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Windows 7 what is all the hype?


midiman

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I have used Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP & Vista.

If you want my honest opinion, the O/S that has been the most stable for me is Vista.

Why all the bad press about Vista??? I am using Vista Ultimate X64 with 6GB ram and it is solid.

Vista has been outstanding so what went wrong?

I do believe the only people that have had problems with Vista were the ones that couldn't get used to it.

People don't like change so their first reaction is to complain.

So how is MS going to convince me to shell out more money to go to 7 ???

Isn’t 7 just a rebranded, modified version of Vista.

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So how is MS going to convince me to shell out more money to go to 7 ???

Isn’t 7 just a rebranded, modified version of Vista.

Have you tried it? There was a very large Public RC and a 90 Trial RTM version which unless I have complety misread their intentions, that was how they planned to get you to shell out the money for Windows 7. If you have tried it and didn't see anything you liked, you either weren't looking or your not their target market.

here is my list of what ruined Vistas Rep:

  1. Microsoft stood behind XP for much longer than they should have and rather than help them, it hurt them because people got too comfortable with XP and rejected change when it came in the form of Vista.
  2. Vista is a stupid, stupid name for an OS. I thought XP was a dumb name too (the eXPerience ad campaign certainly was) but Vista? Seriously? Its an OS not a 4x4 SUV. (for once the codename would have actually been better)
  3. OEMs are evil and have a way of perverting whatever OS they ship on their PCs into a unrecognizable fustercluck. Consumers dont know where the OS stops and the OEMs s***ty drivers and apps begin which ruins their perception of the OS. (Im looking at your stupid fake aeroglass looking dock thing Toshiba)
  4. MS was pressured by OEMs to set the sys reqs too low for Vista. OEMs quest to ship a 200$ paper mache PC to every redneck in the world really needs to stop. It nearly killed Vista and will hurt 7 if they continue with it.

Before anyone decides to lash out at me for bashing on XP or Vista, I use Vista on all but 1 PC and thats the one running 7 RC. The rest of my network is a healthy mix of XP and Vista which is slowly migrating onto Vista and I will be starting 7 Migration before the end of the year.

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I have a MCDST cert on XP and support a network of 3000 users. Our machines can handle Vista but we are holding out for 7.

I used 7 when it first became available on MSDN and on looks it was a tweaked version of Vista.

Maybe I need to have another look at it but I still think they are going to have a problem converting me.

XP to Vista was a big leap, but Vista to 7 ????

Convince someone that has just paid £280 for Vista Utlimate to spend another huge amount to go to 7.

MS are going to have a problem here. The majority of people with Vista could hold out from change until they get a new PC. i.e 2-4 years.

Remember people have only just gone to Vista by purchasing new hardware in the form of a new machine. So they don't want to have to now buy a new O/S.

Maybe the only people that will initially purchase 7 are those that have held off from going to Vista and are in need of a new PC.

Edited by midiman
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Vista has been outstanding so what went wrong?

I haven't had single problem with Vista myself. However, several things did give it that bad reputation:

-OEMs shipping computers with way too low specs (512MB RAM, integrated GMA video...) i.e. a cheapo low-end XP box, knowing full well it runs like crap (and then loading it with crapware too)

-some pre-SP1 issues

-drivers that weren't up to par for a while (*cough* nvidia *cough*)

-lots of people moving to 64 bit, and blaming those problems (lack of 64 bit drivers for any version on Windows) on Vista

-folks that have used XP for many years and don't welcome change or are afraid of it

...

Many little things, most of which aren't Vista's fault.

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:thumbup Vista has been the best OS I've ever used and I still love it and that's why I've fallen head over heels for Windows 7!! :rolleyes: It's what Vista should have been when it was first released. Everything from installation to configuration is far easier including updates. Others do have a point though, why should they shell out more money for Windows 7 if they have just converted to Vista. No matter, I think Windows 7 is the BEST OS in the field and Microsoft has finally fielded a winner from the get go. :thumbup
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I also think that Vista is good. I tried 7 RTM, and I had problems with it. Something was eating my whole RAM memory after few hours, and it was pretty much unresponsive when I was doing some video processing, where Vista is very good. I probably got problems because some driver or some of the programs which I were using were not compatible/7 ready. I'll probably wait a bit more after 22 October to upgrade, so I can see if there are some known problems/fixes.

Cheers ;)

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I think to appreciate Win 7 you have to use it everyday. Testing it at first I thought it ran well but as I started to use it everyday I quickly realized it is much faster and very reliable. I have had a few minor issues with drivers but the Vista versions have fixed those problems. People that completely dismiss Windows 7 have probably not used it. At first I had my Windows 7 Dell laptop and my Dell Optiplex 740 desktop running XP. Sitting side by side I found the Windows 7 laptop was running apps faster than the XP box. I now run them both on Win 7 and have never looked back.

If you don't want to go to Windows 7 that's certainly your right. But as an admin I will be upgrading as soon as we can afford to do so. I see the stability and speed advantages as well as the security changes that I want my company to have.

Forget what happened with Vista. Try Windows 7 and really use it. I think you will hate it at first but it will quickly grow on you.

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  • 1 month later...

All the clients for whom I've setup Vista boxes are all quite happy. Of course they all have had 2-3GB of RAM and well spec'd machines (some of which I built!).

My personal beef with Vista and W7, too, is that when I need to configure a box I find I need to click about 30% more to get the same jobs done. Networking is a good example. It takes two or three more clicks to get to the same dialog boxes like Status than it does in XP. Throw in a UAC click through or two and the number of clicks balloons. If I have th box on my bench, I'll use the super admin account, but at a client location I don't normally do this and work straight from the normal account. for some things this saves checking if it works after I've set it up in the admin acc't.

Another thing that irks me is the little inconsistencies from version to version. Vista introduced an improvement in new folder creation and file renaming. The renaming included by default only the name, not the extension. Good enough. When a new folder is created Vista intelligently opens that folder for you when click outside the name field. That was good as it saved an extra click quite often, so it was useful. Now, in Win7 it has been changed! Not only does it no longer open after creation, it iinconveniently moves because of the automatic reordering and alphabetization which means in a folder with many subfolders you may have to search for the thing to open it. That wastes my time when I'm trying to download and save a file. Niggling maybe, but when you perform hundreds of the same type of operations over a couple of hours, it can be very very tedious and annoying because it doesn't have to be that way.

Why MS couldn't accommodate us admins by giving us the option of cliccking on something like an Advanced Mode, maybe like in NOD32 where you don't have to click through wads of googa to get something done. Yes, both Vista and W7 are pretty and there are many little niceties, but help with configuring isn't one of them! I use the Properties dialog a lot and in XP I just put the button on the Explorer bar and presto - one click. Now, I have to highlight file, right click scroll down and then click Properties. Fine if you only need to do it once. But did they remove what was useful functionality? (Like the menu in Explorer which at least you can restore).

Now add in the obscene tendency to grow ever larger as security "fixes" come in. A standard 6GB install grows to over 10GB in no time. Whatever for?? Well, I did find out that a lot of the "bloat" in Vista and W7 is due to what appears to be space used that is not. If you query Explorer on the amount of used space you will get a false reading, but they don't tell you or explain this very well. It turns out that a large portion of the files in WinSxS are hardlinked which means they show up in two places even though they are only one file. so many files get counted twice. Brilliant, eh? the weird part is that many imaging tools etc don't read the hardlink part so end up copying the file twice. I'd say this is pretty dumb even if it is smart tech.

The next thing has to do with whose machine is it anyways? Try and alter a few things in Program Data or Program Files and you'll likely run into the "You don't have permission" stuff. Oh yeah, you can take ownership of the file, change the permissions, then back out and rename that folder or file or whatever. But what a monumental pain if you know what you want to do and you don't want to waste time doing it! How about giving us a way to elevate our position level so that we can truly administer our own machines! Is that so bleeping difficult? I don't think so. Sheeeesh!

Okay, so enough of the rant. The point is that for a normal user Vista is very usable and quite pleasant when set up properly with unneccessary services turned off, and unnecessary stuff turned off at start up. IE set to expunge Temp files on exit and so forth. I also include a small batch file to delete temp files at startup and a few things like that. So far I haven't had a callback on any of the Vista machines I've setup for folks. W7 is Vista redux and they've removed some stuff and moved it to Live Essentials (ha). It runs better on older machines and even in 1GB without much of a problem.

Edited by DonDamm
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I'd have to say that the biggest reason why Vista has gotten a bad rap was because OEMs had to drop XP. You couldn't ever get a computer with XP (Vista Downgrade Rights) from a store. And all stores would sell low-end PCs so they could have a lower price on them. Vista works better on computers that may well have the minimum requirements of Crysis. I applaud Microsoft for saying "enough is enough" and making Atom CPUs not supported for Vista. Also Microsoft changed the way Vista used memory, which without consumer re-education, led to many users thinking Vista was not working properly.

I, myself, have not had a problem using Vista. Yes the UAC is annoying, but then again the UAC was not designed for people like me. I know many people who use Vista, and are (as they say) "computer illiterate" that have been saved by the UAC. If I had my way, I'd run Vista in Audit Mode forever!

So, Windows 7 is indeed an improvement over Vista, in many ways. Let's hope nothing horrible happens (if it does, it's not my fault!) and people don't want to go back to Vista. :lol:

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I use the Properties dialog a lot and in XP I just put the button on the Explorer bar and presto - one click. Now, I have to highlight file, right click scroll down and then click Properties. Fine if you only need to do it once. But did they remove what was useful functionality? (Like the menu in Explorer which at least you can restore).

Wouldn't it be easier to just use Alt-Enter just like you can in Windows 3.1

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I use the Properties dialog a lot and in XP I just put the button on the Explorer bar and presto - one click. Now, I have to highlight file, right click scroll down and then click Properties. Fine if you only need to do it once. But did they remove what was useful functionality? (Like the menu in Explorer which at least you can restore).

Wouldn't it be easier to just use Alt-Enter just like you can in Windows 3.1

It works all right in XP, too!
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I also think people will upgrade, no one wants to use the previous version. People always have to stay in front and keep up with the Jone's. You don't want to be the odd one out not using the newest whiz bang OS! I myself personally skipped vista, and went from XP to Win 7. Haven't had any issues with 7 and I'm quite impressed by it.

My 2 cents :)

Cheers,

W

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not for me ;) I stay at Vista. it rocks and is perfectly stable (stability index is 10) and Windows 7 is horrible right now. The stability index is about 1,25, I have app crashes all the time, it is not faster compared to Vista, I'll get a lot of features as updates (DX11, Ribbon, BITS4, PowerShell2) so I don't need to upgrade.

He hype about Windows is just 2 words "missing knowledge".

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People always have to stay in front and keep up with the Jone's. You don't want to be the odd one out not using the newest whiz bang OS!

Nah. If you are happy using something that isn't the newest, then that's great. I only upgrade when I have to. Windows 7 might be the greatest thing since a grilled cheese sandwich, but if I don't really need it, then why bother?

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@awergh and dencorso Yes, Alt, Enter is always a possibility and that is what I do now, but it requires either my using the mouse in my left hand (which I did for a number of years, but prefer my right), or taking my hand off the mouse to hit the Enter key (I use the one on the number pad). Again it is an interuppting motion that slows things down. I'm fairly adept at the keyboard, but not a speed demon or whiz by any stretch. As time goes by I add ever more keyboard shorcuts to my repertoire, but it still requires a judicious use of mouse and keyboard strokes to be efficient. My point still stands that they removed useful functionality that causes me to do more work and take more time.

That is why for most of my customers I've set them up with a backup known good image with everything the way like it. When they call with a virus problem or the like, instead of spending hours scanning, cleaning, and rescanning "just to be sure", I find it saves immense amounts of my time as well as the customer's to just slap on that known good image. They're up and running within 15 miniutes or so. I get paid the same, so it works in my favor. :^)

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