Windows 7 - The Reg reader review redux

Reg readers flocked to install Windows 7 last week, and then flocked to our comments and inbox to tell the world exactly how they were finding life with Vista Mk II. Thanks to all of you who contributed. We're sure some of you have waded through all those comments, but just in case you haven't, here are a few choice highlights …

[Efros]

4 installations

One on a 4GB dual core AMD desktop, 32 bit, took about 20 minutes, another on a 4GB quad core Q6600 32 bit with a 64GB SSD, and 2x 4TB RAIDs took about 30 minutes after updating some PCI card drivers, another on an 8GB triple core 64 bit took about 25 minutes (this machine also dual boots Ubuntu 9.10 faultlessly), and finally on a lenovo Y550 laptop dual core 3GB 32 Bit took 20 minutes. All installations apart from the laptop have been operational since the RTM and none of them have had any serious issues, I haven't noticed any increased time to desktop on boot, and if my machine was taking 20 minutes to get to a desktop I would be threatening it with a screwdriver at the very least!

Paris cos 20 minutes is probably too long for her!

[DavidL]

But Why?

It's only an operating system. Why bother "upgrading"? It won't make you type faster in your word processor, your email will still work the same and the speed of your 'Net browsing won't change - and it's more likely your favourite apps won't work . All this hassle for a "pretty" UI? (there's plenty if UIs for XP!)

Never understood this ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Same old Same old

Theres explainations for most of this behaviour that apply to XP and Vista as much as 7.

Kill tablet and DFS services, cull out the vista cruft in services. The guy with PPTP problems, turn off 'use remote default gateway' for your tunnel.

Bluescreens - drivers or RAM are screwed, using old drivers for another OS, especially NVIDIA ones are a really bad idea. Sounds more like old hardware than OS issues. It does install and run fine on a 4 year old Pentium M lappy.

First release Win 7 install yesterday and machine out the door, brand new Phenom/Gigabyte/Nvidia machine and it worked a dream even after 24 hours of trying to break it on perpose.

FWIW I HATE vista with a passion, I dont particularly like XP if I'm honest. 7 Does seem to be a good step in the right direction

[Phil 33]

Explorer not expanding folders as you "explore" your hard drive

easy fix, go to "Folder Options" and there's two new options down the bottom, one of them is to expand folders automatically, check it, no longer a problem.

Why Microsoft changed how explorer functions in that regard after all these years I really don't know, but at least you can put it back.

And if you want to connect to an SMB share (for instance on a Mac) you'll need to go into Local Security Policy and change the Lan Manager settings to accept NTLMv1 passwords as well as V2.

I'm about to install 7 on the last of our computers here (it's on my desktop and laptop, about to put it on the wife's laptop) and I'm really liking the "Homegroup" feature, no longer will I have to share random folders so my wife can see our family photos from her computer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear

Its funny, all these so called professionals who cant install an OS or buggers it up in 3 hours.

I am trully grateful that we dont all need to rely on some of these people, because the world would probably stop if we did, with giant BSOD messages on every TV and computer screen in the world, never mind if its a Mac or running Linux, it'll still be microsofts fault.

Still, could all of you people with problems installing and running this let us all know what company you work for, your job title and your direct line manager.

Many thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation for our American readers

"(well, went out for a fag and a tea)"

(well, went out for a cigarette and a tea)

[bex]

better han Vista, Probably

I keep getting a BSOD on Win 7 but I have a feeling that its down to not being able to find a disk image mount program that works properly.

I have a fairly meaty setup and vista was rock solid and responsive on it that said I have seen it on far too many lower end systems where it runs like a dog.

[Peter2]

Why upgrade - come on el reg!

Look, the one thing that I think most of us really want to know is WHY should we consider migrating to Win7. As in, business reasons that stand up to scrutiny from sysadmin level scrutiny and then survive the bigger level of skepticm that finance/management will have when they see the bill. Then i'd like to see some analysis of those business reasons and the benefits to be expected from them.

At the moment, your coverage seems more based towards the home market "cos it looks pretty" crowd, rather than the IT Professionals and I have found much of the coverage so far to be dissapointing and useless.

According to your own research most of us are still managing XP estates, so please could you let us know how it compares to XP. You know a lot of us sysadmin types are intensely skeptical of anything salesdroids are pumping out, and to a lot of us "faster than Vista" says "but still slower than XP" unless that's said explicitly, because we are used to salesdroids trying to sell us expensive and useless tools by lying to us through the omission of important facts.

[Muth]

It's definitely Vista-II in reality...

It's not a new OS at all, everything is so distinctly Vistaesque, however memory management is better and everything is a little more clicky and idiot proof - although that's not catering for those experienced PC users who don't need an applet or shortcut for even the simplest of tasks.

Beneath the veneer there are glitches and problems galore, I found bugs with WMP 12, with Media Centre, with Windows Update palming me the wrong driver updates and bricking my internet adapter...

Anyone who jumps in prior to SP1 on any M$ OS can call themselves nothing more than an advanced BETA tester in reality.

[Mark Rendle]

Slow startup? Not here.

I've been running 7 x64 RC on my main PC since it was released, and it still boots to usable desktop in well under a minute. In fact, the POST takes longer than the boot to the login screen, and login (local only) takes a few seconds. And I've got dozens of things installed, including the full Microsoft Office, two versions of Visual Studio and all the frameworks, SQL Server 2008, IIS7, Eclipse, and a bunch of ickle background things like MSE, uTorrent and goodness knows what else. Applications load almost instantly, I've had no blue-screens or compatibility problems, and I think this is the best version of Windows ever.

Of course, my main PC is a 3Ghz quad with 8GB of RAM and an OCZ Vertex as the system drive. But I've also been running 7 Ultimate x86 RTM on my Samsung NC10 (with 2GB RAM) since it hit MSDN, and that's still running fine, too, with a similarly diverse bunch of things installed. It is noticeably faster than the originally-installed XP.

Only real problem is, I'm bored now. When can I get my Windows 8 CTP?

[Gary F]

Pleased others dislike Explorer

A comment you included from AC:

"5) When you enter a folder it doesn't auto expand in the folder pane."

Yes, I noticed that too and thought I was just being anal. You now have to either double click on the folder name to expand it or click on the Lotus Notes style arrow. (I am very disturbed to see MS copying that given that so many Lotus customers are migrating to MS)

Another quirk with the folder pane (for which the activation function is well hidden, why couldn't it remain as an icon?) is if you double click on a folder it somes jumps down to the bottom of the folder pane instead of remaining at the same location after its opened. Such small issues are really the biggest problems as it affects usability.

El Reg, you neglected to pick up on a major mailing of Windows 7. The ability to remember the location of your Explorer windows after a reboot has GONE! If you like to continue working with your open Explorer windows in the same place with the same settings then tough luck. Win7 forces you to manually put them all back to how you like them each and every time you reboot.

I'm all for retro design, but going back to Windows 3 is a bit too much!

Remember people - all that glisters is not gold, as Shakespeare wrote some 413 years ago in his play "A Merchant of Version 7". Has the merchant Ballmer taken your pound of flesh?

[Wibble]

Vista II == VII == 7

Interesting or stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

"used xp drivers and gor BSOD". Really??

Installed on 3 machines and had zero problems. One 64-bit, two 32-bit. Virtually every device found a driver. Install took about 45 minutes but so what, how often do you do it??

I can't believe people when they say it's crap when they have installed on some old pile of shite, "used XP drivers" and then winge about BSOD! Amazing.

Buy a machine Windows 7 compatable and then you have some right to complain.

My biggest gripe has always been the 99% coped sitting there forever before it comes back. You know what? It only happens on large files and guess what it was AVG virus checking before the copy from cache to desktop. Not Vista at all!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Name Check

I got a name check, Wicked!!! :)

[Kotonoha]

Diskeeper

is the answer for Windows 7 slowdowns. :)

[A B 3]

They should change their name...

To Microshaft or Microshlock. Their programs since XP are absolutely outrageous. I still run XP and Office 2000. Does the job with no bugs.

I'm an old Commodore Amiga Fan that machine was a precision tool. If you watch the task manager in Windows you will see that it doesn't execute programs in sequence. It just switches back and forth randomly.

Watch the windows media player progress bar it can't keep in sequence with the music etc.

Shafted again I think.

[Slackness]

From a Linux user...

Installed Windows 7 64 on the kids gaming machine from my corp MSDN, works 100% no issues. Its quicker, slicker and he is more than happy. Thats 1 month plus and almost 1TB of games + MS Office etc etc...

Zero complaints... (*I hate to say).

Installed 7 32 Bit on the Mrs PC for her Uni work, she's 100% happy and one month in on a crappy dell single core with 1GB of ram. She thinks its much better than XP + Bloat + More Bloat.

Installed 7 32 Bit on my *now spare, dont ask free laptop* dual core 1.8 2GB ram and its running fine for remote access to my nix box / office, no gripes...

Installed 7 64 bit on my Nix server quad core AMD 6GB RAM and 8TB RAID 5.(*on a spare pata drive for the kids mates to play on when they come round), 100% happy no issues... 4 weekends of solid gaming and no bitching.

WTF M$.... its actually quite good.

Maybe its the fact the PCs run for a day and are switched off, unlike my *nix box which is 24/7 until his mates turn up wanting left4dead game play.

[Steve Davies 3]

Bad 1st Sentence

quote

Windows 7 Reg readers flocked to install Windows 7 last week, and then flocked to our comments and inbox to tell the world exactly how they were finding life with Vista Mk II.

end quote

Should be

A few of our esteemed Windows 7 Reg readers flocked to install Windows 7 last week, and then flocked to our comments and inbox to tell the world exactly how they were finding life with Vista Mk II.

There fixed it for you.

I won't be installing Windows 7 anytime soon. The first time I saw someone try to use it it BSOD'd at boot. The reason? He attached an external monitor to his laptop before trying to boot it after the install had completed. IMHO, its not fit for purpose (like most Compute Operating System I might add) especially as they think I should part with some of my hard earned £££ for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than Vista but...

I run 3 operating systems on my 5 home computers: 1x OSX, 2x Windows XP and 2x Window 7 RTM. So far Windows 7 has shown problems with a number of applications and refuses to run even in compatibility mode. Yesterday, a Windows 7 update disabled an external Wireless-n device. Not impressed at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Cool

"Yesterday I plugged in a Mobile Device for the first time, it automatically installed Mobile Device Centre and connected to the device for me. Now that's cool. :)"

No, it isn't cool, its typical microsoft. Want to do something? It installs some extra software. I hate that about windows stuff.

--XP sticker.

Probably never upgrading now.

[Ian McLaughlin]

only one problem

When it wakes from sleep, my Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse no longer work - so proper shutdown required. This wasn't a problem with my XP install, and faster waking is one of the big W7 selling points.

Otherwise, s'alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 slowing down...

Sounds like the "tuning services" they have installed by default. To my understanding it tries to preload data for commonly used applications, tune your network connection, cache data from network drives, all sort of fancy BS.

The first thing I did when I installed it was go through and disable all non-essential services, and that got me down to 32 processes, and it still runs like a dream, and I've been running it since it was released on MSDN. (July I think?)

[bencurthoys]

"better than vista"

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

http://xkcd.com/528/

[Matt Hawkins]

RTFM

"When you enter a folder it doesn't auto expand in the folder pane"

It does if you if bother to read the "Folder and search options".

[William Hart 1]

Windows 7 Redux

Commented on an earlier article and see no reason to change those comments. Fedora and Ubuntu do everything I need and they were free. No problems hooking up new thingies or loading on new machines. May end up with it during the next upgrade simply because my bosses do not offer choice in OS. (I can see their point; we are horribly understaffed and the staff is under-trained. Adding Linux to the mix would blow their little minds.) So, I am happy that some are enjoying their experience. No one has yet convinced me that I need to shell out my own money to purchase this OS. Meh

[elderlybloke]

I will be downloading a new OS

in a few days ,

The one that is due to be released on 28 October.

[Watashi]

It's the PC, not the OS

Why is it that Apple OSes run so reliably? Well, it's because they only allow their OS to run on a highly restricted set of hardware manufacturers and models.

Here is my philosophy for running a Windows PC with a new OS. When Windows create their OSes they will be designing and alpha testing the new software on stable, well understood systems. This means good, matched RAM chips, a fast, cool running SATA drive, Intel dual core CPUs and vanilla ATI or NVidia graphics cards. The PCs will be well cooled, and will have stable PSUs.

Now, many PC manufacturers tweak the vanilla hardware base components of their PCs and so the new OS will not have been extensively tested on the hardware sets. As far as MS are concerned (and with so many manufacturers, who can blame them?) it's the manufacturers' job to make drivers that allow a stable running environment on hardware they themselves have customised. The same goes for home built PCs running cheap hardware or cutting-edge hardware. MS can't design their OS to run perfectly with every single variation of every model of mobo and certainly can't design out-of-the-box W7 specifically to work with hardware that didn't exist when RC1 was released. The high variation in hardware quality and the high numbers of manufacturers means that Windows has to deal with a much higher rate of hardware error than MacOS, and there's a limit to what we consumers can expect. Vista fell well beneath that limit, but from what I've heard from friends and colleagues who have used Windows 7 beta and RC1, almost all non-software reliability problems have resulted from non-vanilla hardware issues.

So, if you want a PC that will smoothly upgrade to a newly released OS, make sure your hardware is recent, but not brand new, and make sure it's as vanilla as possible. If you buy from Dell or HP, you should wait a few months until they've put decent drivers out. If you overclock, go back to factory settings. If you have new or tweaked hardware, wait a while - and If you have cheap hardware, don't expect it to run smoothly, even if it ran XP really, really well. It's not MS fault if your hardware is a rip-off copy of someone elses XP-compatible design.

Basically, expect what you pay for. The cheaper the computer you buy is in comparison to an equivalent Apple computer, the greater the number of manufacturing cuts that have been made. Low cost means either the manufacturer is taking a hit on profit margin (ie as Samsung are doing at the moment to try and gain a big increase in market share), or that the hardware is simply cheaper to make. Cheap hardware means eaither it's old, it's cheaply designed, it's copied off someone else, or it has a high failure / error rate. All of these will have an effect on OS performance. No OS, no matter how good, is ever going to run as well on bad hardware as it does on good hardware, and a new OS release is inevitably going to highlight the differences.

So, before blaming Windows 7, check your PCs hardware.

[sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD]

Step in the right direction

I think W7 is a step in the right direction. It is better than vista so that is in itself an important thing to recognize.

If M$ is reading this I'd like them to consider a more modular release system.

One big similarity intel chips today have with, say stuff from 10 years ago is that they all run pretty much the same core 32 bit instruction set (not couting of course extensions like MMX, SSEx, AMD64, virtualisation etc).

If they could release a modular release, say a bare kernel and some tools and just have addons as needed which you can purchase when and as you need them, and have newer kernels easily available as upgrades, ie SMP, 64 bit, that would be sweet.

I know it kind of happens now (ie netbook w7, vs w7 ultimate) but it would help if the process was ... more like err... Linux, you know, swap in/out bits AS YOU NEED, to customize your system. I'm not talking about live real time hot swapping device drivers in a microkernel but at least just the option to build up your system the way you want it.

That would make it more appealling to a lot of people. One could get a base W7 install for example, for a netbook, and say, add on for the sake of argument, an encrypting file subsystem, and remove/uninstall say a subsystem that wasn't wanted.

I mean really remove not disable.

That way the footprint could be potentially much smaller.

[Winkypop]

OK, but.......why?

Under XP, all my apps work, all my data is in place and, well, all my stuff just works!

XP running sweet as a nut.

7 costs $$$ to upgrade s/w and h/w plus some pain.

Where's the payoff here?

Why change a thing?

Or am I missing something truly important?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er...

I think your poster should look at the highly potential correlation between these two points:

"3) Boot-up has slowed over time which is not caused by new software being installed.

4) No multiple desktops like in Linux. I've had to buy a utility to do this"

Despite claiming that this slowdown isn't cause by new software being installed, he goes on to strongly imply that he *has* actually installed some new software and by its very nature, software which will get kicked off and initialise during the latter stages of bootup/login.

[JP Strauss]

"It;s what Vista should have been"

I'd throw one out there and say that it is what Longhorn should have been.

[Daniel Bennett]

WONDERFUL release

I've had no probs with it at all. Through BETA and RC and now to Release. Its great!

Best Windows Ever.

Just... People with a Mac should wait for the Bootcamp update before they install.... as that can cause BSOD.

[Rod MacLean]

My favourite comment

My favourite comment is undoubtedly "3) When you click on a filename to rename it, it highlights only up to the dot. My fave feature."

So Microsoft have done something right for once. If the rest of the comments are anything to go by, they've got everything else wrong though!

[Christopher Rogers]

Well

I like it. It works on old gear, new gear and is pretty straightforward. A nice look to it, doesn't crash and is responsive.

But then thats not enough for most people....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Er...

Acutally I installed ALL the software on the machine on day 1 (including the multidesktop utility) . The slowdown has happened gradually over the following weeks.

[Peter Gathercole]

Windows 7 compatible hardware?

I think the comments here are missing an important aspect of the problem.

I appreciate that it has always been the case that new hardware will always run new operating systems better, but some of the systems people are complaining about aren't really old.

People (and computer companies) seem to imagine that anybody who has a system older than 2-3 years should really replace their hardware. Think what this would mean if the same were true for cars, your heating system, your cooker, or your television ( - scratch the television, the manufacturers are already managing to convince people that their 2 year old 1080i LCD televisions are not 'true HD').

What is missing is the ongoing support for the 2-5 year old Athlon XP, Pentium D, M and 4 machines that are still perfectly capable of doing the Web browsing, Email, Word Processing and home accounts, that many people still have. These are still usable machines, and the only thing that will make people dump them (literally) is either a hardware failure, withdrawal of support (as MS are threatening to do for XP) leading to their online banking complaining that their system is insecure, or a sales person persuading them that what they have is lacking in some way.

If MS wish to make XP an OS of the past, they must have an affordable upgrade path to W7, IE8, WMP 10 etc, and make sure that drivers are available for older hardware (and the same must forced on the display and audio device manufacturers who are so keen on abandoning their old-hardware customer base). After all, I'm sure that a 3GHZ Pentium 4 must be at least as fast as a 1.5GHz Single core Atom 270, which is supposed to be able to run Windows 7 without problems.

Of course, there is a vested interest in the computer manufacturers shifting new hardware, and support issues for older stuff is a useful lever to them. I've long thought that MS and the hardware manufacturers are in collusion to make sure that they continue to sell the new 'shiny' things.

Computers should be commodity tools now, not subject to the whims and fads of fashion. It sickens to see, week after week, serviceable computers and televisions being sent to the recyclers, not because they no longer work, but because the owners have been conned into thinking that the old ones are too old/slow/difficult to secure or support, and the answer is to replace them. I'm not a Green, but the blatant waste is bordering on the criminal.

A computer should be for (it's) life, not just Christmas (sic).

[Colin Morris]

First impressions are good, but......

I took delivery of Win 7 professional on Thursday and the clean installation was fairly painless once I had saved my profile migration settings and Firefox/Thunderbird profile from my laptops rubbish Vista Home Premium pre-installation.

Initial thoughts are that this is a definite improvement but I still see no need whatsoever for any company to rush this onto the user desktop in the workplace. XP does the job fine for basically all businesses. In fact, if my home laptop had XP professional on rather than Vista Home Premium I never would have bought Win 7 in the first place!

[Swarthy]

Of two Minds...

I ran a W7 ( like the idea of VII=7, that actually explains the name) RC2 install, it had some nice features, and a very quick boot time. The downside was that I used the boot time frequently. The bloody thing would not stay up for more than 24 hours. I actually saw it BSOD a few times (on one occasion 4 times in 15 min - it is a quick boot), but mostly I would leave it on over night, It would go into hibernate, and when I got back from work the following day it had rebooted; all work lost.

I'm gonna try(ial) again with the actual release, because I don't like having a $2000+ paperweight, and can't find my XP install media, if it does it again, I'm going back to Kubuntu (or maybe even eComStation)

No ambivalence Icon... I guess "drunk" is close enough.

[Doug Glass]

Pile Control

I guess if you're going to be another pile of crap (" It's better than Vista "), you want to be a small pile of crap. Which Windows 7 is. Dachshund size, or maybe Chihuahua. But certainly not Great Dane size, that's just gross ... overstatement.

[Kevin Bailey]

XP is fine?

I'm amazed at the XP comments.

Every time I have to touch a client's XP PC it's barely usable. Two XP machines in my daughter's classroom are so slow they are definitely unusable - I will telling her not to bother even touching them - not going to waste education time waiting for MS bloatware to grind slowly along.

The Windows users expectations must be so, so low.

We've converted a couple of clients to Ubuntu and the main comments are how fast it is.

So, all the XP users - please try a modern OS - you'll then realise how much of your lives you've wasted due to MS incompetence - the sooner you switch the better.

[Greg J Preece]

File copying/deleting bullshit still there

I really, honestly, truly like Windows 7, and it works perfectly, except for one thing. One fundamental flaw: the little bastard will still only copy files at 1.5MB/s, and deleting them is no faster. WHAT THE FECKING HELL? I've tried changing, updating and reinstalling the storage controller drivers, but nothing helps. I don't want to see 1.5MB/s on anything in 2009 - my net connection's faster than that!

And before anyone starts on with that "crappy hardware" nonsense, this is a quad core box with 15000rpm hard drives. It does *not* dick around, and under XP x64 I would easily get 80MB/s between drives, no problem. I don't think it's the drivers either, because loading from the disk is still fast as hell - it's just anything involving a write that's slow.

I wouldn't pay 90p for an operating system that couldn't do the most basic operations without cocking them up, let alone £90 (or £150, as it now is).

If I can't figure out a way to make this thing...

a) Stop pausing for a couple of minutes halfway through the bootup process (no disk activity, nothing)

b) Start copying/deleting files at a reasonable pace

c) Stop lagging the rest of the system when copying large filesets (talk about kicking a guy while he's down)

...then it's going back under "unfit for purpose", which I believe trumps their EULA any day. Still got my copy of XP x64, and I am not waiting 5 minutes per module for a Maven build because Win7 wants to take its time with copying.

It's a real shame, because other than that, it's great, and worth the upgrade from XP.

Kubuntu Karmic would kick this thing's ass if I could get it to work properly with my Triplehead2Go.

[Nigel 11]

But is it better than XP?

Well, is it?

And in passing, could *anything* be *worse* than Vista?

[Greg J Preece]

Just had a thought

Double post! Following on from my original rant, a colleague of mine has described exactly the same symptoms on much more mainstream hardware, and we noticed something - installations are still really fast. So why does one type of file copying run fast, and one run slow? Is it something to do with privileges? Wonder if disabling UAC would help.

Suggestions?

[badgers]

Not just for home users.

I've been running the RTM for a fair while now, on a fairly non-standard machine (an overclocked sony ar21s laptop with raid) and it runs beautifully, especially compared to vista. No BSODs for months. It boots faster, has a more stable wifi connection, multi-tasks better, cascades windows faster and makes (for example) working on 10 different rdp sessions a much better experience.

Some of the features in 7 that tie in with Server 2008 R2 look awesome, and the extra group policy settings, management features, and power savings make it a no-brainer for me. I've tested it on a few virtual machines and various physical machines and I'm installing it on 20 machines in November.

And i have to agree with some previous posts. If you can't manage to install Win7 without getting confused and irate about BSODs or driver issues, what are you doing as an IT professional?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Steve Davies 3

Quote:

A few of our esteemed Windows 7 Reg readers flocked to install Windows 7 last week, and then flocked to our comments and inbox to tell the world exactly how they were finding life with Vista Mk II.

Should read:

A few of our esteemed Windows 7 Reg readers flocked to install Windows 7 last week, and then they, along with hordes of people who haven't installed/seen/used Windows 7 but wanted to get their opinion of how Ubuntu/OSX/AmigaOS must be better because Steve/rms told them it is flocked to our comments and inbox to tell the world exactly how they would have found life with Vista Mark II if they had installed it, which they mostly didn't, cos it's by Microsoft so must be evil and they use Ubuntu so they are better than you, so there!

There, fixed it for you.

[Matt 20]

Relatively Impressed!

I installed the RC on my vintage PC this weekend for kicks (Athlon XP 2600+ nForce 2 and Radeon 9800 Pro, all bleeding edge stuff). Given nVidia abandoned the mobo chipset and never put out Vista drivers, I wasn't overly optimistic, but thought I'd see just how badly it runs. The Upgrade Adviser told me all would be well, and my only heartache would be running WU after installation to get the sound working. Of course, I didn't believe it for a moment, but now as I wipe away the last few crumbs of humble pie from my lips, I must say it installed flawlessly.

The only reason I had to open the Device Manager at all was to satisfy my curiosity that all was indeed well afterwards. Not only did it find drivers for everything, but the whole setup is running much more smoothly than ever it did on Vista.

It's no speed demon, of course, but Vista was practically unusable on this machine - perhaps due to the dodgy nForce drivers I had to use.

I'm now installing all my crud on to it, and waiting to see how long it takes to slow to a crawl... But so far, so good. If it stays snappy, and I can find an upgrade for cheaps, I might be tempted to buy it. Which as a Mac head is a hard thing to say(!)

[Anonymous Coward]

re: RTFM

I though Windows 7 was supposed to be intuitive?

[Neil 6]

works for me

Windows 7, quite simply, is a good OS.

If you're happy with XP, stick with it. Nobody is forcing you to upgrade.

I have 7 on a netbook, business desktop on an AD domain and gaming machine at home. It works flawlessly on all of them. Virtual Box runs like a dream on my x64 desktop for Linux.

It's as if people are annoyed with MS for coming up with a good OS. Even the Mac Weekly podcast has admitted that Windows is now in parity with OSX.

[Anonymous Coward]

Old Kit

I've installed it on 2 systems that are both 2-3 years old and it works as well as XP.

Haven't had to upgrade the hardware, it just works.

1 supports Aero, 1 doesn't.

Only problem was getting sound on one of them, but after finding the correct Realtek driver it works fine.

Win7 is different and takes a little bit of getting used to but, once you do, it's a big improvement.

[Helldesk Dogsbody]

Oddly reassuring

I installed the x64 RC on my gaming rig some months ago. Apart from one minor backwards compatibility issue with directx (fixed by a quick google and copy paste routine) I've had no problems at all. Since the infamous BSOD first reared it's head I've been able to cause it in a matter of hours in most cases (Vista took about 15 to 20 minutes) but thus far not a peep out of Win 7 on a pre release version.

Several months down the line POST and boot still take approximately the same length of time. For the few months that Vista survived on my system I used to switch it on, go make a brew then sit and drink it waiting for the network services to start running. Quite a startling change really.

Actually, I find all the negative comments oddly reassuring as otherwise I'd be expecting nuclear armaggedon or the zombie apocalypse. The day Microsoft get something completely right will be the beginning of the end.

[Chika]

Still waiting for my copy to turn up, but...

I have been using the RC1 version on a PIII. It works, except for the display driver which keeps uninstalling itself on shutdown.

Having said that, I totally disagree with anyone that insists that we should all go upgrade in order to use the new OS. Yes, I know that drivers will always be a problem, but so what? In many other situations outside computing, manufacturers are obliged to keep support for a product for 10 years!

The driver in question is the Intel 830M which I realise is ancient, but it was found on a lot of machines overall. There were even XP and Linux drivers available for it. That's why I have said/blogged/Usenetted that this is where 7 is likely to have its naysayers. Not that it is necessarily Microsoft's fault.

I'll probably blog more when the damn thing turns up!

[Peter Gathercole]

@Kevin Bailey

I'm similarly concerned about *one* of my XP systems. Its a 2.4GHz Celeron D (I think). When delivered, it had 256MB of memory, and ran passably fast (it was bought for utility, not speed), but when my wife recently said that she could not use it any more because it was slow, I had a look.

In 256MB, it was paging heavily. The hard disk light was almost permanently on. Virus, I thought, but no. New scans by recently downloaded copies of both virus and adware scanners showed nothing. Firewall (Smoothwall) showed no unexplainable network activity (but did show how much happens when installed apps check for new versions!) Booted into a live Linux distro just fine, showing the basic hardware was sound. Disabling all the bloated startup background processes made little difference, nor did de-fragging the hard disk.

Doubled the memory, and the machine became usable again. Looked more closely at the memory usage and the installed and running tasks, and saw that there are a whole load of Microsoft patches that are memory resident occupying resource (I'm not kidding, I counted nearly 100MB worth of patches), taking the basic memory footprint of the idle machine to about 260MB.

So. Do Microsoft install patches as memory diverts as opposed to a new kernel?

As an exercise, I installed another system from scratch using XP install media, and found that I could get a newly installed unpatched XP system running quite happily in 128MB (obviously, not using any heavyweight apps., and behind a firewall!) As I installed SP2, it needed 256MB, and when I put in the required virus scanner, 256MB was no longer sufficient for acceptable performance. I did not put SP3 on, although maybe I should .

So, it is quite possible that your slow machine is not slow because of XP, but because there are loads of start-at-boot processes and MS patches using all of the available memory. If there is a modern antivirus system installed (you know, the type that intercepts and inspects [and slows down] all reads and writes to both disk and network), then it is also possible that this is what is crippling a perfectly capable machine. Decide whether it is worth re-installing. Or possibly, investigate Edubuntu, whereby you can dispense with the AV stuff. But this is more than most Windows people are comfortable doing.

So, in reference to my earlier post, the default behaviour for a machine like this will be to chuck the machine and buy a new one. What I don't understand is why do you need half-a-gig of memory just to run an idle machine? Madness.

[Anonymous Coward]

Annoying UI changes

I've been running Win7 for a few weeks now and am left with the impression that the underlying OS is good, but the UI has taken several steps back from XP. Several annoyances:

- UAC: If you run a random .exe, there's no option to mark it as 'trusted'. Even though XP's access control was very very simple, it did at least have a tick box to prevent the same question being asked each time you ran the same .exe.

- Explorer: Horrible. No "up hierarchy" button. Folder pane doesn't point to the same path as the right pane by default (can be changed, but takes some finding). Folder pane changes position when you expand a folder. Path in the address bar doesn't use slashes to seperate folders, making it inconsistent with any other place the user might deal with a full path.

- Start menu: Lots more clicks to do the same thing as in XP. Lots of extra crap in there by default that you'll never use. No simple way to reorganise the structure (e.g. add folders) without delving deep into the Windows directory structure. Customisation was clunky as hell in XP and earlier versions of Windows, but at least it worked.

- Stability: I've had Firefox crash several times for no apparent reason. The same thing has never happened in XP.

- Speed: On an E8500 overclocked to 4G, I can sometimes see the damn windows being drawn. Probably the result of running some interpreted junk, rather than real code.

- Hiding of technical detail: When a program crashes you get a woolly message about it not working properly. Great... I know what I'm doing, so tell me what's actually happened!

On the plus side, there seems to be a lot less cases of unresponsive applications due to hard drive thrashing. XP and 2000 were really bad for this, especially right after boot.

[Ed Blackshaw]

@ Vista II = VII = 7

Actually, that does kind of make sense. I've tried, in my head, to figure out how they got to the number seven. My thinking goes like this:

3.1 = 3

95 = 4

98 = 5

ME (*choke*) = 6

2000 = 7

XP = 8

Vista = 9

7 = 10

Even if we consider 95, 98 and ME to be the same operating system (which in many ways they are), we still end up with Windows 7 being the eighth version. However, we could go the other way and include things like Server 2003 and bump the number up. Whichever way I look at it, I can't actually reconcile Windows 7 with a seventh version of anything.

Maybe Microsoft are trying to redesign the numbering system we have been using since the ancient Babylonians came up with the concept of zero?

[TimNevins]

@Peter Gathercole

Yes Peter. You're right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence#Style_obsolescence

[dee66]

Great OS

Have to agree with a lot of comments on who are these idiots installing and having such trouble.

Also agree with Watashi's comments on hardware. I've installed it on my new PC. Core i5 in an Intel m/b no overclocking. Fast and faultless.

Price? £65 for a full version and will run it for a few years not much is it?

[Mothballs]

Shakey start

I must confess to having an underwear-threatening moment during the upgrade from Vista. When prompted to plonk in the magic number, it advises you not to type the dashes as they'd be inserted automatically - they weren't.

Apart from that, and the extra steps now required to accomplish a basic task, it's worth the money to finally have a stable, fully-functioning and much more responsive system.

[Anonymous Coward]

@@ Vista II = VII = 7

NT3.5

NT4

Win 2000 (NT5)

XP (NT5.1)

VISTA (NT6)

Windows 7...

Get it???

The numbering is based on the NT line, not the Win 9x line...

[Dave 129]

Mediocre effort from MS

I bought the family pack Saturday and first upgraded Vista Home Premium. This was a complete mess even after first running the Upgrade Advisor and following all of it's instructions including removing problematic software. Stuff was broken, control panel applets would not run, I was getting "Explorer.exe failed to start server" type error messages, programs would not open though they would get a running task in task manager. So much for "in-place upgrade".

Formatted, re-installed and rebuilt piece by piece installing my previously downloaded drivers and updated software. So far OK. Though many of the changes that have been made are pointless. WHY has Control Panel changed 4 times - it's been different in every version of Windows since 2000/95/98. First XP, then Vista and now 7 have different views. MS just pick one and be done with it... and NOT Vista or Win 7s! They suck. And not "category view" it doesn't work.

What the hell is up with Windows Explorer?! Navigating folders is now a nightmare (perhaps I've not yet spent enough time with it) and the taskbar changes are again stupid. No quick launch, instead you pin icons... except they now launch AND switch to the program. WTF?! Makes no sense to me. At least they fixed Desktop Search so it's not a dog and is no longer the most resource sapping program every known (not tried with my files restored yet though so judgement still reserved). Oh and why have they gone back to "MY ...." folder names? Urgh!

So far it's better than Vista (for the most part) but hell... that aint exactly saying much. Better than XP? No. MS made a bunch of changes for no good reason that I can see. Many frivolous, and I really don't think they bothered looking at how most people actually use their computer. And whoever came up with the idiotic ribbon needs to be taken out and shot. Really I mean come on; it fails on every level and now it's being put into the OS?! :(

@Ed Blackshaw, Windows versions are more like:

3.1 = 3

95 = 4.0

98 = 4.1

ME (*choke*) = 4.5

2000 = 5.0

XP = 5.5

Vista = 6.0

7 = 6.1

[Peter Gathercole]

This reminds me of...

... the introduction in the yellow VI book (McGraw Hill?), which states that "VI should be pronounced Vee Eye, not Vie or six"!

[Nubcakes]

windy-ohz 7

I just got windows 7 through my college and added it to my boot menu. It installed in roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes. On the same computer Vista took nearly 3 hours and XP took less than 30 minutes.

Windows 7 works well enough with all of my programs I use frequently with XP. Roughly 1 third would not install persay but simply copy-paste(ing) the installed files from my XP partition worked without any trouble. I am not too sure what to make of this. Some older games which worked on XP refuse to work on 7 still. I have my doubts as to whether or not any compatibility fixes will be made.

I only used vista once before purging the partition I had installed it to on my computer. It was at the time when it was first release. I had too many problems and felt that it just was not worth my time. I haven't touched it since.

This may explain why Windows 7's interface appears to be a catastrophe of ass! As well as it works in comparison to Vista, The interface is horrible compared to XP the changes are excessive and unintuitive for anyone who used XP or earlier version. I ended up having to disable the Explorer GUI to tolerate Windows 7. I'll probably use lite step sometime soon.

On a side note, does anyone know how to change the MIDI Playback in windows 7? It was smack dab infront of you in XP by simply going to control panel-->Sounds and Audio Devices-->Audio 'tab'. I can't seem to find it in 7

[richard 7]

Old/Underpowered hardware. . .

Athlon64 3000+ 784 Mb (mismatched) DDR, 40Gb SATA (from an apple) nVidia Quadro FX3800 - Runs Win7 better than XP, 4 days and counting

Atom 270/1.6 !Gb Ram, 500Gb SATA, on board Intel supershite graphics, ok untill you ask it to do HD, then it dies, to be fair, XP MCE did too :P

Samsung P30. Pentium M 1.75, 1Gb, 200Gb HD - Freaked out over the MiniPC adaptor which was followed by Defender imploding for some reason. Swapped from intel NIC to Atheros and fine.

All three cases 7 found all the drivers it needed, even for the Quadro card, which nVidia themselves dont even seem to be able to do.

I likey, for now. . .

[Michael C]

inconsitant changes and still no working backup

OK ,some nice changes, I'll admit, and a bit more change under the covers than Microsoft makes evedent in basic advertising (some nice changes to stack processes, GPU, new APIs, etc). howver, the changes, especially to GUI and control panels, are rediculously inconsistant. What's been changed in one way for an app is changes in a different way for another app. Even microsofts own inciumbant (completely remodeled) apps (like Media Center, Messenger, WMP, IE) do not even all use jumplists in the same way (and they're of the few that actually use it at all). Too many poorly documented features that programmers won't use, and too many options left to continue additional inconsistant experience issues. Even a properly planned project with no direction is doomed to fail.

Backup. OK, it was better than NT backup in Vista. File backups seem to work (though restore could use some help). In 7, do they improve it? Nope, they took AWAY choices and conficuration. Also, now image backups run EVERY TIME you run a file backup, and you can only keep 1. WTF? Best practice is current plus 1 previous backup (and previous for images is the most recent backup PRIOR to a patch or install, which could be months ago...). What's worse, image backups are STILL borked. a 2.5 year old bug makes them unrecoverable unless it's the first image backup you've done, or unless you do it to DVD. They're not portable, even TOUCH the folder they're in (including with AV scanning), and they can never be restored. Great, since I can't automate images to DVD and data to disk, and since I can't keep 2 copies minimum, and since restores of images dont't work, i need to buy something else, yet again, since my Vista based backup apps are no longer compatible... So, I'm buying a mac...

[Robinson]

Problems?

I've been running the RC on my home built PC since it was released (and the beta before it). I don't see any of the problems you talk about here. I love 7, compared to both XP and Vista. I won't be upgrading to the full version for a few months though. I don't fancy reinstalling all of the apps I've got on it at the moment (upgrade installs are always going to be FAIL imho. Fresh installs ftw).

[Doug Glass]

@Kevin Bailey

Nice try Kevin but you might want to sit down at a few XP machines (like mine) that are properly mainyained and are faster and more responsive than any of the W7 versions I've tested. And I've tested all that have been made available from one source or another.

But keep up the good work and next time Billy takes a walk through the building, tell him "Stones" says hello.

[gonzotgreat23]

Windows 7 complaints

Just from reading the comments, the complaints seem to run into two camps: 1)Windows 7 is crap because I shouldn't have to buy something new to get the new bells and whistles, and 2) Windows 7 is crap because it isn't XP. I've used the analogy before of asking Microsoft to make an operating system work with every possible hardware configuration is much like asking General Motors to make a car that works with every part made from every other car company, then complaining when certain parts don't work properly.

As for it not being XP, it isn't designed to be. Last time I checked, Stevie B wasn't going to anyone's house and forcing you to buy the new operating system. Complain if you want, but if you went to your boss at work and said "I don't want to do it that way, it's different than the way I've always done it" and see how well that works. Improving things means changing things.

[DaveB]

Windows 7 is a Linux killer

As my Windows XP lost the plot running on my new mega PC, I turned to Linux and virtualised my XP system with VMWARE Workstation. Well that turned out to be a great way to make an slow XP system run slower.

I tried to move the family to native Linux but it didn't hit the spot.

So I added another disk and loaded Windows 7 (64 bit) and it has been great.

Since I did this not once have I gone back and rebooted my Linux system.

I still run my Linux server but as a desktop its now Windows 7.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Greg J Preece

As an experiment, you might want to try your file copies with your AV disabled (or uninstalled). I can copy files over the network between Win7 machines at 40MB/s, so slow copies are definitely not an inherent flaw in Windows 7 itself.

[Al Jones]

2 Thumbs up, 1 Thumb down

I did 2 clean installs with no problems, but decided to do an upgrade on my wife's PC, to avoid re-installing all her apps. Not a fun experience. It took almost 3 hours, the Nvidia 8400 GS refused to offer 1680x1050 as a screen resolution for my monitor, even though that's the native resolution, and Windows Update said I had up to date video drivers. Eventually, I went to the Nvidia website and found that they DO have newer drivers, and when I installed them, I got my 1680x1050 resolution, but there's still something wrong with the colours - all the reds are way too strong.

Startup and shutdown times haven't improved over Vista. At this point, I think I'll be installing a new harddrive, and doing a clean install. It will probably take less time than that upgrade.

[Shane Kent]

I could not buy...

I went to five computer stores around West end of Ottawa, Canada, and nobody had Win 7 64bit Ultimate to sell me (in stock). I tried two stores the next day, still no go. I also tried to get 64bit Premium or Pro, still no go. I had no problem getting Vista 64bit Ultimate when it came out? Either Win 7 is selling well or computer stores around Ottawa got bitten by Vista and reluctant to stock Win 7?

I even thought, what the heck, I will get retail copy at Future Shop (approx. $150 extra over OEM), check stock at Future Shop for stores near me, not sure if true but they had no Win 7 Ultimate listed in stock.

So I went and bought a telephoto lens for my HD video cam, maybe you get my money next pay Monkey Boy!

[Mike Gravgaard]

7

I don't get why people love Windows to upgrade - personally I'd wait until SP2 is released out of habit. I've looked at Windows since about Windows 2000 (I think this was their first proper release though NT wasn't too bad) but I've not really seen the point since about Windows 2000 to update; if you look at it there aren't that many good reasons.

I'm also an old Amiga user (Amigan) and miss it though today I use Linux (Ubuntu or Debian) in my spare time. The Amiga was good but lacked some things like memory management support though this might be release in AmigaOS4?? The Amiga did a lot of things right though in so many ways and was years ahead; it still beats the PC on some things.

Depressingly I rarely use the Amiga anymore but I did find a Escom Amiga 4000T on Ebay which I bought but I'd like a Phase 5 PPC card for it. I've also seen some Amiga hardware cheap recently and there also seems to be machines like the Minimig, Clone A and NatAmi which are interesting ideas.

Mike

[Will Godfrey]

Interestingly...

I find this closely matches my experience with Linux. On some machines it's a breeze on others it's a dog.

The difference is, there are so many different distros I can nearly always find one that will work, and none of the failures has cost me a penny. I do however make donations to the sucessful ones.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the icon for 'meh' -- We are still building our product on Windows 2000

We are still building our product on Windows 2000. New Windows releases do us absolutely no good at all. We are frozen in place supporting the old stuff...

[Jason 50]

Whats the issue?

I have been running the RC's for months now without issue. Still boots faster than xp/vista, shuts down faster than both, never had a BSoD on it.

[Kevin Bailey]

@Doug Glass

'Nice try Kevin but you might want to sit down at a few XP machines (like mine) that are properly mainyained and are faster and more responsive than any of the W7 versions I've tested.'

Exactly my point - most PC's around the world aren't maintained at all - from the millions in small offices to the ones left in the corners of classrooms. Those are the ones which are a effectively useless and wasting everybody's time.

So you spend (waste) your life faffing about trying desperately to keep your PC's running - where Ubuntu machines work just about perfectly all the time. The sooner you see the light the better - honest - we're only trying to help!

And your other point is probably true - your brand new Win7 install may be (currently - wait a couple of months) faster than XP - what I'm saying is that Ubuntu is even faster than XP.

And - I don't care about Bill G or any of that - I'm a programmer who works primarily on Debian boxes. I just happen to have bought Dell laptops for our company which came with Ubuntu pre-installed. I fully intended replacing Ubuntu with Debian - but that's not been needed as Ubuntu has been perfect for our needs.

The simple fact is - for ordinary users who need email, web, office apps, printing, Music, etc Ubuntu is far, far superior to any version of Windows.

If you don't believe me then get this. This is a very difficult point for long term Windows users to get their heads around - the update manager updates 'EVERY SINGLE BIT OF SOFTWARE' on your PC at the same time. You won't get it until you actually see it probably. And our laptops have gone through THREE upgrades with NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. I never known a single Windows upgrade (from 3.11 on) to ever work fully.

[Anonymous Coward]

That Windows 7 Burger

I'm currently in Japan, and had the Windows 7 burger from Burger King on Saturday.

It's better than Vista.

[Tom 106]

@ El Reg...

For what it is worth, I think you (El Reg) should carry out a survey in around 8-10 wks time, regarding Win 7. As this allow those of us have newly installed to have a delve into it and offer some user defined feedback, rather than having "first impressions" opinions.

Afterall, my first impression of the retail release has much improved from that of the RC release, though it may yet change. Especially, if what I am experiencing is a bug or design flaw!!!!!

[Phil Dalbeck]

@ lumatrix

I bought a new car the other day... it runs on Diesel. sadly, when I went to my filling station, they had run out of Diesel, so I filled it up with good ol' Unleaded - which my old (though admittedly now rusty, and comparitively unsafe) car ran GREAT on for YEARS.

Wouldn't you know it, my new car runs like a dog, and its all the new manufacturers fault, why didnt they organise with my local filling station to have plenty of diesel available for me?

Moral: If your hardware is so old and unsupported that you can't even get drivers for it then either upgrade the kit, complain to the hardware vendor, or just stick with the old OS? How is any of that Microsofts fault?

We all loved XP, but like Old Shep, its time to let it go and stop living in the past.

[Steve Martins]

I'll have a free copy please

Ok, so I have a washing machine in my house, i use it regularly. It has all the features I need and cleans my clothes. Why on earth would I pay hard earned money for a new one? I wouldn't - it would be utterly pointless and a waste of money. For me Win7 is the same kinda beast. except the alternates are completely free (an old donated machine with an XP licence, thankyou very much, and Linux). From what i've read and seen I quite like Win7 - but in the same way I quite like shiny new washing machines with more modern styling and quieter/faster wash cycles. If someone gave me it free - well it means taking the old one out, heaving the new one in and plumbing it all up - what a PITA, but if its free perhaps i'd go to the effort. So if anyone wants to give me a free copy of Win7, i *might* install it if I find myself with loads of free time and a desire to take on a potential challenge.

[Cameron Colley]

@The RTFM people.

Why the hell should anyone RTFM? If you're going to have to learn how to use a new non-familiar OS you may as well buy a Mac or install Linux -- the whole point of buying MS stuff is that you're supposed to be able to install and use it easily.

@Darren Tuffs: The above but more so -- if you have to piss around looking for drivers, and lots of your hardware doesn't work, then how exactly is Windows 7 better than Linux or Mac?

FWIW I'm a Kubuntu/Xubuntu user at home and an XP user at work and my (admittedly limited) experience of Win7 a a pre-installed OS is that it's OK if you like that sort of thing but all the config items and information screens seem to be one menu deeper -- so when we move to it at work I know I'll spend days getting menus changed around. There also doesn't seem to be anything you can do that you couldn't on XP or, indeed, any OS released in the last 10 years (well, with the possible exception of ME).

[northern_monkey]

RC to Retail Video driver goodness :)

Been using the RC for a while now with no issues, had to get a hacked driver for my netgear w111gt wireless adapter but apart from that all good.

Upgraded last night from the RC to the retail via this uber guide

http://icrontic.com/articles/upgrade-the-windows-7-rc-to-retail

40 mins later full retail copy. nice :)

Best thing so far ?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Phil Dalbeck

Continuing your car analogy:

Windows 7 is more like bringing out a new car with completely redesigned controls.

"I bought a new car the other day. It has a frikkin pair of joysticks where the steering wheel should be and I now have to indicate by pressing a button and answering an 'are you sure' prompt".

Msoft appear to have redesigned the bits that have worked perfectly for years, e.g. Explorer, and avoided a lot of the problematic areas, e.g. start menu reorganisation.

If it ain't broke....

[Klaus]

Seems OK, but what new features does it actually offer?

Hi All;

I've tried out Win7 on a new laptop, and it seems to function OK. It's definitely not any faster than XP. But the real question is, what new features does it offer? I couldn't find any benefits over XP, so really, what's the point in upgrading?

[Greg J Preece]

@AC 20:24

No AV kit running, but I still can't copy files at any kind of speed. Colleague is reporting the same problems, and they don't occur under XP. As far as I'm concerned, Win7 is doing this somehow. Just need to figure out how.

[Greg J Preece]

@Watashi

That....was the biggest load of twaddle I've read in a long time. It's not the fault of Windows because your hardware isn't as good as a Mac?

Is the hardware in a Mac somehow superior? Does the nVidia in a Mac get blessed before it's installed?

Nothing wrong with my hardware. Something wrong with Win7.

[elderlybloke]

Uprading for the sake of Upgrading

If XP or Visa worked well for you last week , when it was said to be the best OS ever, why spend money on a new shiny thing.

My car still runs well , is reliable and reasonably economic to run. It is 18 years old but I have no need to spend money on a later , different shaped car.

Down here in New Zealand we don't go in for an endless cycle of throwing out a good product that is doning a good job , just because a new shiny model is available.

I hear that spending like you have been doing is what caused the near collapse of your economy.

Having said that I will be getting an update to my OS , but it comes free , repeat free !

My wallet will not be harmed, and I have seen that this upgrade actually has got a good number of improvements .

PS . I was a customer of MS for 20 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffff!

I have been using Vista for quite a while (with XP-style user interface) and was completely gobsmacked when I could not change the stupid Vista-style Windows 7 user interface to something more resembling XP. This user interface is for idiots! Enormous buttons, everything has to animate somehow (and slow down the whole process of opening), etc. What a load of bullcrap I thought.

So I formatted and tried Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), let me tell you, this is so much better! Microsoft died for me that day.