Windows 7 Review :)

[Krandall]

http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/windows-7-beta.ars

I'm excited

[Flynbyu]

I need this translated from Geek to English please.



Good news. Sounds like Vista is history already.

~Brian

[Krandall]

basically... it's gonna be good. 

[Colorado700R]

Vista is this generation's Windows Me  AKA: POS   

[Mad Dog]

So far it looks like a visually tweaked vista...not amazed with the new functions and so far no discernable difference in stability from vista.  I am going to give it some more time but my impression is this should be vista sp2, not a new os.  I sure wouldn't shell out 399 for the ultimate version if I already had vista.  On a side note the CPU usage is quite heavy, and the media center brings my 32bit test rig (p4 oc to 3.1ghz) to a halt, taking some time to do simple tasks.  I assume this is a bug w/ media center.

[Blair]

i was never satisfied with vista and ended up going back to XP, if 7 doesnt absolutley wow me (i am a function over flash type of person) i will be changing over to linux...

[Mad Dog]

i was never satisfied with vista and ended up going back to XP, if 7 doesnt absolutley wow me (i am a function over flash type of person) i will be changing over to linux...

I wasn't either until SP1 came out, and with SP2 in beta I'm sure it'll get even better.  There aren't a whole lot of functions on an OS that have ever wowed me, in fact I think the last time it happened was when I switched from windows 3.11 for workgroups to windows 95.  But there were some changes from XP that have made vista easier to work with. 

One of my problems with windows was the moving or copying of folders and files.  Vista does it much faster, more accurately so I don't end up with corrupted files, and can merge folders instead of the XP way which only allows you to replace it or do nothing.  It also finishes the job, unlike XP which, when moving large blocks of flies, will simply stop part way through without any notification that it didn't complete the task.

With Vista I find that the explorer windows are easier to navigate and the folders list in the left pane works faster and with less clutter than that in XP.  The previews when using alt+tab are nice as are the previews when hovering over the task bar, especially when I have multiple windows open or when the tasks are grouped.  These are just some of the ways that my day to day interaction has improved with Vista over XP.  I have a disk image of my XP install saved in my backup manager, but I have been satisfied enough with Vista that I have no desire to even set the image up for dual boot.  I will keep XP on my old computers with slow processors and paltry ram though, along with the linux distros I never found to be as good as windows.

The visual cues added in windows 7 are nice, but not substantial and though I've only had it on since the public beta was released last week I haven't found anything that I would expect to "wow" anybody.