Windows 7 is good!

[Abbas]

Microsoft released a beta of Windows 7 yesterday and I must say that I'm mighty impressed. Although I've only played around with it for 3 days, if this is the path that Microsoft is headed, I think I might switch back to Windows after being OS X exclusive for the last 3 years.

Vista with its slowness and sluggishness made moving to OS X an easy decision but the boot time, responsiveness and functionality of Windows 7 is very impressive. Like OS X, I can open the lid of my VAIO and expect to see the username/pass prompt in a second or two. I remember with Vista it would sometimes take upto ten seconds. Startup/Shutdown are also snappy unlike Vista which at one time took 4 minutes to shut down (yes, I timed it).

I dont know, maybe its just that its a clean install thats making Windows 7 run so well. Who know, maybe a month later I might pull my Air back out, but currently, Windows 7 has won me over.

@

[fangpyre]

Wow that was quick.
Talk about dedication

Most reviews of Windows 7 is that it is MUCH better than Vista.
Of course that doesn't say much
Vista is the best thing that happened to the Mac.
Apparently, this is the version Vista should have been.

So I how does it compare to OSX?
I haven't tried it.
But my impression from your post is that it is comparable.

I would like to see how it compares to Snow Leopard.
Word is SL is much faster than Leopard.
Taking advantage of a footprint that is 40-60% smaller, utilizing the GPU, better 64bit support.

I guess I should give 7 a try.

[Mushroom]

Forget Vista. Vista is as bad as it gets. It just does not get any worse than Vista. So the fact that 7 is better than Vista is given. How does it compare to XP?

[Abbas]

Forget Vista. Vista is as bad as it gets. It just does not get any worse than Vista. So the fact that 7 is better than Vista is given. How does it compare to XP?

Seems to be SO MUCH faster than XP as well. The User Interface is slick.

@

[hakka]

Vista still in every aspect are the most superior desktop OS by the time. Just way ahead of time. Hardware makers does not catch the trend, SSD disks still in test labs, 1Gb networks just coming now after 2 years since Vista on sale.

Also Vista has very bad press. No surprises, its make life much harder for every soft pirate. Till today they cannot fully block windows activation

In Windows 7 (i got it month ago with my beta testing program) Microsoft just disable some security checks from Vista, the most notable was UAC. Also they replace innovative copy algorithm (this is why Vista copy slow - but on SSD it will surpass traditional algorithms) to traditional from XP. Some minor facelift on TaskBar and Explorer. They introduces HomeNetwork concept - sort of P2P group to share music, documents and pictures. Interesting but take ages to adopt. Vista actually has all of it but in different package.

Overall impression of Windows 7 - its ok. General public will like it, but coders and security stuff will start to hate it pretty soon because of the same mistakes from XP.

[Abbas]

In Windows 7 (i got it month ago with my beta testing program) Microsoft just disable some security checks from Vista, the most notable was UAC. Also they replace innovative copy algorithm (this is why Vista copy slow - but on SSD it will surpass traditional algorithms) to traditional from XP. Some minor facelift on TaskBar and Explorer. They introduces HomeNetwork concept - sort of P2P group to share music, documents and pictures. Interesting but take ages to adopt. Vista actually has all of it but in different package.

Overall impression of Windows 7 - its ok. General public will like it, but coders and security stuff will start to hate it pretty soon because of the same mistakes from XP.

Not necessarily true. UAC exists in Windows 7 but is a lot more flexible. Instead of just being On or Off as in Vista, you now have a slider with four levels of selection. SSD on Vista was nowhere as good as it is on the Mac OS X. I tried and neither startup time was that impressive nor application launch compared to OS X. Havent tried an SSD in Windows 7 yet so cant say but I'm willing to bet its faster than Vista because Microsoft is also targetting Netbooks with their slow SSD drives with 7.

XP, IMHO, was much better than Vista. I really dont know any coders that hated it. Its just Windows.

@

[fangpyre]

I think saying that Vista was ahead of its time, and its the hardware's fault is very bad excuse for bad engineering. (and I don't mean you Hakka)
An OS that requires hardware that doesn't exist is useless, if it were ahead of its time.
If SSD is still in labs, then its stupid of MS to expect it.
And the speeds SSD offers is not exactly what people think.
1 GB networks have been available for around 7-8 years now.
Every Mac comes with 1GB ethernet since as long as I can remember.
But its useless for most people to upgrade to it if you won't benefit from it.

And still, the fact is Vista a wasteful and slow OS.
Since both OSX and Win7 can do the same job, if not better, on the same hardware is proof of this.

I don't know about piracy, but I know that it is out there pirated.
I personally know many people running pirated copies.
But people hate it regardless of legitimacy.
The people that hate Vista are more than the people that like it.
And those that do are far and few.

There is no doubt Vista has gotten better over the years.
But I think part of the fact that Mac's amazing growth is hugely due to Vista.

[Magnus]

For me it's more than the OS. Even if Windows 7 is slightly ahead of current Mac OS X in different ways I don't see myself going over. I'll still run Windows most every day for different things but not as my main OS. Looking forward to what Redmond comes up with though.

[dandantheitman]

Very rarely do I see an unbiased review of a Microsoft Operating System by a Mac / Linux / BSD user. Keep up the good work Magnus!

Dan

[MacUAE]

Didn't try Win7 yet... don't plan to.

Windows for me now is nothing more than a 'frontend' to run some Windows apps... and I don't do that much. So its just an 'application' in my "Applications" folder (using Fusion).

Just think about it... with Snow Leopard, Apple are dedicating a whole new release for the purpose of making Mac OS X faster and more streamlined. As per reports, installation takes around 13 minutes compared to almost an hour with Leopard. Oriented for Multi Core CPUs and GPUs support, Quicktime X... etc.