I’m happy to say that I am — for the most part — very pleased with this upgrade so far. I came from Vista 32-bit, and I have now officially entered the 64-bit era by installing Windows 7 x64. For quite a few months I read about people’s experiences with the betas and release candidates, and was excited about the good news I kept hearing. I decided to just be patient and put in for my pre-order like most people did, which meant waiting for the October 22nd release date.
Let’s go through this topic by topic:
INSTALLATION: It was easy, almost too easy. For some reason I was half expecting to wait more than an hour to get this on my machine, but instead I was up and running in roughly 25 minutes or so (I performed a clean install, not an upgrade). And on top of that, all of my primary devices were recognized (see the end of my review for complete system specs). The Windows Easy Transfer utility was an enormous help in getting my user identity and files into my new configuration.
USER INTERFACE: Personally I thought Vista was very handsome, what with its transparency, 3-D effects, color schemes, and usability improvements to Windows Explorer, and I believe Windows 7 continues that trend by looking just as sexy — if not more — while at the same time adding its own valuable features and enhancements. It just seems like a great deal of effort was put forth into making everything slick, polished, and logically consistent, and I’ve already fallen in love with many of the additional improvements, such as the revamped and more versatile taskbar, jump lists, and customizable themes. I haven’t yet become accustomed to some features like Aero Shake, but hey, those things are there if I need them. But the attention to detail and even minimalism in certain areas is certainly appreciated. And sure, some people might scoff at the shiny facade and dismiss certain parts of it as being “bells and whistles,” but honestly, isn’t it actually USEFUL to have the ability to see full-screen previews of running applications, or to be able to hide all of your open windows and take a quick glance at what’s underneath? All of these niceties simply add up to a more functional and usable desktop.
PERFORMANCE: I think it’s actually better than Vista. Overall the system feels more responsive and, well, “snappier.” Gaming is as smooth as could be. No complaints as far as startup, shutdown, and resuming from sleep mode are concerned.
STABILITY: Very good, but I’ll give 7 an A- here. I got just ONE blue screen of death so far, and that was during the installation of a particular piece of software (I forget what it was to be honest — maybe a browser plug-in). Other than that, it’s been rock-solid, with absolutely no crashes. I’ve even gone through some software development debugging sessions in which the program I was working on was repeatedly throwing up on me, and Windows 7 recovered gracefully every time.
SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY: Pretty high marks, but not perfect. I think some of it has to do with my transition to 64-bit anyways, like the fact that I’m having trouble with a specific component in Visual Basic 5 (I use it to support a piece of software I designed for work). No big deal, though — I’m going to circumvent it by using my copy of Windows XP in Sun’s VirtualBox to run it, so problem solved. Another issue I had was the fact that the installation of Samsung Media Studio 5 (for my MP3 player) causes Windows Media Player to fail to launch when you try to open a media file, but again, that’s not a show-stopper because I can manipulate that device directly in the OS anyways without that application. And don’t laugh, but it looks like I might have to give up Publisher 95. Heh heh … yeah, I’ve been using that program for years now to do miscellaneous desktop publishing, but guess what? Its installer is 16-bit. So again, that’s a 64-bit lack of support for 16-bit issue, not really a problem with Windows 7 per se. Plus I guess I could still run it in my virtual XP machine if I wanted to. Other than those snags I just mentioned, the majority of my applications and games run just fine — and thank goodness Cakewalk Music Creator still works with my MIDI and audio interface devices. (I admit I’m still having trouble with this game that I wrote that uses DirectX and has a tendency to start running very slowly, but that might be Nvidia’s fault and not Microsoft’s — and it did the same thing in Vista, too.)
WINDOWS LIVE ESSENTIALS: I guess it was a smart move on behalf of MS. A little less bloat for people who would rather choose alternatives to those programs, but still available as a free download. Personally I feel that Microsoft has been blessed with a lot of talented people who are really experts at design — the basic necessities such as Live Mail and Calendar (and all of the other apps) are wonderful in my opinion.
OTHING THINGS I LIKE: The Devices section in the Control Panel is now much better, and ejecting USB devices is quicker and easier. User switching works flawlessly. I adore the fresh new visual styles of the built-in tools like Paint and WordPad — I’m looking forward to upgrading from Office XP to Office 2010! (Even Calculator is better!)
BUGS OR QUIRKS: The link for opening the backup applet is broken, but not when you launch it via the new Action Center. Also, unlike in Vista, Mozilla Firefox seems to have developed this strange problem of occasionally reporting that it can’t find the server when you try to connect to certain websites — but if you just click the browser’s “back” button, it will then load just fine (and usually sites load properly when you open them via the Bookmarks menu). I don’t perceive it as being severe enough of a problem to make me want to stop using Firefox altogether (yet), but it is kind of annoying. Internet Explorer 8 doesn’t exhibit this behavior at all, so for that reason and others I’m switching back and forth between the two (I tried resetting my router, and it didn’t seem to have any effect).
In summary, I think Microsoft did the right thing by listening to its users and trying to correct Vista’s shortcomings, whether real or just perceived. I can’t say this is a revolution; it’s more like evolution (boy, how many times has THAT been said about a software product?). But to me it’s a step in the right direction, and if things stay the course, Windows could have a bright future.
SYSTEM SPECS: Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 case | Corsair TX750W PSU | EVGA nForce 780i MOBO | Intel Core 2 Quad (Yorkfield Q9300) | Tuniq Tower 120 CPU cooler | 4 GB Kingston DDR2 800 | HannsG HG281DPB 28″ LCD | BFG Tech GeForce GTX 280 | Western Digital Caviar SE16 500 GB SATA | Samsung DVD+/-RW (SATA) | Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 | MOTU FastLane USB MIDI interface | E-MU 0404 USB audio interface | Yamaha YST-M15 speakers | HP Photosmart 8150 printer | HP Scanjet 4070 scanner | D-Link DIR-628 router | Microsoft Natural Keyboard & Optical Mouse | Logitech RumblePad 2 | Windows 7 Home Premium x64