Windows 7 forum: Windows 7, please enlighten me with your opinions on this to be released OS

As you know Windows 7 is smaller than Vista, and even faster. So, I have started to use it on my laptops. I was always envy to have Vista on laptops, but they cannot run Vista. I am glad MS has done such a step and created a product for laptops. It works well.
Chris
http://www.duplicationcentre.co.uk/

I'm running Vista Home Premium SP1 and I think a few of you have much to learn about it.
Don't take offense, I, too, was one of those who said Vista sucked when it first came out, but that was only because I hadn't given it a serious trial run yet.
Spend some more time exploring the different options. You can control the security pop-ups and even eliminate them altogether if you want. The only time I had any software conflicts was due to out-date drivers which resolved itself once the third-parties got up to speed.
Adjusting the GUI Downward to increase performance? That's been an option in every version of Windows I've ever used right back down to 3.0
As for many of the other suggestions I've seen on here so far, 64-bit is NOT an option in my opinion. Microsoft currently REQUIRES (Read as all-caps, all-bold,underlined and italicized -- in other words you don't have any control) driver signing in 64-bit mode which basically tells you that Microsoft doesn't think you are smart enough to decide what to install on your own system.
For the time being, I'll stick with Vista till I don't have much choice anymore which is usually how things like this are finally decided for many of us anyway.

For many years I had a basic Dell desktop w/XP which ran very good for our needs ie; surfing the net for Homeschooling ideas and reading e-mails. In Dec of 08 I bought a new HP with Vista (for you cp geeks it is a: Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2200 @2.20 GHZ w/ 3GB Ram w/a 64 Bit OS, which is greek to me, as long as it turns on and lets me read my e-mails and a little surfing I'm happy) and because of all the negative things I had read and heard about Vista, I was going to uninstall Vista, but then I thought give it chance, as some bloggers said "try before you dump" so I did. I must be one of lucky ones because I have had not 1 single freeze up or crash, it does load faster then my XP (I even did a few no no's and had to system restore once or twice, ok, maybe 4 or 5 times, but I am learning more and more about cp's every day, I learned a lot on the Dell,I bet I was doing a system restore 3 times a month, but I learned what to touch and what not touch and a lot of "Leave that file alone no matter what". Anyway, I am self-taught be pale to most of you people on here, but my Vista runs great, has games downloaded on it, 2 web browsers, Maxthon and IE8 which both run great. I downloaded IE8 on a whim and it performs perfectly and, I speak the truth here, it actually ran faster than FF3, no joke and the Maxthon ran faster than FF3, Opera, Avant, Safari, AOL Explorer, MSN Explorer and being the novice and curious person I am, I played around with them. What's my point? I don't know, I forgot (hey I'm 56 give me a break) my it was: don't go to much by what say, try it first, give it time, what worked for some-one may not work for you, but what didn't work for some-one may work for you. If I would have listened to what people wrote and said, I still would be using my Dell. Maybe that was what I wanted to say. If anyone can explain to me what all that mumbo jumbo about my new HP is, could you maybe please let me know. I will check back here because I want to see what people are saying about Windows 7. Thank-you

Windows XP: "Solid." Disagree. The first three years following release, "we" all hated the pre-SP1 O/S.

Windows XP x64: "Good luck with the drivers." Agreed! Redmond wasn't quite ready to deliver 64-bit computing without widespread hardware support.

Windows VISTA: "Rock solid with SP1 upgrade." I agree with rock solid, but IMHO SP1 was mostly cosmetic nonsense. SP2 will matter. Lots. The market will force Redmond to issue an effective SP2 that represents true progress before the Corporate / Enterprise buyers - the important ones to Redmond for the new O/S - will support a Win7 launch. Windows VISTA x64: Rock solid with or without the cosmetic service pack one - an important milestone that got lost in the rush or completely misunderstood - Apple's already gotten there and Win7 (or whatever it'll be called lol) will be the O/S to take Microsoft there forcefully, finally.

And the issue still rears its head - VISTA's hardware bump is what scared the Corporate / Enterprise buyers off. Nothing about those more powerful hardware requirements will change in Win7. Microsoft has stated this plainly. They will not sacrifice the gains made by VISTA in an effort to go back to XP or 2000 or ME or 98SE or 98 or 95 lol. Starting with ME then 2000 then XP, each new O/S was despised by the markets for +/- 36 months following release. Pundits here and elsewhere have laughed at Win7, saying about VISTA and Win7 in so many words "how quickly they do forget." Win7 is VISTA with some bells and whistles pushed around - nothing new, just pushed around. IE8 is a joke IMHO but I haven't really cared what browser Redmond chooses to embed in its O/S in recent years. FF, Opera and more recently Chrome have been my defaults under VISTA.

I prefer Chrome over FF and Opera - we all have come to put a premium on fast browsers because most of the big, well-known ones have become so darned slow. Of these major browsers, there's none that can compete with Google's Chrome (browsers in beta don't count).

I'll buy the equivalent Win7 upgrade to VISTA Ultimate six to nine months following Win7's release on Dell, HP, Acer systems. We'll know by then if the Corporate / Enterprise market will support Win7 or not. I don't forecast upgrading from VISTA Ultimate if Win7 is a non-event that won't be supported by MSFT and others.

Its 100% better than VISTA, but still not as good as XP ....

Why dont Microsoft listen to users when they complain, or offer advice

It persist with an IE which still is crap Fire Fox have stolen the lead for browsers

You say slow implementation is the fault of third party companies, not MS. Could it be the fault lies with the fact that MS makes both operating systems and software? Thus they have a leg (or more) up on outsiders. It seems to me we'd all be better off if MS had been split by the feds into completely separate operating system and software companies when this was considered 10 years or so ago.

Is Windows 7 better than Vista?

Based on everything I have seen and heard (a significant amount, I am a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist on Vista), the answer is an unqualified, absolutely yes, in just about every way.

First of all, in may ways, Windows 7 is really more like "Vista Service Pack 2". The design differences from Vista to 7 are not as great as the differences from XP to Vista. In many ways, Windows 7 is more of a cleaned up and more polished Vista than a new OS (and many people are of the opinion that Vista users should see that reflected in a much lower Vista-to-7 upgrade price vis-a-vis XP to Windows 7).

By all accounts, Windows 7 has a smaller memory footprint than Vista, and is also faster: Smaller AND faster. One objective here is to enable Windows version 7 to be used on "Netbooks"; currently, Netbooks can't run Vista, so Microsoft has done the unthinkable and has kept XP Home alive as an active product for Netbooks (the alternative would be to abandon that market to Linux, and no way MS is going to do THAT). But Microsoft wants desparately to kill XP, and Windows 7 appears to have successfully undergone a sufficiently successful weight-loss (memory footprint requirement loss) program to meet that goal. In spite it's vastly additional features relative not to Vista, but all the way back to XP.

More features? Yes, but nothing that, by itself, will blow your socks off (keeping in mind that we've only seen beta software, of course). But hey, smaller AND faster, and with more features, is nothing to sneeze at.

Will you have to upgrade? No; as noted, Windows 7's hardware requirements, in terms of both memory and CPU requirements are DOWN from Vista, and perhaps even below a fully updated XP Pro SP3 with IE7 or IE8. In general, you won't have to upgrade (that said, any given piece of older hardware might end up unsupported by any given later new OS, but for the most part, you shouldn't have any problems with most mainstream systems and peripherals).

I'm undecided as to whether I will fully upgrade or not, the truth is that right now I still use and like XP Pro. And, in my case, I have some hardware that does not work with Vista, nor is it likely to work with Windows 7, so my choices (I can not replace this hardware) are to either stay with XP or, very possibly (and this is what I'm tentatively planning) configure dual boot with XP and Windows 7.

It's been said that, like the "Star Trek" movies, every other version of Windows was good, and the in between ones were, to be kind, not so good (those "in between ones" include Windows ME and, also, Vista). The appearance right now is that Windows 7 will be a winner, and that view is pretty widely held and universal. Compared to Vista, Windows 7 looks like it will be better in pretty much every way, all (or nearly all) upside with no real downside. That said, if you are happy with what you have now (be that XP or Vista), it's not clear that it's going to provide a huge motivation to upgrade beyond just the bragging rights of being able to say that you are using "the latest and greatest". That will be a decision for each user to make on their own (and will, undoubtedly, depend in part on the pricing of Windows 7, it's various editions and upgrade options).

I dont think so it Does give us a few more options then vista I had it for three Monthes it gives us a faster page tranfere rate,
a faster bootup but other then that i went back to Vista Ultimate
and it seem very simeler but if you just want to know go there and i dont think you will be impressed!! SH

Several anti-virus programs DO work fine with Windows 7
E.G. Kaspersky and Mc Afee, both are offering free beta version so you DO NOT NEED to purchase a new licence for testing purposes !
Lack of an anti virus it's not excuse for doing a beta test.

as to virus software available for Windows7 anything that will work on Vista or XP will run on windows7, but most Virus software companys( for examle Symantec, McAfee, AVG, to name just a few) already have versions especially designed to work better in Windows7 the best of which I have found to be Norton Security Suite 2009.

I'm using Windows 7 Beta right now-which is great, and i use Avira Anti-virus which works great...definately one of the best.. and it's free.

I've been running Windows 7 as the main OS on my laptop for the better part of a month now. In fact it's the only OS on my laptop. Here are the major things i've noticed so far.

1. It appears faster. Whether it actually is or not it definitely feels snappier than Vista and thats a good thing.

2. No major compatibilities to report. I've loaded a ton of software (i.e. Adobe Creative Suite, Office 2007, Visual Studio) and a bunch of games and everything runs just fine. The only program I had some problems with was Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre.

3. Better battery life. My battery lasts about twice as long as it did with Vista.

4. Win7 has a new taskbar. You can now pin programs so that they are always visible and programs come up as large icons instead of a small icon and the window title. Basically it feels more like OS X's Dock but more intuitive.

5. It's rock solid. I haven't had a single crash of any kind so far.

Windows 7 doesn't appear to have a bunch of new integrated features as much as a lot of refinement to Vista's offerings. MS has also said that Win7 does not have a higher hardware requirement than Vista and I believe it. The hardware in my laptop that wasn't immediately supported I was able to load the Vista drivers without any issue.

Overall i'm very happy with it. I'm loving the interface changes to the taskbar and several of my friends are equally happy. At least a few of them have made it their primary OS for most if not all of their machines.

I agree with the "don't fix it." XP Pro runs my 10 year old photo software, which I love, and I don't want to stop using it. I've tried newer versions and have lost features that I constantly use. Why would I want software that someone else considers "better?"

Friend of mine who is a computer guru, is running the Windows 7 beta, and informs me that it is 5 times better then Vista. Thats enough for me. Faster, easier, and more to it.