Windows 7 RTM - What do you think of it?

Loving the RTM at the moment which Im running on my test computer. Seems quicker than the RC1 but thats probably due to new driver updates since then.
And I dont get why people are still referring to Windows 7 as an Vista service pack when its not. Its like saying Win XP was a for pack for Win 2000.
 
Fire Wizard said:
User Account Control is a fantastic and a well needed feature. It's only those that have a misunderstanding of UAC and how it actually works that seem to think it's useless.
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When I first started uni people had trouble connecting to the resnet, and I helped a friend out who had vista. My parents use vista on their pc's but id never wanted much dealings with it.

Anyway, I knew what I was doing, but halfway through I wanted to chuck the laptop out the window because half my time was spent pressing 'yes' to UAC notifications. I couldnt even find the off button in the control panel, and I looked into it later and found its a tiny link in the bottom of a specific window to access it and turn it off.

I think theres a difference between you running the OS and the OS running you. I didnt like UAC, I didnt like that you werent the 'administrator' and so not all programs would work straight away when you wanted to use them, I didnt like the filing system, trying to find a folder on my mams pc I automatically thought, oh, my documents, which had files in it but then there was that users individual area too.

Windows 7 has these niggles too, but I realise XP isnt forever and I can go 64 bit at the same time. Ive got a harddrive ive cleared so I can download the beta and get used to it before its october release.

I just wish MS didnt simplify things to the point of pleasing the casual user because they didnt have to look at lots of different options at once, (i.e control panel grouped) but made the experienced user go wtf when all they wanted to do was change something simple and couldnt find it.
Nice example is word 2007, I thought it was like someone had said 'right chaps, new word, lets group everything into different areas and then spread those areas onto taskbars and in the regular drop down menus! Thatll make it easier!' No, it just gave me a headache trying to find something simple that was in a menu that didnt make sense :S

Schools are teaching kids to use computers using (now) older style OS's with older style software, but it all still works and doesnt make you want to take a hammer to it. MS seems more interested in churning out newer copies of everything without thinking about the issues people will have coming from schools and businesses that see no need to upgrade since everything works fine.

That was a bit longer than I planned :P
 
lawz said:
Anyway, I knew what I was doing, but halfway through I wanted to chuck the laptop out the window because half my time was spent pressing 'yes' to UAC notifications. I couldnt even find the off button in the control panel, and I looked into it later and found its a tiny link in the bottom of a specific window to access it and turn it off.
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You mean the one at the bottom of the User Accounts control panel? What an odd place for it! ;)

This is where quiet mode comes in.

lawz said:
I think theres a difference between you running the OS and the OS running you. I didnt like UAC, I didnt like that you werent the 'administrator' and so not all programs would work straight away when you wanted to use them
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I won't pretend UAC can't be annoying, but it's necessary to stop people making programs that use administrative privileges when they're not needed. Obviously it could have been better implemented in Vista, but that's what 7 is for - refining Vista. It's what XP was to 2000 and what 98 was to 95.

lawz said:
I didnt like the filing system, trying to find a folder on my mams pc I automatically thought, oh, my documents, which had files in it but then there was that users individual area too.
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I love that. I don't want my game files in my documents. My documents folder already has zillions of sub-folders, I don't want ones which have program settings and things of no direct use to me too.

lawz said:
Nice example is word 2007, I thought it was like someone had said 'right chaps, new word, lets group everything into different areas and then spread those areas onto taskbars and in the regular drop down menus! Thatll make it easier!' No, it just gave me a headache trying to find something simple that was in a menu that didnt make sense :S
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You'd better get used to it - the ribbon is here to stay, because it is better. You might lose a bit of time in the short-term relearning where things are, but it's better for the longer term.

lawz said:
Schools are teaching kids to use computers using (now) older style OS's with older style software, but it all still works and doesnt make you want to take a hammer to it. MS seems more interested in churning out newer copies of everything without thinking about the issues people will have coming from schools and businesses that see no need to upgrade since everything works fine.
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But Win 3.1 was fine.... ;)
 
The limited time I've spent playing with the RTM has led me to notice any kind of USB attached storage being slow (flash of HDD based) particularly on reads for some reason... Also the OS seems to struggle a bit when starting up more than a few apps. Seems to be the same across all the machines we have it on too, glad we're not deploying it any time soon!
 
Startup was slow for me for teh first few days but now it's much faster.

Superfetch needs to be trained over the course of many reboots as it did on Vista.

It now loads all startup apps and is usable very quickly.

USB issue though I have no idea, my xfer rates are faster than on vista!
 
lawz said:
I think theres a difference between you running the OS and the OS running you. I didnt like UAC, I didnt like that you werent the 'administrator' and so not all programs would work straight away when you wanted to use them, I didnt like the filing system, trying to find a folder on my mams pc I automatically thought, oh, my documents, which had files in it but then there was that users individual area too.
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You don't need to be running as a administrator all the time though, it's unnecessary and imposes a security risk. The only reason why it seems annoying is because you were freely running as a administrator on Windows XP and was automatically granted administrator privileges. Admittedly, running as a standard user on Windows XP was a task in-itself since a lot of applications were coded in such a way that they needed administrator rights to operate correctly, which was very much down to the developers not writing their applications correctly. This needed to change though and this is why we have User Account Control.

Since Windows Vista ships with a default account which runs with standard user rights, developers are now forced to start writing there applications correctly so they work in a standard user environment. There is some software that will always require administrator privileges due to the nature of them. However, there was a lot of software that requested these rights completely unnecessary and this was purely down to the developers just being lazy. If you're going to complain at anyone due to being constantly prompted for administrator privileges each time you run a certain application, if it's obvious that this application dosen't need these elevated privileges to simply operate correctly, direct your anger at the developers and not Microsoft, as a lot of people do.

Regarding the User Account Control elevations, it's important to recognise that they are a convenience feature to make it easier to people to run as a standard user. It's much easier for people to simply click yes on a pop-up dialogue when they need administrator privileges than it is for them to fast user switch from a standard user account over to a administrator account which should entail entering a password, perform that particular administrative based task and then switch back. A lot of people wouldn't accept doing this and would just continue to run as a administrator and we would be no better off.
 
I think a lot of the stuff posted by Vista (i.e. that it's the worst thing ever etc) is tainted by the views of the "nu kool" bloggers who have probably never used it or tried to install it on their P90 with 8mb RAM.

I ran Vista on a bunch of machines from single cores to quad cores and it ran absolutely fine. It was robust and fast, and a way better experience than XP.

With regards to Windows 7, it's just like Vista to me with some tweaks, which isn't a bad thing. My one gripe is WMP12 doesn't seem to handle libraries very well (wanting to rescan etc)

With regards to the Office Ribbon, it's superb, it is miles better, most functions are 1 click away. As someone who uses Excel and PowerPoint day in day out for everything from decks to complex VBA Excel sheets, it is leagues ahead of 2003.
 
this_is_gav said:
But Win 3.1 was fine.... ;)
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I've seen this crop up as an arguement a few times in this thread against xp. Just to put you right, 3.1 wasn't even an OS, so stop using it to compare. It also didn't support DirectX and crashed all the time. XP supports 99% of the current applications and hardware and is reasonably stable.

That said, moving on...

Vista is slower than both XP and Windows 7. It's not a terrible OS by any means, and doesn't deserve the ME2 stigma that it has been given, but it chugs along on my laptop, whilst Windows 7 is nearly as fast as XP, and is more stable. I have an XP license already and the laptop is getting on a bit. No point in a new OS for it despite this.

Still, I notice a minor difference on my main PC between Vista and 7, nothing huge but it is there. 7 does feel snappier than Vista. I will be getting hold of 7 as soon as possible.
 
He he, my post was just sort of a rant :P

I do intend to embrace windows 7 and get used to it, I guess I just had trouble with Vista because I never used it on a day to day basis so detested it when I did attempt to man handle it :P
 
I feel a little cheated to see that memory useage at idle is similar if not more than Vista was (1.09Gb). Part of the whole Windows 7 ethos was a smaller memory footprint. This seems to have gone out the window since RC1
 
Memory usage is totally down to usage, running apps and resident processes and how well they've been designed for that purpose.

Since Windows 7 is not out yet no software is completely Windows7 "compatible" by label yet and cannot guarantee the memory footprint that Windows 7 is capable of.

Even without this though memory efficiency in 7 is better than Vista especially visible at boot, 25% instead of 35-40% and under heavy load memory is returned faster when needed although Vista64 didn't really have a major issue in this regard either.
 
Optitech-uk,

Thank you for evaluating Windows 7 and it's great to hear that you are enjoying your experience so much! If you are planning on purchasing Windows 7 when it is released it may be helpful to know you don't have to wait until October to reserve your copy of Win 7! You can pre-order your copy of Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional today. For more information, see the Windows 7 Pre-Order offer page

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team
 
How long does the RTM key last for? Is it available to everyone?

I've already pre-ordered Pro but I'd quite like to try it now, but I don't really want to have to reformat completely again when it comes out retail.
 
RTM has no key, it lasts for 30 days at which point it can be extended for another 30days 3 more times giving 120days.
 
mrk said:
RTM has no key, it lasts for 30 days at which point it can be extended for another 30days 3 more times giving 120days.
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Of course it has a key if you get it via one of the official distribution channels (e.g. MSDN, Technet etc.).
 
Lucero said:
I feel a little cheated to see that memory useage at idle is similar if not more than Vista was (1.09Gb). Part of the whole Windows 7 ethos was a smaller memory footprint. This seems to have gone out the window since RC1
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I think the usage is dependant on how much memory you have in the system.

For instance my main desktop has a mere gig of ram, the idle memory usage was around 300 or 400 meg (I forget now).

At the end of the day if it frees up the memory when it's required what's the bother, it's only idling :)
 
It seems from the above that W7 RC1 has a lot going for it. I've just finished a new PC build. It will not be a flyer but more than adequate for my general usage needs. I have a specialised games machine so this one is mostly for emails, photography, documents, spreadsheets, etc. It's an upgrade from a fantastic old slot A mobo workhorse which has been superb but takes an age to bootup now.

Question? Which OS to install on the new PC below? I run a LAN. The other PCs and laptops on the network are XP, or OS X. It is WEP protected and works flawlessly. Will W7 interface with XP on a LAN? Maybe I should re-phrase: Will it be easy to interface a Windows 7 PC with my XP and OS X machines on a LAN? I've heard nightmare stories about the problems of linking XP and Vista on LANs.

John

New PC: Gigabyte GA-EP45_UD3P Skt 775; Q6600 2.40 GHz running at 3.30 GHz (1466FSB); 4GB G.Skill DDR2; LaCie Professional Widescreen LCD mon 24", Power & Cooling 750watts.
 
Ok here are my gripes

1) What have they done with WMP? The library management is not very good, it keeps rescanning and sometimes doubles up the same location in the library, doubling up every song.
2) Why won't it save my credentials for my network share? (think this is linked to the above as my music is on share)
3) Eraser runs significantly slower than Vista
 
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