Windows 7 review

[swampler]

Originally Posted by waple

I'm running Vista x64 and the EOS Utility works fine, at least the remote shooting part of it. That's all I ever use so I don't know if there's another part that doesn't work.

I could have sworn the Canon site said it didn't support 64 bit Vista for that, but I must have been mistaken. Sorry about that. First time for everything. :

[felix.reichardt]

[QUOTE=loraksus;630861]I'm downloading it, but it's because I'll be supporting clients who use it. I've completely lost faith in Microsoft's ability to release even half decent software. Perhaps I'm cynical, but this comic illustrates how most techs feel.

Why complaining - if it pays your bills ...

[felix.reichardt]

Writing this from Win7

Downloaded and installed Win7 on VMWare first. No issues at all very impressive. Absolutely in love with the new explorer and taskbar. Installed it then as dual boot on my quad core (Q6600) and GTS 8000 graphics machine with 4GB Ram. Backed everything up before ... any new images are first imported on vista and backed up - just in case.

Is it faster? Hard to say for me. Any office 2003 application opens on my machine opens in a heartbeat (maybe 1/4 sec. or faster) even for the first time (no chaching). LR and PS take aorund 2-3 secs.

Had no issues with drivers so far. No bluescreen or hanging system. Kinda scarry for a beta .

What I like to see is that instead of marking active application with a frame on the taskbar an option to have them colored differently. And why is are the signal stregth bars for my wireless USB adaptor gray instaed of green as in vista?

The new explorer has a much cleaner interface than before. On can customize it to the old look but I really like it the way it is in Win7.

Now I have to get the license key from my vista desktop and key it in before its too late. A smart place to keep it when you do an installation from booting the machine

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by felix.reichardt

Absolutely in love with the new explorer and taskbar.

I must be missing something. The farther Microsoft has strayed from the WinXP explorer, the less happy I've become.

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by felix.reichardt

The new explorer has a much cleaner interface than before. On can customize it to the old look but I really like it the way it is in Win7.

How

[felix.reichardt]

Originally Posted by JDArt

I must be missing something. The farther Microsoft has strayed from the WinXP explorer, the less happy I've become.

Honestly, what is so great with the XP explorer? Tell me what is wrong with the Win7 one What exactly are you missing? I can't really see anything you could not do as fast or convinient as in XP.

Sorry, I think you cannot really customize it to look as in XP but I personally don't miss that at all.

[cdao]

Does anyone know if Window 7 supports both 32 and 64 bits ?

[felix.reichardt]

Yep, you can download 32 and 64 versions.

[loraksus]

Originally Posted by felix.reichardt

Honestly, what is so great with the XP explorer? Tell me what is wrong with the Win7 one What exactly are you missing? I can't really see anything you could not do as fast or convinient as in XP.

Sorry, I think you cannot really customize it to look as in XP but I personally don't miss that at all.

Change for the sake of change pisses some people off because it is unnecessary.

I understand a lot of changes in the Vista/7 UI - but making everyone on desktops suffer because you dream that one day everyone will own a touch screen or a high res display is dumb. And that's why everything is annoyingly large and cluttered.

The UI isn't any faster, dragging something over a shortcut to a folder on a network drive will still hang the UI, just like it did in windows 95, 98, 2000, xp, 2003, vista, 2008. It would be nice if the ui didn't hang while waiting for a network response or a network timeout, but apparantly microsoft can't understand the concept of threads in programming.

Opening "Computer" is still slow if your cd drives have to speed up.
Search is still slow and full of suck and fail. Not that XP's was good.

For some reason, the date column data isn't formatted properly, ensuring that it looks uneven and messy - and is difficult for the eye to follow. They might as well just set the default font to be comic sans.

Way too much glass is used, oodles of screen space are wasted. And on low resolution displays, this sucks. Programmers are apparantly unaware that people still buy laptops or LCDs with low screen resolutions.

In short, what makes the 7 version any better than the XP one?

And yes, it supports both 32 and 64 bits. And if they don't kill the 32 bit version by release, we're going to have the same crap driver situation we had with Vista. People still suck at coding 64 bit drivers, so maybe it's for the best.

[felix.reichardt]

Why does your desktop suffer? Give some examples.

One day everyone will have high resolution displays believe me. Most current displays are high res. Not sure how you define high resolution. Why would anybody want to torture himself with a low resolution screen

You can customize your desktop items smaller actually to any size. Most programs have a customizing function to have smaller or bigger icons. You can even customize the behaviour of task/menu and notification bar items ...
New taskbar to big? you can actually make it smaller with small icons.

Now, I never liked the XP explorer but thats maybe just me. The new interface looks much cleaner and organized to me.

Right mouse click on an application you can see the last opened documents and directly open it, neat feature IMO. I think they call them jumplists.

Libraries make a lot sense to me. You can add a location on a network or external drive and take them offline without the pointer being lost. Take the resource online and its content is available to the resource immediately. Working over distributed locations seems easier with that to me. You might be able to doing this in XP but its just easier now (to me).

I dont understand your comment with the date: I set it to dd.mm.yyyy same with the time in 24h format and it perfectly sorted by date and even more usefull grouped into today, last week, etc like in outlook. Try it out in localization, it works.

Search works for me actually. If you don't find something it might have to do with (or better not) index(ed) locations.

I think the applications open a tad faster but that might be just a feeling and I cannot measure it.

Driver desaster? Never had that issue with Vista personally but I was on 32 bit then. If you miss drivers in 32 or 63 bit blame the suppliers of 3rd party hardware. Same goes for 64 bit application support.

Speed? I found this tests:

Windows 7 beta 1 performance - How does the OS compare to Vista and XP? | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com
Overclockers.com - Windows XP vs Windows 7 - Benchmarks

I suggest to give feedback to MS for every thing you don't like or want. That's what beta software is actually released for ... Just complaining does not help.

I find that windows 7 starts faster after a boot. In XP or Vista I have to wait longer till the system has settled.

Some things I don't like in Win 7

- no preview for Office 2003 docs in the new explorer pane
- signal strength indicator is gray on gray
- active applications would be better visible by coloring them instad of the box imo

Originally Posted by loraksus

Change for the sake of change pisses some people off because it is unnecessary.

I understand a lot of changes in the Vista/7 UI - but making everyone on desktops suffer because you dream that one day everyone will own a touch screen or a high res display is dumb. And that's why everything is annoyingly large and cluttered.

The UI isn't any faster, dragging something over a shortcut to a folder on a network drive will still hang the UI, just like it did in windows 95, 98, 2000, xp, 2003, vista, 2008. It would be nice if the ui didn't hang while waiting for a network response or a network timeout, but apparantly microsoft can't understand the concept of threads in programming.

Opening "Computer" is still slow if your cd drives have to speed up.
Search is still slow and full of suck and fail. Not that XP's was good.

For some reason, the date column data isn't formatted properly, ensuring that it looks uneven and messy - and is difficult for the eye to follow. They might as well just set the default font to be comic sans.

Way too much glass is used, oodles of screen space are wasted. And on low resolution displays, this sucks. Programmers are apparantly unaware that people still buy laptops or LCDs with low screen resolutions.

In short, what makes the 7 version any better than the XP one?

And yes, it supports both 32 and 64 bits. And if they don't kill the 32 bit version by release, we're going to have the same crap driver situation we had with Vista. People still suck at coding 64 bit drivers, so maybe it's for the best.

[felix.reichardt]

Some other features I am just discovering fromthis site:

Tim Sneath : The Bumper List of Windows 7 Secrets

1. Burn ISO Images directly from Win7
2. Windows docking, for guys like me often have to view 2 documents in parallel. Move 2 documents withthe mouse to the left/right and they will automatically cover each 1/2 the screen. WIN + Left/Right dows the same.

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by loraksus

Opening "Computer" is still slow if your cd drives have to speed up.

What? Never heard of this issue.

[TheRileyFactor]

Just installed Win7 on my laptop that for all intents and purposes should not be able to run it, and it runs GREAT! It actually runs faster than XP used to, with fewer hang-ups... I did have a problem with it hanging when copying files from ZIP archives, but a little bit of DOS action fixed that problem... Other than that the only problem I have is with Intel... they are not updating their drivers for the 852 series graphics chipsets, so I'm stuck with the basic microsoft "VGA Device" drivers, which sucks... and my Playstation Emulator doesn't work, but I think thats because of the lack of drivers for my graphics adapter so its Intel's fault, not Microsofts...

Overall I love this new taskbar, its really cool! I also like the search feature, its much faster than the search on Vista, and I actually use it, unlike the one on Vista and previous editions of windows...

I just got it installed today, so I'm still learning all the intricacies, but so far its really cool...

Oh... and Cisco Systems VPN Client causes it to hang on startup, but thats also Cisco's fault for not updating the client for Vista, where it did the same thing without a Kernel update, So I am just using the VPN client built into Win7, and its much easier to use than the Cisco one and is very fast...

So far I'm impressed (now that I got the file copying problem worked out)

[TheRileyFactor]

Oh, and I just installed Lightroom, and it opens darn-near instantly where it took XP ages to load it up

[swanseamale47]

Originally Posted by JDArt

MS releases the official beta on Friday. Only 2.5 million downloads will be allowed, so get there fast:

Welcome to Windows 7

Every release is a Beta untill about service pack 4.

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by TheRileyFactor

Oh, and I just installed Lightroom, and it opens darn-near instantly where it took XP ages to load it up

Yeah, I'm impressed with the speed every time I use it. I also run into things that are incompatible with it almost every time I use it, too. Bummer.

[felix.reichardt]

Originally Posted by JDArt

Yeah, I'm impressed with the speed every time I use it. I also run into things that are incompatible with it almost every time I use it, too. Bummer.

Like what?

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by felix.reichardt

Like what?

Directory opus, most antivirus programs, logitech webcam drivers. Essentially any hardware drivers you really on are going to be hit-or-miss. Almost nothing officially supports Win7 at the moment.

[TheRileyFactor]

I've read that most drivers that work in Vista will work in 7... I have McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.7ii and it works perfectly on Win7... I donno about webcams and Directory opus tho... never used either...

[felix.reichardt]

All vista drivers should work in Win7. My Logitech 4000 webcam work perfectly so far at least I was able to video skype with Kelly. My advice download the vista drivers for your hardware and try it. All my vista drivers for various hardware work so far.

Antivirus: Norton, Mcaffee and AVG support Win7 with their own betas ...