Pain Free? What we think of the new Windows 7

Posted on 02. Nov, 2009 by in Entrepreneurship

shutterstock_38226877It seems that people love to hate Microsoft and it has become the butt of many jokes over the years, no doubt due to its domination of the personal computer operating system world for so long. Before it became fashionable and then in turn rather sensible to install a Mac operating system, people used to voraciously complain about the various idiosyncrasies of Microsoft’s Windows systems. It seemed that you were only getting used to a particular version and the Seattle-based company would trot out another. If you were in the market for a new PC, you often didn’t have any choice if you had a particular preference for one version of Windows, as the newbie would be automatically “bundled in” at your local electronics store.

Microsoft did little to assuage its critics when it initially released its Vista version of Windows, supposedly to better the popular XP version. Out of the box there were problems due to unavailability of drivers or a counter-intuitive process of upgrading. Application providers were slow to release drivers to work with Vista and the new OS came with a variety of annoying features and processes that made many wish they had stuck with their XP.

Late October saw the release of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system and the initial verdict is that it’s much better than Vista and really where we should be. Some have compared it favorably with Mac’s latest OSX version, which is good news indeed for Microsoft.

Windows 7 is much more secure than XP, whose users are very much in the marketing crosshairs as they represent a significant number of people who flatly refused to upgrade to Vista. While Vista was toned down and made more user-friendly during its short life, the bad press it received never really went away.

Windows 7 is much more efficient, requiring only half of the memory needed by Vista and it is much quicker to load on startup, also drawing less battery power on your laptop. Those who did not upgrade to Vista from XP will notice significant differences and will take a little while to get used to them, but those who went through the initial pain on Vista will see a much less clunky interface and one which makes the user feel that he or she is far less constrained to tabbing, resizing, fumbling around and the general “1990s” feel of previous incarnations.

For example, features such as Aero Snape allow you to put two applications side-by-side and copy and paste easily, Aero Peek makes windows that you’re not focusing on temporarily transparent and Aero Shake allows you to “shake” a window, thereby closing all others. In short, there’s a much more instantaneous action feel about the whole platform.

In recognition of the fact that homes now have multiple computers and that they should be linked together easily, Windows 7 has a great new networking feature called HomeGroup, enabling you to set up and share any number of files very easily, including access to printers.

It is true to say that Microsoft will find it very difficult to come up with a “perfect” operating system, due to the unbelievable legacy of programs, peripherals and hardware manufacturers reliant on “uncle Microsoft” to function. Windows 7 may not be pain free, but it is a much better product out of the box than Vista ever was.

Did you upgrade to Vista from XP, or did you skip it? Will you try 7?

Adam Toren

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11 Responses to “Pain Free? What we think of the new Windows 7”

  1. Briefcases

    02. Nov, 2009

    Thank you for this review. It makes me really want to finally upgrade from XP. I would’ve tried Vista, but I knew my aging laptop would not handle it well. I am glad that Windows 7 takes up half the memory that Vista did. It gives me some confidence to upgrade.

    Reply to this comment

  2. Fahad (Make|Money|Online)

    02. Nov, 2009

    hi thanks for windows 7 review, i have tried win 7 beta version. I agree it is better windows version than vista, its graphics r also very cool. in beta version there was some bugs but i hope in new stable release it has been fixed.

    Reply to this comment

  3. Market Research

    03. Nov, 2009

    Thanks for this article. Desperately still using Windows so just hope it won’t be as bad as the Vista version…

    Reply to this comment

  4. Nicolewelsh

    03. Nov, 2009

    Am currently using vista.. but want to escape.. problem is.. it wont let me.. formatting.. upgrading seem like quite a task in vista.. ur description of 7 does give some confidence for it..

    Reply to this comment

  5. payday

    04. Nov, 2009

    Upgraded and enjoying the refreshing change over vista..

    Reply to this comment

  6. Web Design Beach

    05. Nov, 2009

    Very well written. I am still at XP, and i still haven’t tried the Vista version. I waited for real good Vista reviews and recommendations, but as i couldn’t find them i didn’t upgrade. These days i have heard many good things about W7, and i am really planning to make final upgrade from XP. Thanks for the review.

    Reply to this comment

  7. PS3

    06. Nov, 2009

    my friends also recommended me to switch to 7. i’m still not sure about it, because i hate tweaking new OS’.

    Reply to this comment

  8. web designers

    10. Nov, 2009

    Boot from the W7 dvd. During the installation process the installer will ask you where you want to install the OS. Select your second hard drive.

    Reply to this comment

  9. Tampa Acupuncture

    11. Nov, 2009

    Currently i used XP but i want to update my system with Window 7.

    Reply to this comment

  10. used tires

    11. Nov, 2009

    Since my university allows us students access to software, I was able to get my hands on Windows 7, I actually installed the Windows 7 64 Professional Edition, but… I didn’t install it was my primary operating system, it actually is installed as my secondary operating system. So I am “dual booting” my system for now. But as far as my impressions so far from Windows 7 have been great, I was one of those Anti-Vista users mainly due to the speed being so much slower when compared to Windows XP. Still though I think I will wait until the graphics drivers and everything else have been fully optimized before I switch over to Windows 7 as my main operating system, mainly because I noticed a 40 frames per second drop when I was gaming, lol.

    Till then,

    Jean

    Reply to this comment

  11. Jeph

    10. Mar, 2011

    Let’s be honest, who really gets a choice in the matter – you buy a new PC and the latest Microsoft offering will be on there.
    At home I struggled with VISTA – stripped a lot of it back and now it runs – loathed to tinker with it!
    At work a new PC means I’ve just moved from XP to Windows 7, but guess what? not all software I need to use is compatable with 7 so I have to load a Virtual XP environment and I toggle and get lost between two operating systems…..doesn’t feel like progress to me

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