Posts Tagged ‘Windows 7’

Windows the VIIth is being inaugurated very soon, and it’s time to ask if it is worth switching. I got my hands on the pre-release a while back, and my short answer is yes, definitely. Please no Windows/Linux/OsX comments on this article, but from what I’ve seen of Windows 7, it is a vast improvement compared to its predecessors.

The main reason I will buy this Windows is that it feels comfortable. I was using it for 2 weeks when I had a week off and one of the games I bought just for this occasion refused to work on it, so I uninstalled it and replaced it with Vista. After my fun time was over, I started working again, and everything felt so clunky and overly complex compared to Windows 7, so I promptly switched back again.

The feature I can now not live without is the new taskbar. When I first saw it I didn’t like it visually and I didn’t like it functionality-wise. Then I used it for 5 minutes and I never wanted to go back. You can pin things to it, so if you frequently use Firefox it is always there, even when closed. Right clicking an icon gives you context-sensitive options, windows for the same app are grouped extremely well, and the list goes on and on, you really have to try it to appreciate it.

Another welcome addition is the Libraries feature. It is sort of the same as the user folders, but with extended use, and a different approach. Libraries are collections of folders, which can be from all over your hard drive and external drives. The thinking behind this is that while you have some similar items like Music, Videos, etc, you might also have the need to organize your research, or your resources. For example, I use quite a few resources when I code a page (jquery, css reset frameworks, php classes, etc). Some of these might be stored in different locations, but now I can gather them inside a “Resources” library, making my life that much more easier.

These two features save me so much time that these two alone make it worth it for me. Aside from these however, there are numerous good reasons to change to Windows 7. The system is more stable, it is more intuitive, it has a bunch of smaller, but similarly helpful features, and so on. One more thing I was impressed with was how Windows built in helper tools were actually usable. My internet connection wasn’t working, so I clicked on troubleshoot. I have never-ever seen this work on a Windows system, but after 20 seconds, just like that, my internet was working. I tried installing my printer driver, which said that the OS is unsupported. Windows popped a message where it said that it seems the app was not installed successfully, do I want to try and install it again with changed options. I though why not, and 3 minutes later I was printing.

Overall, it seems to me that Windows 7 has finally brought the spit and polish to the OS that Ubuntu and OS X has been doing for ages. Instead of hundreds of great revolutionary (albeit non-working) things, they focused on usability, user experience and overall feel. The fact that this should have happened 4 years ago with Vista is a different matter, better late then never, Windows 7 is a good buy nonetheless.

Ah, everyone is writing about it, so let me get in on all the fun too! After downloading the free copy and key, I installed the system and I immediately had some trouble getting my external monitor properly hooked up and setting the resoltuion, but instead of the 4 hour troubleshooting I usualy get there was just like 15 minutes. Overall the beta wes quite stable, I think hibernation was the only thing that gave me a blue screen of death, not a biggie in a beta.

What I can see about the system is that it is what Vista should have been. It looks and handles extremely well, I think it will be the first OS I will buy that won’t comne with my laptop (unless I buy a Windows 7 laptop). The main changes I like most are the ones that aid user experience. I was so amazed that the little rectangle portion on the very right of the taskbar shows the desktop. Not a super complicated feature, but very handy.

I also hated the way the taskbar looks from screeshots, but actually using it is completely different, and I have to say I pretty much hate the XP and Vista taskbars now. At first the icons were hard to get used to, but finally they are built contextualy, so you don’t get the exact same menu anywhere you click. If create a sticky note for example, you will get an icon on the tray. Right-clicking doesn’t give you the same boring menu, you get options to create a new sticky, and so on.

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It seems Microsoft has misjudged the demand for the free beta and their servers are taking a beating, meaning it’s quite hard to get a validation key. This is a bit perplexing, since download of the iso file is fine, wizzing down at a not awefully fast, but constant, 250kb/s. Windows7News gives a good tip on how to get your key, it basically involves continuous page refreshes, they show you a nice little Firefox extension for getting the job done.

I got my security key by having the same page open in 3 tabs and refreshing them manually. I worked on the side, meaning whenever I saw the pages loaded, I quickly went and refreshed them. I almost refreshed the page which finally showed me the key, I managed to press ESC just in time!

Anyways, while this is a bit of a bother it took me 30 minutes to get a key without really needing to actually turn my attention toward it too much. Anyway, let’s at least be thankful that Microsoft is heading in the right direction, I mean would you seriously have thought they would release a public beta 2 years ago?

Not long ago Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer announced Windows 7 will be publicly available on Friday, Jan 9 and the day has come, time to start downloading! I have a copy downloading right now, only an hour or so to go of the 2.5 gig download! I have to say I’m excited, this is an surprising and very welcome move from Microsoft!

Once I have my hands on a copy I’ll let you guys know how it’s holding up, I’m hoping to see some speed improvements, startup/shutdown is not a huge thing for me, I shut dowm my laptop once every two weeks!

Apparently there are 2.5 million open downloads so you better get haulin’ if you want your free legal copy, just click on the links below to start downloading!

For your browsing benefit here are two direct links to the 32-bit version of Windows 7 and the 64-bit version of Windows 7 (thanks Technology Bites!).