"With the Microsoft PDC recently wrapping up, excitement has been building for Windows 7. I wonder, will it be able to live up to the hype? There's only one way to find out: install it and see for myself. This is by no means a complete analysis of the OS, rather my observations from the first few days of experimenting with it. The Aero interface has been refined, and it's leaner and meaner than before. Visual effects look superb and are silky smooth, even on less powerful hardware like a Celeron M520 laptop with Intel integrated graphics. Even with all the Aero Glass effects enabled, battery life didn't take a substantial hit (I noticed anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes less on a 5.5 hour battery). Need to move a full screen window? Just click the title bar and start dragging - no need to click restore first, it will automatically resize. The reverse works as well: drag a window to the top edge of your screen, and Windows will maximize it."
I'm seeing something very interesting happening here: the praise for Windows 7, even though the software is still raw and uncooked, is almost universally positive. Is the impression of Vista so negative, that Windows 7 looks great in comparison? Or has Microsoft taken the criticism on Vista seriously and really dug down deep to improve Windows 7? I suspect the latter - Microsoft doesn't always make the right decisions, but they do seem to learn from their mistakes. I'm going to try slapping my Windows 7 copy onto my HP tx2500...I have no idea what to expect, but I figure I might as well give it a try!
__________________ Want to contact me personally? Use this. Want to read my personal blog? Check it out. Want to follow me on Twitter? Here you go.
I've been playing with it for most of today in a VHD (which has no hardware acceleration, so Peek, Shake, and the rest of the Aero experience is missing). It's what Vista should have been. UAC works (instead of getting in the way), the tweaks to the Aero interface show why Aero was necessary (in Vista it seemed like a useless toy).
I tried it with the new taskbar. Had mixed feelings at first but it grew on me. I do NOT like the Mac Dock. I like the windows style of a windows based task bar rather than mac style application based dock. As I played with it more it grew on me though. I like that when I hover over an app's icon previews of all it's windows popup, making it easy to find what I wanted. Also, apps can put controls in their preview. Hover over WMP's icon and a preview pops up accompanied by play/pause and other controls. You can also tell how many windows an app has open just by looking at its button on the bar. I think I will end up liking it.
Last edited by JKingGrim; 11-08-2008 at 04:42 PM..
I'm not tech enough to have played with 7 myself, and I haven't been reading *all* of the news about 7 either, but...
From what I *have* read, it doesn't seem like 7 is *all* that different than Vista, so perhaps the praise for 7 is evidence that Microsoft was right about the Mojave Experiment.
I agree, the coverage so far seems to have been universally positive. In particular I've been impressed with the way such an early (pre) beta has been installing and running on netbook-size devices with reasonable responsiveness and power consumption.
Will be very interested to hear how you get on with installing in on the HP TX2500, Jason - that's what I've got and it looks hopeful I'll be upgrading whenever Windows 7 comes out!
Will be very interested to hear how you get on with installing in on the HP TX2500, Jason - that's what I've got and it looks hopeful I'll be upgrading whenever Windows 7 comes out!
I'm not entirely sure how my NDA works here - though it seems everyone is talking about Windows 7 - but what I will say is that it installed quickly and easily, and after I installed the Vista drivers for the WiFi card, I was able to start playing with it. A few unidentified devices, like the biometric fingerprint reader, didn't work right, but everything else seemed to work OK. Performance was snappy, though it's pretty snappy with Vista and 4 GB RAM.
__________________ Want to contact me personally? Use this. Want to read my personal blog? Check it out. Want to follow me on Twitter? Here you go.
I am someone who is very unhappy with Vista. I bought XP the day it came out because Microsoft was offering all these deals. I loved it and still love it. But it is long in the tooth.
So when Vista came out, all the reviews said it was nothing new but eye candy. But that's not true.
I am now constantly using other programs to do what I consider o/s functions. I have had many issues with just copying files. So now I use beyond compare. I hate the new search, so now I use google desktop search. I hate the way my computer, a new one with Vista with 3GB of RAM, feels like it goes on a smoke break every once in a while. It comes back, but I would love to know what the heck it was doing.
It is fairly stable - no bsod's. But some programs run worse under Vista.
I also don't like that Microsoft loves to move things JUST to move them. It's fun when you are the support guy for friends and family. Add or Remove Programs? No, that is now Programs and Features. Things like that.
But, besides my rant, my point is, before software is released, there is usually general praise for it. And then afterwards, condemnation. I dunno - there were complaints on Vista pre-release, but mainly that it didn't add much over XP.
Microsoft decided to keep up with the "trusted" formula:
Ctrl-C on Apple OS
Ctrl-V on Windows...
The new taskbar copies all features of the Mac Dock. I wonder where Microsoft spends all its money on research...
They copy every single feature and have stopped innovating since a long time... It is really a shame and I hope they will eventually start innovating....
Even the option to dim the display of a laptop before it goes on stand by is copied from Apple....
The new taskbar copies all features of the Mac Dock. I wonder where Microsoft spends all its money on research...
They copy every single feature and have stopped innovating since a long time... It is really a shame and I hope they will eventually start innovating....
Even the option to dim the display of a laptop before it goes on stand by is copied from Apple....
You do realize that the Mac dock was originally a feature for feature copy of the Windows taskbar and Quick Launch, don't you? Apple borrowed the idea from Windows, packaged it a little differently, and in subsequent releases enhanced it by adding previews and animations. Vista borrowed back the previews, and Windows 7 adds some enhancements.
If you don't realize it goes both ways, you are seriously deluding yourself.
Last edited by onlydarksets; 11-09-2008 at 01:16 AM..
I'm not entirely sure how my NDA works here - though it seems everyone is talking about Windows 7 - but what I will say is that it installed quickly and easily, and after I installed the Vista drivers for the WiFi card, I was able to start playing with it. A few unidentified devices, like the biometric fingerprint reader, didn't work right, but everything else seemed to work OK. Performance was snappy, though it's pretty snappy with Vista and 4 GB RAM.
Thanks, Jason. I'd forgotten about the NDA having seen so many online videos of people installing it on a variety of devices!! The wireless UI seems to have definitely been improved and glad to hear most things are working OK - here's hoping HP properly release updates to the non-standard items like the fingerprint reader! I've only got 2GB RAM but from what I've read it sounds like that shouldn't be too much of a problem if things continue the way they have been so far with the pre-beta.
Windows 7: "Impressive At Every Turn"
Vista
Linear Mode
LinkBacks (?)
