Windows 7 - Putting the win back into Windows

I've been using Windows 7 as my main desktop for a few weeks now. I love it. There are a few rough edges, but nothing that would send me back to Vista. From the point of view of what you can do with it I've not noticed much different, although I haven't looked very hard to be honest. What I have noticed is the speed. Things happen an awful lot faster. Programs load and run at the kind of rate that they should do on a machine with a 2G processor.  File copying and archive unzipping are now happening at a proper speed. People I know are digging out old and slow machines that won't run Vista very well, loading up the Windows 7 test version and turning them into useable devices, which is very interesting.

It used to be that a new operating system meant a new computer. If the final version of Windows 7 manages the same level of performance of the one I'm using it could actually reverse this trend. One of the reasons why Vista didn't work very well in the early days was that some suppliers did a pretty poor job of supporting it with drivers, leading to lots of people with brand new "Vista capable" machines that didn't work properly. This must have made Microsoft a bit upset at the time, but with Windows 7 Microsoft might just get their own back on the hardware makers, since everyone will rush out and buy the operating system and have no need to get new machines.

Comments

[PhilC]

Oh Rob. What a cheap joke!

Gave me a giggle though!

[Cal]

Isnt one of the worries that although this is fast at the moment, it can only get so much slower as they add more and more useless "features" to completely cancel out that speedyness?

[Michael Ezehi]

Very nice Rob,

Well so long to Vista. Just went online to see more features its got and I'd say its blown me away. Love vista tho... so what to do, what to do.... can't make up my mind.... I'd give it a try and give a candid review in subsequent posting.

[Michael E]

Hi rob, could you please tell me what Build you are using. I just installed Windows 7 build 9801. Looks exactly like Vista but the switch between windows icon don't do the 3d stuff vista does.

[Rob]

I'm using Test Build 6801. I've noticed that the Alt+Tab doesn't do the pretty 3D thing, if that is what you mean. However, I'd rather have the extra speed than the fancy graphics.