I've been using Windows 7 for about 2 months now on my 6 year old stand-in computer (while I wait for new parts to come for my semi broken "new" computer). So rather than trying to h4x0r, I took advantage of the fact that Microsoft has been letting people download and use Win7 for free (in beta and still) up until June 2010 (at which point the system will reboot every 2 hours until you validate your install). Anyway, I really like it for the most part. I am not usually one who gets excited for superficial GUI enhancements. But I have found with Win7, that the GUI enhancements actually help my productivity, and my ability to manage more tasks at a time more neatly than other operating systems I've used. The new bar with the window previews (small and full screen) is probably the best thing I've seen implemented in a new OS for awhile. It took some getting used to, but now I use it all the time. It also has the ability to dock windows to the corners of the screen, so it become easier to set up split, or 4 way screen with different apps. I have not made full use out of this feature just yet, but other people I know have, and love it! In terms of speed the operating system is almost as good as XP, I'd say. But perhaps better in certain instances, and worse in others. They did rebuild the whole Windows architecture for this one, so it doesn't surprise me that it has different strengths and weaknesses. I mean I built this computer in 2003, so this thing is 6 going on 7 years old. It's a Pentium 4 2.8ghz 1gb of RAM, geforce fx 5900ultra. It was definitely a "monster" in its day, but today it's definitely behind even lower end systems. But it's still running this new operating system great, and I think a lot can be said for that. The ability to run, and run WELL on old hardware is a major strong point. I have not used it on my "new" PC yet, so I can't tell you how well it scales up. A good friend of mine just got a BluRay multimedia laptop w/ 18in screen w/ Win7 for watching movies and whatnot in his living room. I used it for a few minutes, and it seemed to be running VERY fast, no surprise really.
The few complaints I would say are not linked in any way to compatibility. Believe it or not I've found that most older applications run perfectly fine on Win7. The ones that have trouble have been easy to replace or update. It auto detected all of my hardware including a proprietary 5 year old WiFi card. It works just fine with all USB keys, hard drives (en mass quantity), and network functionality seems to be on par (which was really bad in Vista by comparison). I have noticed that while running certain applications such as Firefox, and heavy Flash stuff, it chokes a bit more than it should. But I tend to think that this is because of the applications, not the OS. I believe that the current incarnations of Flash and Firefox for Win7 are memory hogs with tons of leaks. As a result when I have 10-15 tabs open (which I do often) it will occasionally lock up. To compensate, Firefox always restores the session. Like I said, I think this has to do with the Firefox browser, not Win7. But it is worth noting that the third party stuff isn't all up to the same specs as the XP versions. It's a shame that people using Win7 will have to experience this, and will probably blame it on the OS. Either way, I think it will get better sooner. There has been a good reception for the OS this time, and it seems like it's going to take off. As a result, I'm sure development for the OS will take off, and it will become as fast or faster than XP soon enough. All in all, I say with the interface improvements and some of the organization changes, plus all the stuff I didn't mention ;) that the operating system is definitely worth an upgrade from XP at this point. It might be a bit slower for certain things right now, but that should be temporary, and the drawbacks are so thin that the benefits easily outweigh them.
That's my review. eric wrote:
Off topic, but how do you like windows 7 so far? Any compatibility issues? Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *From: * Alan Wolfe <alan.wolfe@xxxxxxxxx> *Date: *Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:04:17 -0700 *To: *<project1dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *Subject: *[project1dev] Re: Project1 - SVN Update 462 Thank you Chris (:On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 5:03 PM, Apache User <dhapache@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dhapache@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:User:crysalim Message: per Alan <Files Changed> A D3DX9_41.dll
