I’ve had the beta version of Windows 7 installed on my Intel Core 2 Quad, a Compaq Presario, and an Atom-based netbook for about a week now and so far, Microsoft’s upcoming operating system gave a fairly good impression.
I’ve been a Windows Vista user for about a year now and I am fairly satisfied with its performance. A lot of the problems I encountered before were mostly related to the 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate and compatible drivers. So, trying out Windows 7 for the first time didn’t really made a huge impact. And contrary to what other have reported, too me somewhere around 1.5 to 2.5 hours to completely install Windows 7 which is dependent on the rig I’m running it on.
During my guesting at Mornings @ ANC earlier today, TJ and I talked a little about Windows 7. I said it was “less of the same” — the overall feel of Windows 7 is still similar to Vista. The pop-up confirmations are still there to verify your every action and the navigation style is the same. It even has the same decade-old Windows Registry System which I think Microsoft needs to re-do from the ground, up.
Yes, the toolbar is different and behavior of application windows have changed a bit but to the untrained eye (those who have not used Vista before), the difference might seem skin-deep.
So what makes Windows 7 attract positive reviews from a lot of people who have tried it (and even those who haven’t)?
Well, for one, I felt that Windows 7 was a stripped-down version of Vista — less clutter, less eye candy effect and thus, less obnoxious.
Secondly, the machines we have now are far more powerful than they were 3 years ago when people first beta-tested Windows Vista. We have Core 2 Duo and Quad Core rigs with 2GB to 4GB DDR2/DDR3 RAM so system requirements are not an issue for most people. The performance of Windows 7 on these machines are fantastic. Imagine if people tested Windows 7 back then with the PC configuration of that time.
To me, Windows 7 is faster, more functional and smarter. Some even claims it nearing the way OS X behaves though I can’t attest to that as I don’t use OS X. There are a lot of tricks up its sleeve, shortcuts to more commonly used functions and ways to de-clutter the desktop. It even has some special features set aside for tablet PCs (which I will share once I completed the testing on one).
Lastly, there’s very little issue on device driver compatibilities. Since Windows 7 mostly adopted Vista drivers, adding up new devices on the system didn’t present any problematic issue. This wasn’t the situation when people migrated to Vista from XP.
Windows 7′s introduction to the public was made in good timing and I believe it can evade the curse that plagued Vista for years. I think Microsoft has a winner here.
@madmanz23 hey don’t give out false info! the minimum requirements of win 7 are:
Minimum recommended specs call for:
1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
1 GB of system memory
16 GB of available disk space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme)
DVD-R/W Drive
Internet access (to download the Beta and get updates)
here is the link
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
i hope the price is lesser than vista since plenty of features were stripped from vista
[...] Windows 7 Preview: Less of the Same [...]
interesting article, may i know where to get the Windows 7? i want to try it out myself, when will it be release for public?
I would like to know if a Northwood can Run 7 provided that it has RAM?
Vista’s fine with me but with this new thing-a-ma’jig from microsoft, I can’t help but wait ’til I get my hands on it.^^,
I’m almost done with my mid-ranger rig
Phenom X3 8450
GA-MA78GM-S2H
Kingston 2Gb
Lite-on 20x SATA
Western Digital 160Gb 7200 rpm
just need the Radeon 3450 or 3470 and a 2Gb RAM and this is good to go.^^,
I guess this will do the trick for Windows7
I installed Windows 7 fresh, overwrote Vista in my midrange laptop and it was ready for use in half an hour. Downloading the internet updates took another 10 minutes.
Overall, a more functional taskbar and the jumplist are to me its killer features. It does save time, especially for users who have multiple application windows open at the same time.
This same Toshiba laptop am using used to consume about 950MB of RAM right after boot up of Vista SP1. Imagine, with no application running, it eats nearly a gig of RAM. With Windows 7, it uses 650MB of RAM after boot up. That to me is substantially reduction of resource consumption.
After using it for a month now, I believe I will move my XP and Vista laptops to Windows 7 once it’s officially released. XP is still faster in some applications, but Windows 7 has nearly been as robust as XP even though it’s still at beta. Besides, XP is indeed starting to look very old.
Twitter: silverlokk
says:
I have Windows 7 on triple boot (along with Vista Starter and OpenSolaris). Starter is fast enough on my rig:
Lenovo ThinkPad SL400
Intel Core2 Duo 1.6GHz
2GB RAM
160GB hard drive
but then that’s Starter. Windows 7 *feels* about as fast, maybe faster. Hard to tell because neither Starter nor 7 come with with the usual demoware that bloats PCs. It *does* have more eye candy than Starter. For instance, if you hover the mouse pointer over the IE icon on the taskbar, you get thumbnails of the open tabs and windows. OTOH, IMHO its handling of tabs still sucks. With FireFox, I can drag a link to a tab. If I try to do it with IE, it just opens the link in the same tab :grumble:
Took about 25hrs to download the ISO, maybe because this was the 64-bit version and therefore about a gigabyte larger. Have to check the EULA, it *might* be OK to give out a copy of the DVD but you’ll have to get your own activation code.
Need help…
Will this work on my system? I have a 2.20 GHz Dual Core Processor, 1 Gb of system memory, 160 hard drive.
I’m planning on getting this OS cause i’m stuck with XP for years now, and i think i need upgrading.