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Windows 7: some minor improvements, no game changer


Ankiel
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guys did you notice more of KDE like layout (the huge bar at bottom and buttons and color theme) ?

 

i dont use kde that much whenever i log into linux boxes , i tried kde 4 once just to check and this windows 7 reminds me heavily about kde :P

 

and i hate kde way of gui. gnome rules.

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guys did you notice more of KDE like layout (the huge bar at bottom and buttons and color theme) ?

 

i dont use kde that much whenever i log into linux boxes , i tried kde 4 once just to check and this windows 7 reminds me heavily about kde :)

 

and i hate kde way of gui. gnome rules.

 

Yea, it looks a ton like KDE. It had an interesting set of features on how the taskbar worked. However, it still felt clunky compared to OS X. Then again, that's IF you are comparing them. The boot up time was noticeably quicker than what I remembered from the prior betas as well. This could pass for a Release Candidate...

 

-Stell

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I'm trying out the 7000 beta in Parallels (pre-virtualization required version) under OSX. The Parallels video driver doesn't want to install on it so performance sucks. It's dog slow.

 

It seems nice enough though. But I don't have enough Vista experience to really compare the two.

My first impression was that it is "lighter" than Vista, even when running like c**p for some reason.

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I got the 7000 beta, and I read from other people that it's pretty stable for being a beta, so I decided to wipe out my entire hard drive and install it (I was going to put a different XP on it anyway ;)) So far, I like it a lot. All my drivers are installed, my fans dont run unless I'm using a couple programs at the same time like FF, iTunes, and PS4. It feels much lighter than Vista. No crashes, errors, or anything of a hassle so far.

 

In all, much better over Vista. I will be using this as my main install when it becomes official... or even starting now if it keeps staying good to me. I uninstalled Vista after a week because it was just too much of a hog. Using a little over half of my 2GB RAM idling with all my start up programs off was too much for me. The install was faster than any other full Windows OS, and it feels just as light as my XP. I am impressed.

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I tried the new 7000 version a couple of days ago, and all I can think right now is I have two options:

 

1.- Keep using Windows XP SP3 forever

2.- Finally switching to Os X.

 

650mb ram used just after booting. My XP install uses 127mb.....

 

Also, all the usability problems present in Vista are still present in Windows 7...and there are even new ones.

 

The control panel in XP has 30 icons in classic view (the only one really functional which saves you lots of extra clicks). The same view in Windows 7 has at least 60 icons...and what is even worse, many of the options are not direct, once you click one icon you still have to move deeper in order to get to the same place you could reach with 2 clicks in XP. Is a labyrinth (many similar side options are shown in MANY different panels)

 

They killed the old "show desktop" icon in the quicklaunch bar, and now there is an ugly blue block on the right part of the task bar, just on the opposite part...

 

On the other hand, I can't believe how slow are some simple things in Windows 7 in comparison to XP. For example resizing the columns in services.msc is painfully slow. Window resizing is also slower, and quickly resizing explorer's windows shows black redrawing artifacts (at least on my x1950 pro with Ati's latest drivers).

 

Desktop compositing perfomance is not any near of Os X capabilities. And even Flip3D still not as smooth as Exposè

 

Talking about boot times...my XP boots in 18 seconds (count stars after post, and ends when you get to the desktop). Windows 7 boots in 28 seconds in the same computer, and while my XP stops reading from the hard disk a couple of seconds after the desktop is shown, Windows 7 continues reading at least 10-15 seconds.

 

I really don't understand how can they be making so many mistakes. Half world is complaining about Vista perfomance and usability, and what do they do? They don't admit their mistakes and continue making new ones.

 

Windows XP SP3, is a very mature, pretty stable and fast operative system, why don't they just fix its problems? Windows 7/Vista seems a MacOS X wannabe way too focused on people which has little or zero computer background...which curiously makes the system harder to use for the rest of us.

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VooD, haven't you ever thought of why they call it a Beta? I bet you have and I am just missing your point.

 

Yep, but I also used Vista's betas before the final one was released and sadly I didn't notice any major improvement from betas to the final version...so I believe (IMHO) that the same will happen with Windows 7.

 

I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hope I'm wrong.

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you'll still keep using windows, that's for sure. i know i will. i use the keyboard and microsoft rarely changes shortcuts on their programs. i know mac os has shortcuts, but i still prefer the comfort of windows.

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As far as I tried, it's perfect. It's still beta, yes, but the quality of the software is indeed a lot better than Vista. It's fast, light and as now it's crash-free. It uses 340 MB of ram after startup out of 1 GB, it's good for me.

I absolutely love the new taskbar, I've been dreaming it for years. Aero feels very much lighter, and that impossibly ugly black Vista interface is gone. Couldn't ask more from Microsoft.

 

Sherry Haibara

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I too think it's a great OS especially since it's still in beta form but did anyone notice that while doing hdd intensive stuff it slowed down to a crawl? On my computer it was hardly noticeable but on my mother's computer I installed it on it was dreadfully slow but only on hdd intensive tasks. It might be the old IDE drive I installed it on though.

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I have bee dual booting this with my Mac OSX Install and...

 

1. I love the new taskbar. It's simple yet elegant. I got used to it in a matter of minutes

2. Every single Windows Program I use on my VMWare XP works perfectly on Windows 7 (Small list I know: MS Office 07, VB.NET, VLC, WMP, iTunes, Firefox etc.. :))

3. I do have the same gripe with the control panel. I believe they have gone backwords with it.

4. My install is very Stable. No crashes so far

5. Booting is very fast and smooth. Love the new windows animation thing (I'm a sucker for any sort of effects. It's why I love Linux and OSX :P)

6. Wordpad and Paint look a lot more prettier IMO

7. The new aero interface is nice and slick.

 

That is all I have got to report right now. More later...

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650mb ram used just after booting. My XP install uses 127mb.....

when will this whining about used ram stop? the actual reason for having ram is to use it. i don't put ram into my box so that every {censored} bit only gets loaded up from the harddrive when i actualy use it, prefetching thing that i might use is a good thing, makes the computer actually faster. it isn't important to have a high figure of free ram showen, it's important that an application that needs ram gets the ram when it needs it, showing ram as used doesn't necessarely meen that this ram is unavailable to other tasks if they need it.

 

btw: my fresh bootet leopard also uses about 500mb for "nothing"but atleast that ram isn't as useless in that moment than my other 2700mb just idling

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when will this whining about used ram stop? the actual reason for having ram is to use it. i don't put ram into my box so that every {censored} bit only gets loaded up from the harddrive when i actualy use it, prefetching thing that i might use is a good thing, makes the computer actually faster. it isn't important to have a high figure of free ram showen, it's important that an application that needs ram gets the ram when it needs it, showing ram as used doesn't necessarely meen that this ram is unavailable to other tasks if they need it.

 

btw: my fresh bootet leopard also uses about 500mb for "nothing"but atleast that ram isn't as useless in that moment than my other 2700mb just idling

 

Did I forget to mention I had ACTUALLY disabled prefetching? lol

 

Anyway, I don't want my to have my hard disk reading all the time in background, instead of being idle and ready to react as fast as possible to my requests instead of having to share its time with the prefetcher service.

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Did I forget to mention I had ACTUALLY disabled prefetching? lol

 

Anyway, I don't want my to have my hard disk reading all the time in background, instead of being idle and ready to react as fast as possible to my requests instead of having to share its time with the prefetcher service.

 

so do you run windows xp with 256 megs of ram since you don't need the rest due to your elite install?

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sure seems like a waste of memory.

 

Maybe if Wnidows seven were faster than Xp, but is not. Slower booting, more disk activity, slow gui, etc...

 

Hard disk still are the slowest part of a computer, so why would I want to have the prefetcher reading in background all the time to fill my free memory?

 

I want the hd to be ready for my requests and not reading and caching something he "believes" I might need in the future.

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Maybe if Wnidows seven were faster than Xp, but is not. Slower booting, more disk activity, slow gui, etc...

 

Hard disk still are the slowest part of a computer, so why would I want to have the prefetcher reading in background all the time to fill my free memory?

 

I want the hd to be ready for my requests and not reading and caching something he "believes" I might need in the future.

it's not doing this all the time, it's only done once, after startup. and the reason for using prefetching is that harddisks are slow. but perhaps 2gb of ram are not enough to feel the benefit, i do. since i stocked up my ram itunes uses over 500mb, but the nasty disc scratching when scrolling trough is gone

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