Windows 7 Impressions

Skeeter · 10 Jan 2009 at 13:18

Fire Wizard said:
Hi Skeeter, just out of interest, what are these "crap" bits that were in Windows Vista but are not in the Windows 7 beta? I personally can't notice the difference between either operating system.

- It runs well on a 1GB RAM Vbox, Vista wouldnt
- UAC hasnt shoved itself in my face all the time
- Its installed lots of stuff striaght off (admitedly the driver issue with Vista wasnt all MS's fault)

Basically, Im not annoyed with it. Vista did lots of strange little things that annoyed me.

There is still the whole idiot proof networking setup which means if you actually know anything about computers its a bit frustrating, but Im yet to fiddle too much.

Basically, faster, smoother, slicker and less annoying, but I will hold off full judgement untill I get osme gaming going.

FishThrower · 10 Jan 2009 at 13:22

Does the new taskbar just have the extra menu pop up on IE? if you have more than one tab open?

or does it happen in Word as well? if you have 5 documents open, or explorer, if you have 3 windows open?

Strife212 · 10 Jan 2009 at 13:22

Something is really irritating me now

The default mouse movement speed in Windows 7 is different I swear!

On a more serious note the new taskbar sucks balls, you need to click twice to reach anything...

mr.sly · 10 Jan 2009 at 13:42

FishThrower said:
Does the new taskbar just have the extra menu pop up on IE? if you have more than one tab open?

or does it happen in Word as well? if you have 5 documents open, or explorer, if you have 3 windows open?

Works with IE and Word, and most other Microsoft applications I've used so far. It doesn't work with Firefox though, so it's obvisouly somethinf developers are going to have to add support for.

mr.sly · 10 Jan 2009 at 13:43

Strife212 said:
Something is really irritating me now

The default mouse movement speed in Windows 7 is different I swear!

On a more serious note the new taskbar sucks balls, you need to click twice to reach anything...

Twice? Single click the thumbnail and get taken to the application/tab, that's how it's working for me.

Strife212 · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:06

mr.sly said:
Twice? Single click the thumbnail and get taken to the application/tab, that's how it's working for me.

Open multiple folders / tabs and its different

Wheras before they would have come up seperately.

theheyes · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:07

Okay had a play for half an hour or so. So far so good. Installed my wifi card during the install so I was able to connect to my network before I saw the desktop for the first time. It also automatically installed my printer, which I'm even more impressed with since I can't even get the drivers off the Samsung support site itself! Graphics card also automatically installed. Probably the most painless Windows install I've ever done.

I'm dual booting with XP at the moment. One little niggle is that w7 doesnt seem to want to read the XP partition, yet if I boot into XP it reads the w7 partition no problem. I'll look into that later its not important at this point. Another weird thing was a network diagnostic tool identified my core 2 duo as an AMD64... very strange.

Also, it feels faster. I take it with a pinch of salt when I read comments like that, but it really does. It boots significantly faster than XP on the same machine, although admittedly XP has a few more things to load at startup.

Overall, very good. Absolute lightyears ahead of the original Vista beta so things are looking good. Definite upgrade on release methinks.

mr.sly · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:11

Strife212 said:
Open multiple folders / tabs and its different Wheras before they would have come up seperately.

Still a single click for me. Hover over the icon and then single click the thumbnail. If you don't like that though, you can turn grouping off in the Properties.

Strife212 · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:24

Oh my fault - didn't know the hovering, clicked instantly before it came up

Eatchipz · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:25

Anyone getting thier X-Fi Card working?

I tried to download the drivers and I did but they dont work with Windows 7 they are looking for an OS either Xp are Better :confused:

mr.sly · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:28

Eatchipz said:
Anyone getting thier X-Fi Card working?

I tried to download the drivers and I did but they dont work with Windows 7 they are looking for an OS either Xp are Better

Tried running in Admin mode and with Compatibility for XP or Vista?

Devious · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:34

Ive just installed 64bit and first impressions are Im liking it so far coming from Vista 32.

Only problems i have so far is i cant find any 64bit mobo drivers that work for my maximus formula (tried the vista 64bit) so I have an error in device manager for sm bus controller.

Also, ive just installed live messenger and when you close it is still shown on the taskbar menu rather then just an icon. I guess this will happen with other similar programs.

Ade74 · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:39

can anyone that has installed windows 7 on a western digital caviar black 1tb if possible let me know what windows experience rating it gets?

it gets 5.8 on a caviar green.

Thanks
Ade

Eatchipz · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:41

mr.sly said:
Tried running in Admin mode and with Compatibility for XP or Vista?

Awh Yes I got it working now! Thanks Mate

mr.sly · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:44

Devious said:
Ive just installed 64bit and first impressions are Im liking it so far coming from Vista 32.

Only problems i have so far is i cant find any 64bit mobo drivers that work for my maximus formula (tried the vista 64bit) so I have an error in device manager for sm bus controller.

Also, ive just installed live messenger and when you close it is still shown on the taskbar menu rather then just an icon. I guess this will happen with other similar programs.

That's by design for the new Messenger, I believe 8.5 will still close to the notification area.

Eatchipz · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:48

Also Did anyone install the Nivida Driver that was opitional on Windows Update?

hideki · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:54

things didn't go too well for me.

went for an upgrade from vista sp1. install took quite a while, and at the last stage i got a BSOD. which basically left me in a loop of sorts. on startup it said install process had to continue. but it never did, just a repeat of the same message and reboot.

the rollback option did not work either, so basically my vista installation was lost.

went for broke and installed w7 from boot over the previous attempt. install this time was much faster and completed without error.

and the current problem, my test machine has an ATI 3450 and i cant get the drivers to install. neither the ones from windows update, the install cd or downloaded.

its certainly quite beta so far

mr.sly · 10 Jan 2009 at 14:59

Eatchipz said:
Also Did anyone install the Nivida Driver that was opitional on Windows Update?

I did. Display driver has crashed before and after the driver install though. Not tried any games yet, but I'm hoping it's fine.

AWPC · 10 Jan 2009 at 15:02

Installed in under 24 mins and this is on an old Samsung 2504C HD with 8MB cache. Copied the DVD iso to the same HD. Seems very smooth so far no major issue other than it cannot find some X58 SM Bus drivers. Still feels like a Vista reskin to me though with things in different places just to make it appear as non Vista to convince all the haters. Will probably buy it anyway if its a lot quicker but should imagine Vista SP2 wil be another improvement anyway.

Managed to activate the X86 version I am running with the x64 key I got last night.

avrc · 10 Jan 2009 at 15:03

Eatchipz said:
Anyone getting thier X-Fi Card working?

I tried to download the drivers and I did but they dont work with Windows 7 they are looking for an OS either Xp are Better

Mine works, Windows 7 installed the drivers automatically.