Windows 7 RTM - What do you think of it?

Dist said:
Im used to this type of start menu though. My laptop used it as it was XP. My main PC running Vista uses it. I just like that sort of simplistic menu, using a sort of tree of layout (executables inside its folder, that folder along with others in a 'programs' folder etc...)

With this stupid new start menu i have to either open folders to get to the programs instead of using a menu, have limited ammount of programs shown on the small white area in the menu, or have tons of desktop icons.
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Tough, you can't have it :p

I find pressing the Windows key on my keyboard, then typing 'notepad' and hitting enter a billion times faster than finding it amongst the menus anyway. Once you get used to the new menu you'll find it a lot better.
 
When I am at my desk I often multi task with my PC and my thinkpad, so sometimes I would rather just use a single hand to go through a menu system then to try either typing slowly one handed, or stop what I am doing on my PC.

The old start menu may not be the best, but it worked for me. So far this simple little thing may mean I may not upgrade my PC from vista to Win 7 unless i can find something positive to balance out that negative.
 
Dist said:
When I am at my desk I often multi task with my PC and my thinkpad, so sometimes I would rather just use a single hand to go through a menu system then to try either typing slowly one handed, or stop what I am doing on my PC.

The old start menu may not be the best, but it worked for me. So far this simple little thing may mean I may not upgrade my PC from vista to Win 7 unless i can find something positive to balance out that negative.
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I'm not quite sure why you still can't use a single hand to navigate the menu system - yes, you need to click on folders to open them, but personally I find it better ergonomically to have everything in the same vertical plane. I always found XP's cascading menus to be a literal pain - your wrist and forearm have to negotiate a series of stress-inducing doglegs as you chase what you're looking for both vertically and horizontally across the screen.

If you make full use of the Win 7 taskbar, you'll have the majority of your most frequently-used apps pinned to it anyway, and you'll probably rarely need to use the menu itself.
 
Well just got my first week over with Win 7, thought Vista was good, but Win 7 is another good step forward for once MS have listened to the people who used Vista and how it could be improved hence Win 7. So those that slated Vista can stay with XP, and let the peep's who used Vista enjoy Win 7.
 
I'm liking Windows 7 so far.. although there's still the bug that hampered me in Vista - if you create a folder called 'Programs' inside your Start Menu 'Programs' folder, it gets a bit confused! I thought it was fixed in the beta, but now that I'm running the RTM, apparently not!
 
Just installed windows 7 rtm and my first impression is they took the worst bits of every other desktop taskbar/dock and pasted them together after taking away the running/minimized program labled tabs lack of this is my main gripe with OSX.For me the most usable desktop is gnome+compiz+awn followed xp/vista plus rocketdock .Windows7 is like a bad KDE4 clone yuck.
 
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Only using build 7100 RC at the moment but I just found out an cool little thing today with my creative mp3/4 player. Win7 auto converts video files of the wrong resolution to a playable one even when just copying and pasting onto the drive, no need for crappy software or drivers yay!
 
An issue for me. When using either firefox or internet explorer 8 with a few tabs opened in either, after literally 5 minutes the PC will freeze. The cursor turns into the aqua coloured circle, and i can't click on anything, the only option is to do a cold re-boot.
 
Just installed 7 pro on my work laptop

pretty old Dell 6400

512mb
Core Duo
Slow 60Gb hard drive

runs snappier than Vista did when this had 2gb of ram.


system restore off
windows defender off

good speed/space increase

I went back down to 512 as I was only running a few apps in XP. Will be slamming 2gb back into this laptop, well impressed with 7 on old hardware so far

all drivers installed during install :)



edit, and I'm real fussy when it comes to speed
 
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m_cozzy said:
Thats an overly generous rating for the steamer that is vista. I would rate it zero.
But 7, now that runs really nicely on my pc. Rarely boot to xp these days, its that good.
Now if only vmware would fix the vi client to run on 64bit :(
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I've got the vSphere 4 client running on W7 x64 - there's a walk through on TechHead for it.
 
Dist said:
First of all, how do i set the start menu to be like it was in XP, instead of a thing on the right which opens up folders and a white space on the left for recent programs.
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I absolutely agree. I think, purely from a business point of view, not having the classic start menu there will make it harder for people to navigate around. Why should they have to type in to a start menu? This makes it unintuiative.

However. There are a couple of companies out there charging for a classic start menu. I did find, on my travels:

http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-desktop-customization/5369-windows-7-classic-start-menu.html

Should do what you want. I know I'm going to be using it.

A nice classic start menu looks very clean, easy to navigate and is able to have everything accessible in a click. Start, type what you want, in my opinion, is a step backward.



M.
 
m4cc45 said:
A nice classic start menu looks very clean, easy to navigate and is able to have everything accessible in a click. Start, type what you want, in my opinion, is a step backward.
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How on earth is it a step backwards? I can have a program open within 2 seconds, probably the time most people take to move their mouse to the start button.
 
wush said:
My take on it is that lot of people vowed that Vista was the worst thing ever, either early on or via the nerd/press bandwagon.

W7 is a way for these militant Vista haters to step up to current generation Windows without losing face. Microsoft know this.
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Do you know that is one of the truest and most succinct statements I have read about Vista in a long time. I have read so many posts from people who state Vista was horrible I stayed with XP but W7 is great blah blah that it makes me want to laugh out loud as Vista and W7 is like buttering the opposite sides of the same slice of bread.
 
A nice classic start menu looks very clean, easy to navigate and is able to have everything accessible in a click. Start, type what you want, in my opinion, is a step backward.
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What is it with the human condition - we all want something new and then when we get it we complain it's not just like the item we replaced it with? :confused:

I think you should go back to XP without delay as fundamentally you're not for change.
 
daztrouk said:
An issue for me. When using either firefox or internet explorer 8 with a few tabs opened in either, after literally 5 minutes the PC will freeze. The cursor turns into the aqua coloured circle, and i can't click on anything, the only option is to do a cold re-boot.
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Have you tried running with the task manager minimised when this happens - it often seems to clear up the log jam though no idea why it should
 
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