Microsoft Windows 7 Comments

Good reviews, I've been using the Beta for several months, and have overall positive opinions of it. Something I've not been able to work out, in the past, with a new install it was beneficial to install Mobo drivers, is this now part of the Win7 package?

All is forgiven TR. Vista actually introduced a lot of these features. I could never get a home network set up with XP, and Vista made that a lot easier. In essence Vista brought us the features of Windows 7, whilst Windows 7 improved the performance.

If there was one feature in this release I couldn't live without now, it would be libraries. A simple networking feature, but for those of us with large external hard drives, priceless.

On the point about it being a no-brainer for XP die hards to upgrade, I don't totally agree.

One of the reasons I keep my home destop and home laptop on XP is that my PC at work is on XP, and it makes my life easy to have the same interface for everything. I know is sounds like a basic point (and kind of makes me sound like a simpleton), but using W7 at home, and XP at work would just give me a headache.

I was running a beta version on an old laptop but I upgraded my main desktop at home to Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) last night. I did a fresh install and it took less than 20 mins!

It took a further 3-4 hours to install my software & copy my data back to the machine but what's 4 hours worth of hassle when I'll be using it for up to 6 or 7 hours a day, every day?

Windows 7 is fantastic. The only issue I had is that it doesn't like my old Netgear print server, nor an old internal media card reader (driver issue). But that's not Microsoft's fault.

It Windows 7 an essential upgrade for home users? Yes, unless you want to stay stuck well and truly back in the dark ages! After using Windows 7, I find myself missing little features when I use Vista on my laptop. I have no idea what I will feel like using Windows XP after using Windows 7, XP is bound to feel quite primitive and 'old hat'.

I think the best new feature is the new task bar. People will say they have just copied Apple, but I'd argue they looked at Apple's idea and made it better! I have no idea why people think copying ideas is such a bad idea, it seems to work well in every other industry!

@ Tim Rice

Really? I've never heard of being confused by an Operating System before.

If we all did things to 'keep it simple', we'd still be living in caves and making grunting noises at each other instead of using language ;-)

I don't think I can justify upgrading my 'home PC' to Windows 7 from XP. I just don't use it enough :( Parallels on OS X aside, I think I'll only be exposed to Windows 7 running natively if I have to buy a new PC *shudder*. Still, I'd be more likely to buy a PC running Windows 7 than I ever would have been running Vista.

@Steve - "living in caves making grunt noises" [insert appropriate joke].

I have used ubuntu quite a bit, never a mac. Win 7 much "nicer" to use so far. I have stuck it on my netbook, although I now have to rollback the bios, as the asus eee pc boots into a black screen using the latest firmware. How pants is that ?
Justin case anyone else is upgrading their asus eee pc to win7: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=63510

Sits backs and waits for the fanboi-ism to start.

I'm sorry but Vista's issues should have been immediately obvious (as they were to me).

In spite of this TR's gave it 9/10.

Since you were _so_ wrong about Vista, why should I trust your review of Windows 7?

@ Steve

Thanks for the reply. My point was more about consistency, rather than keeping it simple. As you (or another Steve) point out in an earlier comment, once you get used to a certain set of new features in W7, you don't want to give them up. At the very least, it is likely to be a annoying when you arrive at your work desk each day.

I think there are a lot of low-tech PC users out there (like me perhaps!) who would naturally tend towards OS consistency with their work PC, and also take a phychological lead from the OS they use for long periods during the working day.

I'll save you all some time. Just buy it :-)

I have MSDN subscription and have been using Windows & from the first version. I was stunned the first time I installed it and it found every single driver for me. I had only ever saw this on Linux before. I don't think Vista does this but I could be wrong.

With every build it has got better and better. Since vista came out I have uninstalled it from maybe 20-30 PC's of friends and family putting XP in its place. They don't buy expensive equipment and even with 4 gig mem and dual core I find Vista unusable. Its that spinning circle every time I do something and forget about aero effects unless you have a good graphic card.

I got a new Acer Aspire 150 netbook, usual 1 gig ram and atom proc. Usb install of W7 took 10-15 mins. Then I found that even when writing on word, hovering over the taskbar with a video playing in WMP actually showed the video running. No slowdown, again amazed. Fanboy mode off.

XP fanboy to friend:
"XP is better than 7 because it's SIMPLE!"

Caveman #1 to Caveman #2:
"Square-wheel is better than Round-wheel because it's SIMPLE!"

Good review and im glad you pointed out vista has come a long way since release. I near put my PC through the wall out of frustation when upgrading 2 years ago but the last year its been great. I wouldn't go back to XP. I bought windows 7 for £45 (thanks amazon) and it arrived yesterday. I had a few problems with the RC client which Im hoping have now been fixed. Will do a new install tonight or tomorrow, very much looking forward to it :)

@SB - ASUS latest eee pc BIOS revisions fix the black screen issues - go to the last page of the link you posted and it even says so. Doh !!!!

The points raised above about not wanting to move on from a prior OS is partially why Microsoft et al refrain from releasing the really cool stuff they have in reserves years too early. Of course, incremental upgrades from OS to OS keep the monies rolling in but if they jumped their OS to where the believe it should be at (chances are it has already been developed in some R&D room too) people just wouldnt buy it. It would frighten them off.

Having grown up with computers and particularly Windows I would suggest that people in my shoes are a little more "adaptable" in shifting from one OS to another. Having witnessed my mums attempts at simple Windows tasks I can fully accept why some would be reluctant to shift OS and would prefer to stick to the one they know best and use at work!

Sticking to XP is no bad thing. Comparatively speaking, it took years before the likes of Vince Clarke and Norman Cook ditched their beloved Atari's and ancient gear and it did them no harm at all.

Quick to boot up, easy on system resources, intuitive interfaces, troubleshooters that actually work and correct problems, nice backward compatibility... I could go on and on, but I won't. Well done Microsoft.

"style to boot" well in my eyes it's just the same old CHEAP overdesigened spacetrash look...

@rellik: There's always one who has to twist the knife...

As the review states, Vista really isn't as bad as it's often made out to be. TR weren't the only critics to sing its praises, and I reckon the reason for the acclaim was simple - few of Vista's initial issues were even noticed by many critics. If you had a fast PC with hardware that happened to be well catered for with reliable drivers, Vista worked pretty well from day 1 (silly issues like file copying excepted). The improvements made over XP were plain to see. It was only once vocal users with particular hardware reported their problems that widespread derision broke out, and Vista was almost universally panned.
For the most part, Vista's issues have since been resolved, so perhaps TR's review was more forward-looking than most. I was hoping they'd buck the trend and defend their opinion of Vista. Oh well...

@ Ardjuna

"Steve, have you actually TRIED switching between two different versions of Windows on a regular basis?"

All the time. XP at work, Vista Business on my Vaio Z, Win7 now on my desktop (and on the Vaio X I ordered), plus I have a MacBook for good measure.

Do I find it confusing? No :-)

One real let down is no system wide spelling checker as found in Mac OS X. Seems a very poor omission? Microsoft are still playing catch up when they should be leading. I switched to Mac at home for all my family 3 years ago now and having looked at Windows 7 it would not tempt me back. Nothing too wrong with Windows 7 just not as nice and integrated as the Apple experience!

Maybe I'm not a power user who spends a lot of time digging around in the innards of my OS, but I really don't have any problems switching between XP at work and Vista at home - I even use a mac as well to complete the hat-trick.

Will definitely be loading 7 when amazon sends me my copy.

@Steve: SuperSteve more like!

@Mike B: I can spell...

@Chris

That's my point. Vista was released to unanomous praise across the board. Not one major reviewer gave it a negative review. Now we're hearing exactly the same thing about Windows 7. After putting up with Vista for over a year I switched back to XP. I've been using Windows 7 since it was released to MSDN and while it is better than Vista (little things have been returned, like giving you feedback when defragging), it's still not good enough.

Regarding the using multiple OS', I'm sure switching between versions of windows is tricky, there are enough changes between versions to become irritated at the lack of a feature in the lesser version. I switch between Snow Leopard at Home and XP at work... I loose count of how many times I tap the wrong keyboard shortcuts in each OS or try to use Expose at work. We should be upgrading to 7 within the next year, believe it or not, I can't wait.

@Cub: "..., believe it or not, I can't wait."
*faints*

Just got mine delivered at work from Amazon. I'm looking forward to a geeky Saturday doing a clean install and seeing how much snappier it is than Vista (which weirdly over the last 7 or so days in now taking an age to login).

Did anyone else miss the browser ballot screen after install? I saw no sign of it, wonder if it was bypassed because of Easy Transfer process?

Are you guys really debating how hard it is to use multiple OS'?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHvGUXK_-kc
Enough said.

@Deb - No sign of it here after a fresh install - though I read that the European Commission and Microsoft are still working out the details.

For Windows 7, the highest praise I can give it is that, on my Mac/PC setup, Windows no longer feels like a second class citizen and has become (almost) a pleasure to use. Well worth the pre-order.

@Steve
You sound a little condiscending LOL
Leave poor Tim alone not everyone is an egghead like you, I know many people who have better things to do in life than study the inner workings of windows, they do get confused. The OS should be as simple as possible to all who use it, not everyone is on the same stratum of intelligence as you. Indeed those who rush out and buy this I consider even more foolish after what was windows vista.

I'm sticking with XP because £75 is a little expensive for a family sized aero bar.

On my last check - 15GB to run XP emulator surely MS did it for the lulz.

@rellik:
Fair enough, but I suppose it's impossible for a critic to test software on an infinite number of possible hardware configurations. You can't really blame anyone for that, just appreciate that critics have limited scope.

As for Windows 7, it represents a far smaller technical jump than the leap made from XP to Vista. Most Vista drivers seem to be friendly with 7 and there's also been a massive public beta programme this time around, perhaps designed to expose precisely the kind of reaction that Vista received. It seems unlikely that we'll be seeing the same problems this time around.

@Gordon

Agreed - you are just one of many reviewers singing Windows 7's praises. As you were with Vista

@Chris

I'm not talking about performance, which TR has already shown in its Windows 7 performance article is still inferior (by and large) to XP's. I'm talking about usability. The mess that is the registry, the mess that is the control panel, the invisible GUI widgets such as the system menu in the Windows explorer window. Let's get this straight - Windows has an invisible box in the top left of its main file explorer interface which if you, knowing it's there, click the old system menu appears. An invisible GUI widget!

Thanks Andy for the great review. I am still

Ryan: It seems fairly obvious to me that Win 7 is not a round wheel to XP or Vista's square... they've cut back the sharp edges and smoothed it off - but an octagon is still less than perfect as a wheel. My point? Win 7 is not the pinnacle of potential OS design and implementation. It has some improvements over the previous versions in various areas, not all of which are going to be necessary to many users. Meanwhile there will be drawbacks to switching to Win 7, just as there were with Vista. Ultimately this means that some users may genuinely be better off sticking with XP. Hardly neanderthal thinking.

Chris: I can see perfectly well why TR have not stood by their original review of Vista. For me the advantages of Vista over XP were largely cosmetic, and outweighed by the disadvantages. It was not simply a question of compatibility; in fact I had very few compatibility issues with Vista. There were however plenty of other extremely irrating problems, like user folders being shuffled around, duplicated and misdirected for no sensible reason. Or the way it has problems doing something as simple as copying or moving files, even with a fairly powerful system. Problems like these STILL continue to plague me (and other users), even with the latest updates.

Thanks Andy for an excellent review. I am very tempted, and the positive feedback from beta testers has been encouraging. The only thing holding me back is that I need to be convinced that the problems I've experienced with Vista (see above) won't reoccur in an OS which is very similar in many ways. And I suspect that won't be revealed until Win 7 has seen some extended use by the general public.

Best OS ever. Kudos to MS this time around...

@Ardjuna

It's still early days, but out of all the OS's I use, I must say, I do like Windows 7. I think even the most inexperienced of users will enjoy using Windows 7. Windows 7 can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, but at the end of the day anyone who uses it will be able to do what they want to do with the minimum of fuss. That's the sign of a great OS in my book.

Should I go with 32 or 64-bit ?

@ Ed

Screen shot tool? Tell us more...!

Win7 is being massively over-hyped. It's actually becoming quite annoying to me how every site, forum, blog and media outlet is touting it to be greater than riding a robotic T-Rex with Elvis whilst eating sliced bread. It makes me wonder not if Microsoft have taken a leaf from Apple's software engineers, but if they've taken something from their marketing department.

That said, it's not a bad release at all. It's better than Vista for sure, whether it's better for you than XP is purely down to your personal needs from your personal computer. Try it out and see if it works well for you.

I'm back on XP on my main rig for now, but only because as a rule of thumb I don't rely on new Windows releases until around SP1. Compatibility issues aside, there's almost always a gigantic spanking bug or two that gets completely missed in the betas and RCs and causes havoc...

Watch this space for a Win7 specific "Remote Code Execution" bulletin. :P

@Ed
Do you mean the snipping tool? If so, that was in Vista.

Win 7 does feel very snappy. Of course some of that will be down to the fresh install. Let's give it a few months then see.

@ luan bach: 64bit I would recomend (and to everyone) all products that are windows 7 certified have to work 100% with 64bit unless there is a specific reason to stay on 32bit make the jump to 64bit.

as for the win7/xp thing I had nothing but bad trouble with xp (HT not working and loads of crashes) and then nothing but good with vista, win7 is far better than both so have no problems moving if only to keep up with the times

@Luan - I'd say if your computer's capable, then go with 64-bit Windows. I have now used 64-bit Windows Vista & 7 and have noticed no downsides. Plus the OS can now use all 4GB of my PC's memory.

To those wondering, there is not performance drop off the longer your use Windows 7. Windows XP slowed down a lot after installing programs, but I can assure you that I've been using the Release Candidate since June and no performance tail off.

W7 Feels just as snappy as when first "clean" installed, and even better the start up time you get when you first install it, is the start up time you'll get long after you've installed lots of programs. Those still using Xp will be quite surprised in the responsiveness of the new OS.

I can't wait to try it on a netbook. I've tried xp on the well reviewed Toshiba netbook on TR, and it was so slow and sluggish. W7 should improve things a lot.

I installed my copy of 64 bit Windows 7 Professional on a laptop - quick and responsive. The back-up tool is a joy to use - very simple and effective in execution. The next challenge is to install Win 7 Home Premium on the NC10.

I'll stand up for the original reviewers of Vista ... I didn't have any showstopping problems with it (the slow file copying was irritating, but it was fixed), and in most respects it was a huge step forward from XP ... something I was acutely reminded of when I bought a netbook. But Windows 7 is something else ... It is the most productive and helpful UI I know, and I've tried them all - jumplists and libraries might seem like incremental changes, but they transform how you work with files from day to day. And it seems to me missing the point to suggest that the taskbar is like the Mac dock ... The latter is a handy application manager, but the taskbar is what it says ... a task manager, and it seems to me that there is an interesting difference opening up between OSX and Windows ... the former thinking of tasks in terms of applications, while the latter sees them as documents/windows. It's a subtle difference, but it affects your productivity. Thing is if you put XP against OSX the Apple fanboys have a point. As the feature here points out, mature Vista is better than usually given credit, but Win7 is good enough to redefine the terms of the argument.

I've been installing Windows 7 for the last few hours. It's a great OS, hey what's the alternative! But I'm still annoyed right now, in this day and age, that I have to go into the registry to stop the low disc space warnings and I have to put in a number string and go through a conveluted process to get "my computer" on the taskbar rather than the stupid "libaries".. which wants to come up instead.

@Andy Vandervell
Hi Andy, the price you put for Win7 Home Premium Upgrade is wrong. Tesco is selling it for £59.99.
I got mine when I went for my tuna chunks ;)
Cheers

Over the years I've had to deal with Vista and all of its ups and downs.

The ups? A much better looking OS than XP, quick search in the Start menu and a bunch of other things I can barely remember seeing as how they've been drowned out by all the negatives.

The downs? Lol, where do I begin? The slowdowns, the freezing, the blue screens of death, my optical drive kept being unrecognized, it just frustrated me to no end, never before did a piece of technology get my blood boiling, but Microsoft found a way.

So I ended up being pushed in other directions, Mac was always there taunting me with her beautiful figure and sumptuous "features." But I didn't have the money (nor did I really want to) to spend on their products.

So Linux was the only option left, I tried Ubuntu through Woobi and I really, really liked it. So I ended up dual booting it with Vista and spent my life in it. Sure there were things I missed, my notebooks' web cam didn't work and no Chrome :( (that one really bugged me seeing as how I think it has the best UI of all the browsers, and it's freaking fast!). But I accepted its limitations and moved forward.

Then Windows 7, the beta, I abstained, didn't see the point, Ubuntu was already a MUCH better OS in terms of performance and stability than Vista and I had a phobia of all things Windows (I didn't go window shopping for months, true story :; ).

Then the RC came out and people were singing the praises from the beta and Microsoft was allowing people to use the RC for up to a year! And after all the positive stories about it in the TR news section (among other places) I decided to download and try it out. And lo and behold I was impressed! The more I use it the more I like it, the exact opposite of Vista where I felt like I was in a marriage that was slowly deteriorating and everyday I thought "For the love of God will this nightmare ever end!?"

It was a welcome change from Vista and XP (an OS I was seriously thinking of downgrading to, but like most North Americans I'm lazy :P). Sure it had its ups and downs but this time the downs were drowned out by the ups.

The ups? Fantastic UI! I mean it, it is so much better than XP and Vista, from the new taskbar that finally allows you to pin programs, from the jump lists that get you fast access to recently used items like documents, to little things like Aero Snap (a feature I absolutely love), to the changing wallpapers at intervals you set (I know third party programs have done this for a while now but it is nice to have it natively and not to have to run a program in the background using up precious resources), it just feels like a better OS than Vista/XP, it's the little things.

The downs? Well it is still Windows after all! Running all kinds of security software (I realize that's expected but I guess I was spoiled a bit by Ubuntu) thankfully there are lots of free stuff to use, so no added expense there.

Some freezing still happens (not nearly as often as before) but it's so annoying when it does. 7 seems to use memory a lot better too, I have yet to have one low memory pop-up since I've been using the RC (something that happened almost daily with Vista).

But that's about it, all my software and drivers work on it (webcamming is back!).

So will I be getting one of the many versions to install over the RC? No. Not yet, I see no need right now to buy it. After the disaster I had with Vista, I'll be playing the waiting game (not too long though, this RC doesn't last for that long). I'll be waiting to see if the good times last longer than they did with Vista; then I'll be more confident in buying it.

I have to say this though, TR and all the usual suspects have been praising 7 to the sky, saying how great it is and how much better it is than the last version. But that's what they did with Vista, they all did it. And look what happened. Reading this site the last few years you would swear that Vista is inferior to Leopard yet anyone doing a quick search on this site will see that Vista scored a nine overall with a Recommendation and Leopard with a seven. How odd...

But you know what? I refused to take their words for it (sorry TR, you may be called TrustedReviews but I trust this review as much as I trusted the last one), and I tried it and I liked it! I've ditched Ubuntu for it and it's working really well.

Although I am still cautious about falling for Windows all over again, those new iMacs sure look tempting...

It would be handy if TR could add a comment about the scope of the upgrade editions. If I've read this website aright:

http://windows7news.com/2009/10/22/how-to-clean-install-from-windows-7-upgrade-media/

then it would suggest that all I ever need - ie whether it's literally an upgrade or a new install on blank HDD - is an upgrade edition of Win7 but it would be good to have this confirmed for EU versions of Win7.

And if this is the case then there would seem to be no need in the market for OEM editions of Win7 for small-scale PC makers (obviously mass PC manufacturers like Dell will be in a different position). But whether ot not the upgrade keycode is tied to some hardware signature at the time of activation isn't clear. Maybe Win7 is an unpublicised step towards a slightly more generous licensing stance by MS?

Anyone else byt he student edition from digital river. IT DOESN'T WORK AS IT SHOULD.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/10/23/workaround-to-fix-windows-7-unable-to-create-or-save-new-files-in-the-folder-error-when-unloading-box/

Un-be-liev-able.

@Ohmz
A much better looking OS than XP?

A simple tweak and XP can be themed to look the same as W7 minus aero FOR FREE.

@rellik, Ed:
Yep, I'd be all for a complete overhaul of Microsoft's OS; get rid of the registry, get rid of DLLs and the Control Panel, but I don't see it happening as MS have greater legacy issues to worry about than the likes of Apple. They can't make sweeping changes like that without upsetting existing software developers and the corporate user base. On the other hand, Apple have a far easier time dealing with legacy issues. When they specced Snow Leopard, they simply precluded anything other than Intel chips, which gave them more room to develop knowing they only had to support a single architecture. If only MS had that kind of freedom, maybe we'd see something amazing from them.

@MrGodfrey:
I've installed Vista SP1 and SP2 on over 30 of my newer office machines and I've never had any problems with it like those you describe, other than the usual Windows idiosyncrasies. I certainly wouldn't say it's generally any less reliable in SP1 guise than XP can be. Beyond that, I'll agree that there are usability issues (things like the user folders mixup was another legacy issue for the sake of XP compatibility) but they're pretty minor. I generally don't get complaints from our Vista users unless they're being pedantic, but most of our staff are pretty technical.

@Ohmz: I'm like you the disaster that Vista was made me look at Ubuntu. But unlike you I'm sticking with it now. By the way did you try installing Wine and running Chrome, not tried it myself like but I'm using Spotify in wine and it was so simply to setup, gone are the days of Linux and you having to be some super geek to get things working. You still sometimes need to get you hands dirty in Linux, but it's not usually too difficult and to be honest it's kind of fun now, the last time I tried Linux it was just too low level. And if you YouTube Karmic the next Ubuntu it just looks so amazing, nothing I've seen in W7 comes close.

The thing about W7 that would worry me is that Vista when it was in RC never slowed down it was nice & fast, but a couple of months after release when M$ had got all our money, security updates & most probably DRM patches ended up changing all this. Is it going to be different this time?, who knows but I'm in no rush to be ripped off again. It just seems like in the world of OS's it appears the saying "Better the devil you know" is so apt.

@hank, but I like Aero...

@Keith, no I didn't bother with WINE seeing as how I could never really figure it out! I ended up just using Swiftfox for all my browsing needs, it was okay, not as fast as Chrome and I didn't really like Arora, UI isn't as nice as Chrome.

I'm liking 7 too much to go back to Ubuntu, yes it is a great OS but it's the hardware compatibility that bothers me, not the software.

I still want to build my own high end PC someday and it'll be a lot less headache building it with Windows than with Ubuntu!

I hear you on that, I wonder how Microsoft will screw 7 up like they did with Vista? Well here's hoping they don't. :)

DEB raised this a little way back, but no one answered - where was the browser ballot screen? I did a clean install on a virtually empty laptop, which had Firefox as my default browser. I did not use the Files and Settings transfer, yet there was no ballot screen. As always I ended up with no Firfox and IE as my default browser.

Have MS decided to completely ignore the European ruling? What is going on?

If anyone could give me advice that would be appreciated.

I have signed up for the vaio upgrade process as i bought my laptop within the free upgrade period, however upon reading some of the limitations of the upgrade i have become sceptic.
According to the vaio website certain features such as vaio recovery/vaio music box and other vaio software will be erased. Also i have noticed that windows 7 home premium seems to be advertised with less features than it did in home premium vista. Am i being stupid or will i lose features by upgrading to windows 7 home premium to windows 7 home premium. Should i take the upgrade seeing as its free?

Ps. I am about to buy a new printer which is vista compatible. If i buy a new printer will it become usless if i upgrade(i relise you would need to model - its the cannon iP2600 inkjet). I am asking this because i know that printers and other devices becoming uncompatible was a major critism of vista.

Thanks in advance

Ow and if you are interested in the linitations here is a list of them from vaio

http://www.vaiowindows7upgrade.com/restrictions

Just finished upgrading my Vista machine to Windows 7. Not very impressed. Nothing significantly bad happened, but nothing significantly good happened either.

Having read any number of articles showcasing the new features of Windows 7, I wasn't expecting much. And not much was about what I got.

Reviewers have been very positive about Windows 7, a marked contrast to Vista's reception. But Vista on release was unfamiliar, problematic, and plagued by missing device drivers. Vista SP2 with current drivers on my laptop was just fine. Windows 7 is not noticeably faster, better, or more stable.

If I'd paid full price for this I would have felt truly cheated.

How do you tell if it's more stable after just installing it I wonder?

Since your expectations by your own words were low (since you knew what you were getting having read previews), and what you got met your expectations, what is your problem? Did you expect some magic feature to reveal itself to you?

Since the OS met your expectations, it's not actually possible for you to feel cheated. But that's just my analysis.

@Moche - Um, I answered... but if you want a link that describes what's going on with the browser ballot screen, here it is:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/23/windows_seven_ballot_browser/

@darkspark88

Let's put it like this:

Once the discount period ends, the upgrade price for Windows 7 Home Premium goes up to £99.99.

It beggars belief that anybody with a healthy Vista SP2 system could pay £100 to get Windows 7 and really believe they got their money's worth.

Unless perhaps they can kid themselves about 'subjective' performance increases... since in TR's objective benchmarking there doesn't seem much to write home about.

@hank: That's a little like putting a Ferrari body-kit on a Toyota MR-2 and saying that it's the same as having a Ferrari.

@Ohmz: no I didn't bother with WINE seeing as how I could never really figure it out! I

Not sure what version of Ubuntu you was using, but with Jaunty, after using Aptitude to install wine, just double click the installable EXE, done.

@Ohmz. it is a great OS but it's the hardware compatibility that bothers me

I see what your saying, but that is much less of an issue than it used to be. For example my Aspire Revo, pretty new machine all the hardware was detected without any issues. In fact one area of hardware compatible linux does better is older hardware, most manufactures just don't seem care about there older products.

Hallainzil: Wrong analogy. Toyotas actually work properly and continue to work, unlike most versions of Windows ;)

I don't know if it's been mentioned already (and with 67 comments I can't be bothered to read through them all!) but I thought I'd share something I'd descrovered with Windows 7:

To add NAS shares to the Libraries view easily, simply map the network drive, and then add the folders you want in your library via Windows Media Center, and they'll magically also get added to your regular library view!

hurry up firefox and make it work with the dock like IE does and spotify make an option not to close to the taskbar and work like media player to skip tracks and pause music and jupmlists to playlists

After spending the last three weeks reading many articles on Windows 7 here at TR and elsewhere I upgraded my PC and installed Windows 7 last night.

It was a (clean install) upgrade from XP with the only lenghty hitch being that it wouldn't install on one of my other hard drives because it was set up to be a dynamic disk!

After and hour or so trying to convert the hard drive back to a basic disk, Windows 7 was installed in less than 15 minutes. I now have both XP and Win 7 available as dual boot options.

I didn't have any time to play or configure the new OS so tonight I'll begin that familiarisation process, install my applications and see what all the fuss is about. My initial impressions are very good, even if it's just because it's quicker to boot up!

I've just been seriously impressed by a feature it's taken me a few months to discover. I was watching Windows Media player and got a skype incoming call. I answered it and Windows Media Player paused itself. Ended the call and WMP resumed. It sounds simple, but that is smart technology

I tried to upgrade from Vista and the install failed. Worth noting that if you have problems installing there is nowhere you can turn to for help except a £1 a minute helpline from PC world. No thanks. I have now sold the upgrade to a friend and will stick with vista. Microsoft obviously don't give a toss about whether you can use their products as long as they have your money.