Windows 7: What's New? Comments

All sounds like good improvements. They're almost at Mac OSX 10.4! Taskbar=Dock, Aerothingy=Quicklook. Yadda yadda yadda - Apple folks, just move along, nothing to see here.....

Great article. Been looking to upgrade my netbook to W7, any idea on what would be the best method. I would prefer a legal one...

@Max Power: Well, you have to get a W7 RC copy and go to the Windows website where you will be provided with a product key (this is legal stuff). Or wait till Oct. 22 to get the final version (also legal, but not as friendly with your wallet). As for how to install Windows on a netbook, you might rely on a bootable thumb drive; there are tons of tutorials on the web on how to do it.

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Very nice article:) Aside from the obvious comparisons with OS X, we have to admit that Microsoft has finally nailed it with this one. Although there are still a few niggles, it's far easier to live with 7 than with Vista, or even XP.

Grabs popcorn and joins DrDark for the show...

Thanks for the article Stuart. I have a Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard, and so haven't looked into what W7 will provide, and how it compares to Vista. Vista was the reason I moved over to Apple, and I haven't looked back. However, it is nice to know how Microsoft are progressing with their OS. Ok, so their taskbar is looking more and more like the Apple Dock, but like you said, that's a good thing for Windows users. There are differences of course- whereas W7 displays thumbnails automatically when you move the cursor over, Apples Dock requires you to click-hold the app icon to see all it's windows in dock-exposé. There are advantages to each. Of course Apple doesn't need a security centre- just be careful what you are downloading and where from, that's all. But let's not get into an Apple vs Microsoft argument. The fact it, Windows 7 looks to fix all the issues I had with Vista (bar windows menu's still looking overly complicated), so fair-play to Microsoft.

@ Jim Fulton: True but I think its more to do with Microsofts marketing problems compared to Apple rather than simply poor programming and what not.

I think it's a fair assumption that both Microsoft and Apple both have an ideal operating system which will take years for the public to see (like nvidia and AMD with their graphics cards). I remember watching some documentary about Microsoft and they explained that releasing this fancy operating system now would be too much of a change and customers generally hate major changes so they try to ease things in. Of course it all equals more money, I certainly dont deny that, but the argument makes some sort of sense. Hence why I think they fail to hit the nail on the head a lot of the time because they dont quite understand what the public want and are looking for.

I've tried the release candidate of Windows 7 on a couple of machines now and there's no doubt in my mind it's a good OS. The performance is there, it feels pretty snappy and there's some nice tweaks. But... I can't help but think that it really is Vista without the bugs. There's very little in the way of new features I'm actually going to use, in fact about the only thing in this article that strikes me immediately as a major bonus is the wireless networking 'one click' function but frankly that should have been patched into XP and the fact it wasn't in Vista was just a joke.

Can't help but feel people like me that paid for Vista are getting screwed over here. Microsoft should have followed Apple's lead and treated this like Snow Leopard - £25 for an upgrade from vista copy. That would have at least been a goodwill gesture to those of us that got kicked in the crotch over that POS. Oh well, XP it is then...

@Jim Fulton. I think there is quite a bit for Apple folks to see here. I own a mac and love it, but i must say that the new task bar looks better than the dock. Aerothingy isn't anything like quicklook. Quicklook is useful for viewing files without having to open them, aerothingy is to look at open windows quickly from the taskbar - very different and useful feature that is implemented better that expose in my opinion. Also aero shake and automatic resizing by dragging the window to the side of the screen is something apple should think about putting into osX. While there are plenty of things lifted straight from apple there are also useful original features that should make any apple user stop and take notice rather than move along. (stikies looks like a good idea too - i don't like snow leopards skikies implementation)

10,338 items in your gmail inbox? I thought *I* was badly disorganised... ;-)

Interesting article. Are visual effects and aerostickythingyshaky things really what we should be judging the OS on though? Is it fair to say that it would be a simple task for some of the programmers out there to create software for the Mac which mimicks the most desired features of Windows 7, and vice versa? Or am I missing something?

It sounds like there's very little in the way of new stuff. It's a good chance for XP users to upgrade to the Vista codebase but I doubt many Vista users will pay the current prices for such a small upgrade.

The only feature that I'd find useful is the new way to make a window take up half the screen, but the current Vista method is still perfectly usable.

Bring on Windows 8 and some real improvements (like a decently structured user folder that you can specify the position of and better multimonitor support).

Indeed this seems much better than Vista which was an utter disaster, but ever since I have switched to Mac OS X, I have not really looked back - perhaps there are good ideas here for Apple to copycat. I will definitely use 7 on my gaming PC, because Vista is such a resource hog, and on netbooks 7 will really help too.

Dreamscene isn't gone it's just hidden, you can get it back with a few tweaks (maybe a bit of a light word for it but close enough).

And what do you mean thankfully gone? I like dreamscene, it's oddly soothing...

Just a reminder that Windows 7 Home and Professional versions are available to students on the Microsoft website for £30.... I ordered my copy of Pro 64 bit a couple of days ago.

Very Mac-ish. Personally, I don't have many gripes with Vista - it has served me well. I guess it depends on how hard you work the operating system. Whether there is a compelling reason to upgrade will depend on the deatils coming in future articles. I look forward to those. Earlier there was talk of Windows Mail not being included in W7, with a third party email program needed. Any clarification on this?

Ordered my copy for £50 from Play and can't wait to get it. Been running the Beta then RC on my spare machine for ages and they worked real nice. Was holding out installing on my main notebook cos I always do a fresh install and didn't want to do it multiple times.

Win 7 is great but I still think there's nothing wrong with Vista. Besides being a resource hog, if you've got a computer with enough power it runs great. Can't understand why anyone would choose to run XP instead if they have the right hardware and don't need the extra compatibility.

I think the biggest problem was the bad press. I've been using it since a few months after release and it was fine then. After two service packs it's even better and the few problems there were (copying files in particular) have long gone.

I also seem to remember TR giving it a 9 on review way back on release. Although you'd never know it from the coverage you guys give it these days.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/software/review/2007/01/30/Microsoft-Windows-Vista/p1

@article: I'm pretty sure the MSPaint I'm running on XP right now can open and save PNGs...

@Xamph: I beat you both: 16,207 :P

@Cub: I wish people would stop finishing my popcorn!
Thankfully it doesn't seem to have kicked off yet, but I expect that could come with the review. As it stands, I can't comment on OSX except that it looks nice but I couldn't live without my Right-Click.
I spent a day with Vista and decided it wasn't for me (apart from the fact the driver/software support at launch was terrible, which put me off). I used the Win7 Beta for about a month and really liked it as, apart from maybe the shake-minimise-thing, I found all the new features quite useful and devoid of unnecessary fluff.

To sum up: I used the special pre-order price to get a copy of W7-Pro through Amazon, and am eagerly awaiting its arrival. This'll be the first time I've paid for a stand-alone copy of Windows since I was born.

I was quite happy with Vista on service pack 1 for ages. Then I bought a new 500gb hd and thought I'd try win7 befrore I put my copy of Vista Ultimate on (for which I had purchased the hard drive.)
So I used RC for about 4 weeks and then wiped it to go back to my paid for copy of Vista. I hadn't really notice too much about 7 - I did really like the new task bar and a few other bits but thought back to vista and i'll think about it more when it get released.
What a mistake putting Vista back on was! Boot times became 3 times as long and the constant hard deive grinding really started to wind me up (I think at one point i shouted at my pc to just leave the hard drive alone - must have been a long day.)
So two weeks back into Vista I thought sod it - and went back to my happy existance that is a RC1.

Ooo and media is so much better than Vistas.

One question TR - Could you somewhere cover the differences bewteen Win 7 home, pro and ultimate? I've seen MS table about what features are in which version, and there only seems to be bitlocker really missing from ultimate going down to pro. After a few months of happy win 7 ult am I going find anything useful missing from my pro copy?
(i have ordered home for my htpc and pro for my desktop)

As well as right-clicking a taskbar icon, you can left-drag it upwards.

You get a swishy little transparency effect that way!

I'm still using Windows XP on all my PCs and totally avoided Vista for various reasons. I am very tempted to upgrade to Windows 7 once I've increased the RAM in my desktop machine but would also appreciate some advice on which version to get - Home, Professional or Ultimate.

I will be buying a new netbook/ultra portable laptop (with a screen resolution of more than 1024x600) in the next couple of months which I hope will come with Windows 7 so look forward to completely changing over to the new OS.

@bluepork, Yes! interface and ease of use are the main things you want when you spend a lot of time using an OS. Despite how good W7 is, i think many of us that are testing it or using it as our main system still have a lot of improvements. For instance why are Window outlines so thick?!

Since W7 is obviously a lot cheaper than inferior vista, will this be passed onto manufacturers and in turn consumers or pc's or notebooks with W7 pre-installed?

I've been using the RTM version since it was made available on Technet and can definately vouch for it. Takes a bit of time getting used to (just like Office 2007), but once you're there, you'll never look back.
Using on an old hpcompaq laptop, that struggled a bit with XP and now has new lease of life with it. Hardware ok apart from power management, but most applications are ok, apart from a few web based ones, but they're complaining over IE 8, not Win7 (Firefox with ie6 tab works wonders). Also due to our corporate group policies there are a few buggets and incompatibilities (we're not even on vista yet).
And annoyingly my desktop short cuts keep being deleted automatically in a slightly random fashion. Seems to be a known issue, but still very sloppy.
Otherwise big thumbs up, not perfect, but definitely progress.

Hi Orinj - I chose the Professional version of Windows 7 because it provides automatic backup to your home/business network, and file encryption is included in this version. There is also the opportunity to use XP mode, althought if you have the XP disc, install that on your first partition! Ultimate has these features and more, most notably Bitlocker for total drive encryption, and Bitlocker To Go for portable storage devices.

Been using the 64 bit RC on my main PC since it was released. Very happy and I have 3 of the cheapo pre-order ones due to be delivered on 22/10 when whole household will go Windows 7. It just works and does stuff well ... must be what Apple owners have been banging on about for years ;)

@DrDark - Seriously? You've proved how steeped in mythology OS X still is to people who haven't used it... It's had a right click/contextual menu for longer than I've been using it.

The shakey thing seems gimmicky, although I do like the touch of dragging a window to the left or right to semi-maximise it. My problem with the feature is that Microsoft seem to be highlighting it as a major feature, it would be a diddly little feature in any OS.

yes cause that placement of the menu bar is really well thought out :P

IMO theres no need to compare this to OSX, they are both used for different things, personally I mainly use my PC for games and downloading, a Mac can only do one of them without me having to jump through some hoops.

I've been using W7 for ages now, since the 2nd or 3rd beta. Best OS atm imo (talking windows only - i dont use macs), I've used Vista and while it can be decent on a PC with decent specs my main reservation is why should I have to use so much just to get the OS working, would much prefer to use those resources for things I want to do, which is why I quickly reverted back to XP. For me W7 has all the best features of both without any of the negatives (that ive noticed at least). I have the professional version and it is my main OS now, I would more run W7 32 and 64 bit than W7 and XP now.

My only issue... where is the dual monitor support???? Surely I am not the only person in the world who uses more than one screen

As I type this, I'm using two monitors with the Win 7 RC. Seems to work fine to me...

With the recent Snow Leopard review and the upcoming Windows 7 review will you being reviewing a Linux distribution such as the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10. I think in the spirit of choice that you should. Please note I am not trying to start a flame war as everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I think you really should review a Linux distribution to offer a balance.

yea should have really been clearer, was more thinking of any support for people that use dual monitors, on XP i can understand having to use ultramon but would have expected by now that functionality like this would have been built in and built upon to allow us to use Windows in more effecient and creative ways. I personally need a task bar on each screen to be able to work effeciently.

what exactly is the file encryption in professional version? is it a bit like when you right click on a file and it offers to encrypt a file or folder?

@Cub: No, I meant literally meant my middle finger would miss its Right-Click action :P. I've just been a Windows PC user for too long (and a gamer) to ever thing about switching. You have fun though ;).

@gredawarha: LOL, Linux! Isn't that just for nerds?
I'm kidding, I'm kidding! ;) A comparative review would indeed me nice.

Please excuse the typos in my previous post. I hang my head in shame, and the only excuse I have is that I hadn't had my coffee yet :(.

@drdark

Linux for nerds?

No Linux is for sane people who do not want to pay tens of £ on an OS then tens of £ on software and then tens of £ on anti virus software that reduces the capability of your machine.

;-)