What scares me about Windows 7

Cnet writes, "Thursday, I covered what I like about Windows 7 beta. In a nutshell, I think it's a great operating system that could become my favorite of all time with more updates and proper development.

But that doesn't mean I don't have reservations. There are still some lingering issues that Microsoft hasn't addressed.

Is Windows 7 designed to be just the next iteration in a long line of Microsoft operating systems or does Microsoft want it to be something different, something new? Answering that question isn't as easy as I once thought. The look and feel of Windows 7 is great. It reminds me more of a Mac than any previous version of Windows. I like that, but especially for Windows XP users who have never switched to any other operating system, that's not necessarily good."

[Kushan]

To sum up the article, he's basically saying "I like Windows 7, but I'm worried that it might be too different from XP".

It's a silly argument, different doesn't mean good or bad, it just means...different. So what if the taskbar works a bit differently, Office 2007 worked differently (the ribbon interface) and although some people grumbled, those who stuck with it nearly all agreed that it was indeed better. Incidentally, the person who made that design choice is the same guy that made the design choice for the new taskbar.
No doubt people will grumble that they don't like it, that they prefer XP, but it's hard to ignore all the great press Windows 7 has been getting lately, I think it's fair to say that the general consensus is positive, that it's a good OS and frankly, I'll be happy when it becomes the common OS on new machines.

[SaiyanFury]

I'll say this first: I'm not a fan of Microsoft. I don't like their business model and I don't like their business practises. Now let's move on.

I installed the 64-bit version of Windows 7 beta on my brother-in-law's PC tonight. He has a very up to date PC with a Core 2 Duo E6850 with 4GB of Corsair XMS2 RAM. He has a Zotac 8800GT video card, and some no name sound card he got for it's digital coaxial optical output to hook to his A/V receiver. First, I was impressed by how fast the installation took. Maybe 15 minutes at most. The OS booted up and we set up all his pertinent information and all that. Then I went to install the drivers for his MB which I did. Then when I went to install the drivers for his video card in the Device Manager I noticed something: The drivers were already installed with Microsoft's own nVIDIA drivers that were up to date. Native driver support is BACK! THANK YOU MICROSOFT! THAT is one of the things that killed Vista for me was the lack of native driver support. Another thing I noticed was how fast windows loaded. Very very fast, I'd estimate about 3 times faster than XP. I looked around and personally I found it very easy to find things in menus and whatnot, not so hard as the author stated.

Something else I noted with Windows 7 compared to XP, when you install a fresh copy of Windows XP, the C drive is often more than 10% fragmented. Windows 7? 1%. MUCH better there, another kudos to Microsoft. Also getting back to native driver support, my brother's wireless Linksys G-band PCI card was also supported natively and I had no trouble getting him online wirelessly in maybe 2 minutes.

Like I said, I'm no fan of Microsoft, I've hated them for years. But I have to give credit where it is due. Windows 7 is shaping up to be a real success and I'm actually looking forward to it's release should the quality remain the same. On another note, I'm actually planning on getting this when it's release if the build is just as good as the beta. The praise I'm lavishing on Windows 7 is based on maybe an hour of experience with it. I had somewhat minor exposure to Vista and I was able to find my way around quite effortlessly. I had Vista on my laptop factory installed and after 2 months, Vista ate my touchpad drivers and annihilated my anti-virus. Good on Microsoft for potentially delivering a product that delivers to the customer, not something that delivers dollars into their laps. At least, not as much.

[Nathan Drake]

My Review Score:6.5 out of 10.I don't think ANY of you people praising Windows 7 even bothered to use Windows Vista,because if you had,you'd know that Windows 7 is literally the EXACT same thing as Windows Vista Ultimate(SP1),aside from the new Taskbar and -slightly- improved memory usage.

My question is,why were you complaining about Vista if it's the same thing with a different interface?M-Y complaint with Vista was its horrendous performance during Audio production,even with SP1 installed,Windows Vista still failed to behave properly in an Audio environment.The Windows 7 beta is no different AT ALL.

http://i43.tinypic.com/2r2q...

Congratulations,you've just been had by the Mojave experiment : |

[Kushan]

I happily used Vista for nearly a year before trying the Windows 7 beta. Trust me, there's far more to it than a new taskbar. It's performance is much, much better than Vista (SP1). Obviously you didn't use Vista for all that long because it's "performance" wasn't up to scratch and couldn't really make a valid comparison, but I certainly did.

On this Machine, I have 3 windows installations : XP, Vista and 7 (beta build 7000 of course). I used XP for years, after Vista came out I waited until SP1 and only then was it acceptable, I was easily able to switch my workload over to it and haven't looked back. Then I installed the Windows 7 beta out of curiosity (and I was a little bored that day). I played with it for a few mins and, like you, didn't think too much of it, then I rebooted into Vista. A few days later, I decided to play around with 7 a bit more and since then, I've not been back to either XP or Vista. This has never happened with a beta OS before and I've tested Beta versions of Vista, XP and even Windows 2000.

[player911]

I love the new taskbar and all the new UI features. There are some big differences over Vista.

I'm an IT administrator and I always keep up with the latest OS because I have to be the first one to learn it. Sure Windows 7 feels like Vista SP2... but its what Vista should have been.

I can't believe they're still using the old filesystem though. We were supposed to switch in XP, which got pushed back to Vista, which got ripped out at the last minute because it "wasn't ready". But here we are using Windows 7 and still have the old filesystem. Whatever though.

I run XP on my work pc... and for some reason it just keeps crapping out and running sluggish (even on a new install). My home PC is almost an identical machine and running Windows 7 just flies on it. I would love to have Win7 on my work PC but I know it would only last until August before I would have to reformat it again for the newer version.

I think anyone who has Vista now, would benefit from downloading Windows 7.

[Kushan]

Player911, I assume you're talking about WinFS. That was never actually a filesystem, rather it was a layer that sat on top of the file system that provided metadata for various files. It was actually finished, but turns out it wasn't all that useful. The technology is now part of SQL server (since it essentially was an SQL database).
The NTFS filesystem has actually changed between 2000 and XP, as well as between XP and Vista, but it's been kept compatible for various reasons.

[Superted2007]

You are afraid of losing your familiarity with XP here because you think windows 7 will be a scary big change but does anyone remember that argueably the biggest change between OS was the difference between 2000 and XP. Dont be a stick in the freakin mud. Windows will evolve along at a nice rate. It might have a few bumps in the road like that horrible internet explorer, UCP and early vista issues but it will get there.

[CrazedFiend]

Cause I sure as hell can't delete files in Vista. I'm so tired of having to plug my HD into my XP laptop just to delete some pictures or some videos.

And FORGET trying to clean out an HD on Vista! I'm trying to do that BS right now and I'm about 2 security checks away from going on a cannibalistic spree at the MS office!

JUST LET ME DELETE DAMMIT!!!