's 'Geek Squad'. To quote him exactly, "Windows 7 is the single worst thing to happen to Geek Squad. It actually works."
Since Windows 7 has been release, his weekly hours have been cut by 1/3rd due to dropping demand for tech support. I think that says something about the quality of Windows 7.
Reply #14 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:45 PM
I have a friend who works at Best Buy's 'Geek Squad'. To quote him exactly, "Windows 7 is the single worst thing to happen to Geek Squad. It actually works."
Since Windows 7 has been release, his weekly hours have been cut by 1/3rd due to dropping demand for tech support. I think that says something about the quality of Windows 7.
LOL @ Geek Squad.
I've been really pleased with 7 so far. Didn't require all the extensive customizations that I had to do in order to make XP usable. I really dislike the fact that I can't get rid of some of the stuff in the explorer nav pane though (libraries, home group, blah). Other than that, it's really nice.
Reply #15 Thursday, April 1, 2010 5:50 PM
Its been fantastic!
Only thing I miss is a few 16bit games. And messing around with sound options but I got use to it.(I am getting a sound card soon so that fixes everything!)
I do have Fences and DeskScapes... need to get WindowsBlinds and ObjectDock though sometime soon...
Reply #17 Thursday, April 1, 2010 6:04 PM
I still have some older 2D games that like to lock up in it for no reason. I hope they keep improving the DWM for that sort of thing, but honestly it could be the games themselves (they're not exactly top tier projects anyway.)
But I've never been happier with an MS OS.
Reply #19 Thursday, April 1, 2010 6:19 PM
I for one am sticking to Vista for the time being.
W7's performance is for what ever reason(s) quite shitty, on my system, compared to Vista.
Reply #20 Thursday, April 1, 2010 6:52 PM
I run Win 7 Ultimate 64bit in VMWare in Win 7 Ultimate 64bit, allocating 4gig of the host's 12. Even THAT is a better experience than any OS I've had before.
In real terms 7 is the first OS MS released that actually WORKS.
That same VMware has machines for all the previous OS's back to 98 [except 2000 - must add that] ...and it's sort of 'fun' to rattle around in such dinosaurs....
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Reply #1 Thursday, April 1, 2010 4:15 PM
Using it since the RC I still think it is the best Windows there ever was. And it even runs smooth on older hardware and on my eeePC (2 gigs RAm though), which is a big Plus. No issues with hard- or software yet.