Windows 7 forum: Re-poll: Windows 7 users, well, how is it?

You have to be very careful when you transfer files to Windows 7 as the directory structure, in my opinion, has been screwed up. In XP I tried to explain to my adult students, some who are in their 80's, that they should look at the hard drive like a file cabinet. There is a program drawer which also has the system file in it. Then there is the personal document drawer in my case Sheila's File Cabinet. Then inside that cabinet are many separating folders, I.e. documents, pictures, vidos, music etc. It is a good idea to make sure that all of your personal files are filed appropriately in these sub folders. Now when I want to back up my personal data all I need to is back up Sheila's File Cabinet, and all of its sub-folders.

The problem with updating to windows 7 without thinking about the directory structure is that you can end up with more then one documents folder. For people who haven't much of a background in managing folders and files this can become a nightmare.

They have also changed how you find folders, and I believe it is more confusing. LOL at least for me and I have been doing this for over 12 years. Well writing about it isn't going to change it.

I do not have 7 yet, but work with students who do have it. I appreciate this time of learning before I get 7 as I should be able to avoid some of the pitfalls. Some of the features are really great, but some things they should have kept the same. Just my two cents. LOL at least they put start on the start medallion so those first using the computer might have a chance on getting started.

Overall Windows 7 is better then XP and an improvment on Vista. Its better in several areas that I've noticed:

Its more stable
It can handle far more memory then XP
It handles memory more efficiently then Vista or XP
Did I say stable? Its stable.
Some nice UI enhancements and the new task bar.
Find and indexing no longer kills your computer and pushes your hard drive into a spin frenzy (ala Vista).
It can run on older hardware much better then Vista with less memory.
Easy nice desktop config, wallpapers gadgets etc.


So thats the good. There is, however, one glaring bad spot. When Vista came out many people complained about how much slower it was to copy or move a lot of files. This has been improved in Windows 7, but its still shockingly more slow then XP. Sometimes if I am copying files from one network share to another it can take minutes (not seconds) just for Windows 7 to do its pre-calculating thing before it even attempts to copy or move the files. Its an annoyance and something I hope a service pack will fix.

But Windows 7 are soo D@m slowin any ways.
Try it in P4 2,53GHz and 1GB RAM and 1GB Cache with GF-7600GS 256MB ram. Windows 7 suck the life out of my PC.

I could Nearly surf on the webb, but IE8 tooo slow.
I changed it back to Windows classic And put away 3D and fansy stuff But still slow. It remember me from the good old days when i installed XP on my P2 400MHz, XP suck the life of my P2.

Windows 98 SE - ROOOCKSss in speeed man. Why cant "Mr Big Soft" programming OS with Neeed 4 Speeed???

One opinion will probably depend more on their expectations. I wasn't expecting it to change my life and it's not going to. It's been stable but I had no stability problems with XP. I'm not fond of all the rearranging (and renaming) of the furniture but that's because I'm a creature of habit. If I had one big gripe, it's about the amount of real estate the OS occupies. My Win 7 install with basically the same software titles that I have on my trusty old XP machine has swollen to 4X the size in 5 months that the old rig grew in almost 7 years. That's a hefty growth spurt! Eventually I'll have to retire good ol' XP. I'll hang onto it for a while but won't be moving back.

I upgraded my desktop from Windows XP Media Center to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition.
So far the only thing I do not like is how Briefcase refuses to work correctly (I have already posted this). Yesterday, I tried Windows Sync Toy - hoping that might be a replacement for Briefcase - NOPE Sync Toy is giving me grief too.
Other than that, I LOVE Windows 7! I am running it on a HP dual core 2.0 GHz Processor with 3 GIG RAM, my system hard drive is a SATA 250 GIG hard drive.
Now that I am on Windows 7 I finally feel like I am taking advantage of the processor speed and RAM. Graphics are great, new task bar I love it! Desktop Theme - I love it. Gadgets I Love them.
All I use this computer for is excel, word, outlook email, iTunes music listening and surfing the web. I do not do photo shop or create movies or edit movie. My use of Windows Movie maker was to shrink videos that I recorded on my BlackBerry so I could email them out to family members. I have since switched from BlackBerry to a Nexus One and Windows Movie maker does not handle that file type of movie the Nexus One records - looks like my use of Windows Movie maker is stopping.