The big Windows 7 experiment has begun

[jdhurst]

So I have Windows 7 Pro now in production.

Summary:

1. About 8 weeks from start to end for Windows 7 Pro instead of 8 months for Vista Business, so all the work with Vista did pay off.
2. Reliability: No crashes, so my 11 year "No Crash" record remains intact.
3. All my 64-bit Vista software worked in Windows 7 Pro with two exceptions: (1) SafeNet VPN client did not work and was replaced with the NCP Secure Entry Client and (2) My Blackberry Desktop Manager had to be upgraded. Everything else worked. This is another plus of having worked through Vista and the NCP VPN client is a very nice piece of software.
4. Disk space: Starting a 465Gb new, and loading up all my Documents, Files and Virtual machines, I have over 380Gb free. This is less used disk space than Vista for the same thing. I now have room for more virtual machines.
5. I upgraded to VMware Workstation V7 and this looks like a worthwhile upgrade.
6. New Start Button: I learned how to make nice and efficient flyouts (like earlier version) and have generally tamed the machine.
7. Search: Very nicely done and everything comes up now in the search bar of the new Start button, so I am using the new features too. So my productivity remains very good as I now have the choice of fastest way to get at something.
8. Speed: Very fast, but then so too was my Vista machine on the same physical hardware.
9. Display: The Windows 7 implementation of fonts, clear type and video is noticeably better than Vista, so the display is better and more crisp. This is worth having and worth upgrading for.

So I spent near $400 to get a copy of Windows 7 Pro full licence, and over time, with display clarily out front, it will probably be worth it. ...JDH

[ausmike]

Hello Everyone ((happy Hoildays!!))

Giday JD.....
Hows your BATTERY "life" same as factory HD?

After reading thru this thread (not sure if I missed this info) - Did you the current release-Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS ?

Stay warm !

[jdhurst]

Battery life seems OK, and yes, I am using a Seagate 500Gb 7200-rpm hard drive. I stopped using anything slower than 7200-rpm in 2004. ... JDH

[mgo]

So I have Windows 7 Pro now in production.

So I spent near $400 to get a copy of Windows 7 Pro full licence, and over time, with display clarily out front, it will probably be worth it. ...JDH

I have been watching your saga over the weeks, and it is no surprise that Windows 7 has worked out well for you. Microsoft seems to have a darned good product in Windows 7. Obviously, they learned a lot of things from their Vista difficulties.

Just stay away from experimenting with a solid state hard drive, or you will become hopelessly addicted. The Windows 7/SSD combo speed is faster than all heck!

[ThinkRob]

Microsoft seems to have a darned good product in Windows 7. Obviously, they learned a lot of things from their Vista difficulties.

IMO, the biggest feature of Windows 7 is that it's not Vista. Seriously -- the name alone has done more to further people's perceptions of the OS than any of the (relatively minor) technical enhancements that Microsoft made. Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for the improved 2D compositing model, the increased session separation, etc... but most people won't notice the few tweaks that were made under the hood. For most users, the biggest features are 1) shiny new UI and 2) not Vista.*

Really the biggest strike against Vista was its hardware requirements. Windows 7 isn't any lighter on this front, but Microsoft has had three years of hardware advances to ride on -- so a new machine with Vista/7 today sure seems a whole lot faster than a new machine with Vista in 2007.

* Yes, one of the main selling points is a less-annoying UAC implementation -- but since that's a fix for a problem that Vista created, counting it as a new feature is (IMO) a little silly. UAC wouldn't be necessary if Microsoft were willing to take a hard stance on security and start breaking 9x-era apps that assumed they owned the whole machine. UAC is a band-aid solution, and a somewhat puzzling complication of NT's permission model. I'm yet again reminded of the "those who do not understand Unix" quote...

Personally I don't find Windows 7 that appealing. I already have XP and Vista machines that I use from time to time, and given that the biggest features of Windows of late seem to be centered around making it more *nix-like, I'm not inclined to pay more money just for a slightly-better impersonation of what I can already get for free. As far as my ThinkPads are concerned, hardware support is flawless on all OSs that I use, so the prospect of spending money just to use the latest version of an OS that's no better than what I can get for free really isn't that appealing. That's not a strike against Windows per se, just that I (like a great many desktop users) don't actually *need* it for most of my tasks.

[dmagett]

[quote="jdhurst"]The experiment has started with Windows 7 on a 500Gb hard drive.

First disappointment: The 500Gb Seagate drive is only 450Gb. It was a blank drive, so there is no recovery partition. Just the vendors' (plural) greedy advertising of measuing in bytes so it has to be restated to normal (lesser) numbers. One whole virtual machine now cannot be installed because I forgot that vendors are pathological liars.

About Windows 7.....I have run the Beta, then the RC and now Win 7 Professional on my T60. Originally it was XP Pro. My experience says that "7" is faster, and easier to network. I run quite a few imaging software programs (Photoshop CS3, Nikon Capture NX2 and Photoshop Elements 8. I also run Virtual Box and a Linux guest. All are faster on Windows 7 compared to XP. I never tried Vista (thankfully).So far so good!