thats why i dont install windows 7 , its to expensive , and i just dont need windows anyway , but i am into looking if i can install linux with bootcamp without the need to install windows first
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How do you guys feel about Windows 7?
- Thread starter stevento
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Then please get your anti-Apple UNEDUCATED OPINIONS and LIES out of here as well. You never once say anything nice or true about Apple. Ever.
To the OP: I'm not sure why you think Lion coming out in the summer means you can't but a mac now, but if you want a win machine here is my opinion. I've been in IT 15+ years, worked for many large companies and am a windows desktop and server tech by trade. I use Mac OS, Windows 7, Fedora, and Ubuntu regularly. Mac OS is my favorite OS for many reasons but I won't discuss that here since we are talking windows. I have PLENTY of experience in various OSs, but mostly Windows. I only recently switched to mac 2.5 years ago when Vista was out.
Ok, Win 7, my opinion:
Its Vista, just more stable. Nothing special, nothing great. MS still has its problems. Below are the pros and cons of Win7
PROS:
Win 7 automatically finds most drivers now and it has pretty good accuracy. Not perfect, but its a much needed step.
Better organization of the control panel, but far from perfect.
Nice window management. The easy way to work with multiple windows is nice.
Better gui. Very similar to vista, but its still nicer. The shortened application buttons are nice and the circular start circle is nice.
Crashes MUCH less than vista, but still not perfect.
CONS:
Registry - MS PLEASE get rid of this. Its not necessary and its the reason for most of your security issues.
Networking issues - As always, there will always be problems sharing printers and NASs. Sometimes things work flawlessly, sometimes they don't. For simple uses, you should be fine.
Lack of features - No ISO support, no built in differential backup, no multiple desktops? This is 2010 Microsoft get with the times.
Resource hog - Not as bad as vista and it will scale down nicely on older hardware but its still a bit of a piggy.
OS is still sloppy - There are too many places to change preferences, system properties, etc. There is the hidden "God Mode" which makes things easy but you shouldn't have to use a hack to get this functionality.
Needs antivirus: The "common sense" thing people like to wave around is complete crap. There are so many ways a virus can get on your machine and you will never know it. Most viruses/ trojans/ malware, etc runs undetected. It doesn't want to be found. It just wants to use your computer for its nefarious purposes. Even if you don't download things, or visit shady sites, you can still easily get a virus. Visiting a legit site that was compromised can nab you a virus, thumb drives or external drives from a friend can do it, etc. If you get a win machine dont get norton, or symantec, or you will just damage your system. If you do banking or keep financial records or sensitive records on your computer its better to be safe then sorry. Get Avira or AVG, both are free, and then get malware bytes. This combo will find almost anything, however NO antivirus or antispyware is perfect.
I know people who use Windows for a long time love windows 7, and they have every right to. Its much better then the trash that was Vista. Its better than XP and will scale better to older hardware than XP does, but its still windows. Nothing really has changed except for the user interface. There are some underlying improvements that were much needed as well.
You make zero sense in this statement. What makes you think Safari is "three generations behind"? Safari is a great browser (on Mac, never used it on Windows) and is far ahead of Firefox as far as speed goes. Not to mention if a plugin crashes, Safari doesn't. It also has great features like Safari reader, and works with HTML5 very well. How is it 3 generations behind again?
Define "good program". If you are talking pure features, then yes, MS has way more features although most are useless bloat. As far as "stability", then no, MS makes a terrible program. Ask anyone in IT. Most fixes are for MS Outlook. Whether its corrupt PST files, or changed fonts, or lost connections with the exchange server. Its buggy as ****. Without MS Outlook we would have had no need for half of our support staff at my last job. Thankfully Outlook is buggy as crap because it keeps me employed.
This is nothing new. Apple doesn't target the gaming market.
Incorrect. Each point update offers many new features with the exception of snowleopard. MS kept users with XP from October 2001 until then end of January 2007 when Vista was released. Windows SP2 was the only time real additional functionality was added in the form of letting users plug in USB storage devices without installing drivers. Vista wasn't useable for a lot of people (me included) due to its infamous "shadow volume copy" error preventing the transfer of large amounts of data across multiple hard drives, people switched back to XP and waited until October 2009 when 7 was released.
In roughly that same timeframe, Mac OS had 6 major updates. Now who doesn't update often?
Depends on how you define it. The + sign maximizes the window to the size of the content. No more. I used to prefer the windows maximize where the window fills the screen but since I work with many windows at once on the screen, I started to like the mac version of maximize better.
When a developer creates their program they control how big the maximize button lets the window go. Same goes for webpages in Safari.
I like it. Seems fast, stable, boots from IDE/SATA without extra drivers and fiddling, all seems well. Only issue islittle workarounds have to be used to get things like msn to sit in the notification area.... sorry microsoft, I don't really want everythingon my task bar.
The networking stack is the same between all versions of windows 7. There are differences in the microsoft extras that work, such as joining a domain, but that doesn't affect the basic networking functionality.
My XP box didn't get slower with age when maintained properly. My Mac seemed to, so I think it's all about maintenance.
If you are comparing Windows phone 7 to iOS and Android then yes, I'll agree, it's not as good and I don't like it. Windows Phone 7 is NOT Windows 7 though.
Upgrading laptops is perfectly doable. Yes, the upgrade isn't always particularly smooth, and you have to find the drivers unlike with a mac.... but that doesn't mean that a laptop is stuck with what it came with by any means.
@chrono1081
That was a very well reasoned summary, although there is limited direct support for burning ISO's, so it's improving, still not up to Mac OS X there...
I've highlighted one bit of your quote in the hope you'll remove it. Revealing any such information no matter how trivial is a no no, and if what you've posted was/is true then it's not the smartest thing putting that information here.
The networking stack is the same between all versions of windows 7. There are differences in the microsoft extras that work, such as joining a domain, but that doesn't affect the basic networking functionality.
My XP box didn't get slower with age when maintained properly. My Mac seemed to, so I think it's all about maintenance.
If you are comparing Windows phone 7 to iOS and Android then yes, I'll agree, it's not as good and I don't like it. Windows Phone 7 is NOT Windows 7 though.
Upgrading laptops is perfectly doable. Yes, the upgrade isn't always particularly smooth, and you have to find the drivers unlike with a mac.... but that doesn't mean that a laptop is stuck with what it came with by any means.
@chrono1081
That was a very well reasoned summary, although there is limited direct support for burning ISO's, so it's improving, still not up to Mac OS X there...
I've highlighted one bit of your quote in the hope you'll remove it. Revealing any such information no matter how trivial is a no no, and if what you've posted was/is true then it's not the smartest thing putting that information here.
I really like it - in some ways more than OS X. 
Unlike OS X at least it's interface is consistent and doesn't change with each point upgrade, or application upgrade and doesn't carry GUI debris from previous releases.
I also like its taskbar and how it interacts with open apps/windows much better.
Unlike OS X at least it's interface is consistent and doesn't change with each point upgrade, or application upgrade and doesn't carry GUI debris from previous releases.
I also like its taskbar and how it interacts with open apps/windows much better.
True. Good catch. I removed it. I know better too since I was in the military also for many years
No problem, glad you didn't take offence. I've snipped the same bit from my post too...
In other news I'm still not sure why the registry is still there. You are exactly right, a series of settings files a la every other system on earth would be better. There's just too much in it. I mean, for an entry to be in the add and remove programs, it's not just a line in a file somewhere, it's loads of stuff all over the place. It's a real eggs in one basket they've made for themselves. Makes simple maintenance very difficult.
It's really not bad. I can run Visual Studio 2008, Chrome, Word, and One Note, on my 1.4ghz celeron and 2gb of RAM. And there's no slowdown. Sure it might use 3gb of RAM on my desktop, but it scales very well, and doesn't use more than 1.25gb's of RAM on my laptop.
I don't trust Apple on this front. From expierience, I believe they will come out with some new hardware feature that's exclusive to Lion, or something like that.
When I first bought my macbook, they came out with new hardware within a month.
Nevermind, this entire thread. I'm sticking with Linux. I'll have to find some way around the BS netflix problem.
I'm using a windows 7 computer in a lab right now as I type this. It looks exactly like the Vista my mom has.
I'm using a windows 7 computer in a lab right now as I type this. It looks exactly like the Vista my mom has.
I've had as many virus worries and scares on my windows machines as I have had on my macs. And no, I'm *not* saying I've had virus worries on my macs.
The microsoft one that someone else recommended is good enough for most home users. Really.
stevento said:
Mind you, given your quote here and the one immediately above it about Mac hardware, I don't think you have very realistic expectations of IT, so frankly... whatever.
Windows 7 is a lot better than vista but there are a lot of updates and the "do not turn off while installing" message a lot. Still it is usable though.
Where are you getting this?
Considering Windows 7 works on P4's/CoreDuos/Core2Duos/Core2Duo ULV's, I'm sure it works on i3 ULV's.
Long time windows user here who thinks Windows 7 is the best MS OS ever. Windows 7 is OK if you need to run a MS Windows application. Get smart on the latest Windows security software offerings though. What works best seems to change frequently. Some of it is free. Google is your friend.
OS X is not that compelling to me, but I like some of the Mac applications better than the Windows or Linux alternatives. And aside from iMac screen issues that I've read about here and elsewhere, I like the quality of the Mac hardware too.
If I thought I could have the same functionality with Linux at equal dollars to a Windows 7 solution, I would go with the penguin just as the OP did.
OS X is not that compelling to me, but I like some of the Mac applications better than the Windows or Linux alternatives. And aside from iMac screen issues that I've read about here and elsewhere, I like the quality of the Mac hardware too.
If I thought I could have the same functionality with Linux at equal dollars to a Windows 7 solution, I would go with the penguin just as the OP did.
i3 is a low power (translate slow) processor.
PC nerd at work has i3. W7 is hilariously slow on that. 4 year old C2D with XP is more responsive.
You are mistaken if you think low power (low voltage) means slow.
My friends core 2 duo uni body macbook is slow also. Does that mean os x can't run well on core 2 duos
I stopped reading here. Why are you not saying anything nice about apple, lol.
I'm using a mbp, have an iphone 4, time capsule, ipad, airport etc but I do like w7.
I use 7 64bit on a Dell T3500 cad/cam workstation and I have to say it is, by far, the best iteration of Windows yet. And the most Mac-like in case that makes any difference to you. (have to throw in my two cents on Vista: Vista was a horrible, more-lipstick-on-a-pig operating system. So bad that my IT manager forbid any employees using it on company networks, on or off site. Thurrott is a flaming idiot.)
So far there has been only two major problems that caused issues at my company: Four or more network shortcuts can disappear if Windows thinks they are dead shortcuts, which happened frequently when logging in and the connections needed a bit of time to complete. The other thing was an update that caused considerable problems; security policies suddenly changed and it would not allow Office and Open Office docs to be overwritten. Usually it was on network shares but also occurred local in some cases.
I doubt the latter issue will cause you any problems if you don't connect to a domain. The former can be fixed by increasing a value in a config file but for the life of me I cannot remember the file name.
So far there has been only two major problems that caused issues at my company: Four or more network shortcuts can disappear if Windows thinks they are dead shortcuts, which happened frequently when logging in and the connections needed a bit of time to complete. The other thing was an update that caused considerable problems; security policies suddenly changed and it would not allow Office and Open Office docs to be overwritten. Usually it was on network shares but also occurred local in some cases.
I doubt the latter issue will cause you any problems if you don't connect to a domain. The former can be fixed by increasing a value in a config file but for the life of me I cannot remember the file name.
It's a nice operating system. I just don't like how it looks at all (I know its customizable but I don't like Aero at all and the other options still look way too distracting to me).
Other than constantly helping people fix their windows computers, personally I have no issues with 7 at all. Runs pretty well via VirtualBox.
Other than constantly helping people fix their windows computers, personally I have no issues with 7 at all. Runs pretty well via VirtualBox.
I don't use macs(yet) so I can safely say 7 is the best windows out right now. Honestly, if they hadn't made it, I can say I would have switched a long time ago. If you're worried about it being too different than Snow Leopard, get RocketDock, it's what I use at least. It's not too bad, if you need help protecting it, PM me.
I'll give you my windows 7 experience:
First installed it on my desktop and installed drivers, working great.
Working great
Working great
Working great
Trying to install a theme that's unstable, BSOD
Working great
Working great
Working great
Working great
Working great
Working great
Installing some theme that is supposed to change the way windows works, BSOD because I didn't install it right, did a simple system restore(Like time machine but it doesn't restore your files, only system files)
Working great
Working great
The only times I got BSOD is when I did something that is going to eff with the system, which isn't recommended at all. I'll admit, it's not perfect, but no operating system is perfect.
I'll give you my windows 7 experience:
First installed it on my desktop and installed drivers, working great.
Working great
Working great
Working great
Trying to install a theme that's unstable, BSOD
Working great
Working great
Working great
Working great
Working great
Working great
Installing some theme that is supposed to change the way windows works, BSOD because I didn't install it right, did a simple system restore(Like time machine but it doesn't restore your files, only system files)
Working great
Working great
The only times I got BSOD is when I did something that is going to eff with the system, which isn't recommended at all. I'll admit, it's not perfect, but no operating system is perfect.
Ya that part in my post kind of sounds stilly. You have to read more of his posts to understand. He's a troll left over from the iPhone days who spews false stuff about apple all the time and promotes MS.