It's really Vista, but less. Oh, you didn't know?

[ceagle]

Argh.
Well, finally got to spend several hours tussling with a Windows7 machine. I really don't see what the fanfare is about.
Sure, it's nice n fast, but maybe it has a great deal to do with the fact that newer machines are out now, and they are fast to begin with.
It still has UAC turned on by default, and it still has other issues.
UAC doesn't bother me much, but wasn't that the biggest complaint people had?

Notes:
Has a different way of doing compatibility / permissions... and using it on the program that failed to work (DreamWeaver CS3), those didn't help a bit. I've gotten them to help many, many times in Vista.
It still has that super-annoying related-folder-icon-reset "feature" that is (imho) the worst thing about Vista.
Ejecting mounted drives now seems to be a logical improvement... gotta be fair and give it kudos for that. In the big picture though, whoop-de-do.
Extra note about DreamWeaver... it would not UnInstall after repeated attempts. The process just idles.
Startup wasn't all that impressive. Still takes nearly 3 minutes on a brand new HP 9630 with an advanced video card.
QuickLook icons do not get added properly either, apparently. None worked with the installs done today in fact. Must be added manually.
Has cute little fireflies at startup.               er, ahem.. whoop-de-do.

Any other good / bad stuff you've noticed about it?


EDIT:
Here are some snapshots from my gaming pc, just to further illustrate what was in Vista before Win7, even on SP1 (the first release after the initial ones that I know of)...

Comments

[julian-wilbury.livejournal.com]

This is basically why I had my dad cancel the copy of Windows 7 he ordered for me after I used the beta for a month or so. The thing drove me crazy, even though my dad seemed to get along with it just peachy-keen. They managed to make things so COMPLICATED when it really shouldn't be. (The My Documents folder setup drove me crazy.) That, and if I tried to just get rid of the icon of some stupid software that comes with my scanner from my desktop, it just freezes.

Of course, it also had a habit of deciding whether or not it wanted to recognize my DVD-R drives. D: For someone who spends a lot of time watching DVDs on the computer, this is NOT good. XP

Oh, yeah, and speaking of "XP," I'm just using that for now until MS makes something less annoying. (As if that'll ever happen. 9.9 )

EDIT: HTMuLs.

[gremy.livejournal.com]

My younger brother updated my CPU recently and it included Windows 7; definitely runs a lot better than my old computer did.

[orv.livejournal.com]

UAC isn't going to go anywhere. Security has been a sore point for Microsoft for a long time and this is their way of mitigating the problem.

[grrouth.livejournal.com]

If you're running a Windows Server 2008 R2 environment over multiple locations with a Windows 7 enterprise workstation or laptop ... it has some really nifty things built in that you pay big $$$$ for otherwise. Other than that ... it's Vista.

[atkelar.livejournal.com]

Been using Win7 ever since the RC got released and loving it so far:

1.: There are very specific guidelines for application developers on how to properly install/uninstall software to/from Windows. Well guess what: everybody and their grandma think they know better and ignore those to a certain extend and that's what's causing a lot of security/installation issues. Poorly written drivers are another reason. I had a USB-Camera driver make vmware fail on XP until I realized that it came with a "fixcam.exe" process that is "adjusting" something in any launched process...

2.: If you *have* Vista supported software, you *should* be fine on Win7. When in doubt, use the virtual XP mode - takes some setup to enable it AFAIK but should run any app that worked in XP.

3.: On my new hardware, boot time (cold-boot to desktop mind you!) is way below a minute. If I remember it, I'll clock it. HDD performance is crucial however.

4.: Windows Media (Player) now has native support for MP4.

What's "related-folder-icon-reset"? Maybe that doesn't bother me because I don't use Explorer for my file management but Total Commander (works quite well, even with enabled UAC)

Yes it's true: there isn't THAT much of a differece between Win7 and Vista but it's enough good difference for me to warrant the change. To me Win7 is what Vista wanted to be: the next generation desktop OS from MS, after XP. Love or hate the new way of doing some things: new versions have to bring some changes and one mans rubbish is the other's gold...

As to stability: I haven't had a single BSOD, ever since I returned that faulty RAM module... can't blame he OS for that.

Edit: QuickLook icons? You mean the QuickLaunch bar? That's been removed - it's why the "add QuickLaunch" options in Setups just ignore that. Had one customer/student who thought that was the one and only bad thing about Win7 and therefore he couldn't ever possibly be using it...

[furahi.livejournal.com]

UAC is still on by default because it's a security feature, but they toned it down a lot, many things the computer knows you are doing yourself won't actually show a UAC prompt.

It's a lot faster and uses a lot less memory. 2D graphics had no hardware acceleration on Vista, they do on 7
It also uses a lot less memory

It's not just the new computers, I'm running it in a 4-5 year old tablet that was crappy when it was new, and it still runs very decent on it. Vista would install bu be unusable

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Wow.... I had not heard of very many people I personally knew that were disappointed with it. Sorry to hear it seems kinda lemony to ya so far also... that DVD thing is definitely no picnic.
Hopefully with newer releases, Windows will eliminate some of the little things that still plague it like that ;P

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

That's ultra-cool to hear it's helping for your brother... There's no question it's pretty speedy :9

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! I'm very thankful for UAC and I hope it stays robust. In fact, if they could add a registry-startup-notify/blocker, that would be eeeeeeeeeeeven better. Right now have to use add-ons for that.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Wowza! Very interesting additional info... thanks leonine bud! ^v^

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

ooo... glad itz werkin' for ya! I will probably have a win7 machine at some point, and they say it's coming to work pretty soon...

Yeah... that's always a drag when developers drop the ball here n there... to think it plagues DreamWeaver from Adobe is extra disconcerting.
I wonder if my client would mind running in the virtual XP mode... will possibly have to look into that .. (thanx)

That's really cool about the mp4 support! According to this (http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistamedia/thread/62b112ee-f13f-480a-b384-bc530ba8e6d5) thread, WMP also includes this in their latest issue (after adding codec) for Vista also.

I'm not saying win7 is rubbish .. heh :D ... just surprised how all the reviews have made it seem such a big step beyond Vista.

re: BSODs ... I think I've had maybe one BSOD in the 3 years I've been using Vista also. Did have one bizarre video freakout after I installed some cellphone transfer software though (quickly removed).

Sorry I mis-recalled the QuickLaunch name *beak blushes*... I didn't realize it was determined to be completely gone, since there are still a few remnants in that location. I've come to use it a whole lot, but it wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me.

Here (http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaappearance/thread/4538c606-11dd-4d10-8b6c-39726cc0d0d7) is the problem with the related-folder-icon-reset issue. This still remains a problem in win7, and the fix is fine for advanced users, but this labor is not something the standard user is going to want to go through to fix the folder displays.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

oooo! I'm so glad and honored you are reading and for your response! ^v^
I am a big fan of UAC, as it helps most people avoid typical malware intrusions. I was just telling another commenter I wish it was even more robust, with a registry-startup-attempt-block added. Right now I have to use third party software to intercept attempts to load items at startup.

You have a very good point about the 2D vs 3D graphics though.. I hope I get to see a lot more samples of this as I become more familiar with the system.

And if it's any consolation, I despise Vista Ultimate. Premium has been great, but I had one customer on Ultimate and it was a nightmare.

[atkelar.livejournal.com]

My two cents about the software issue: the bigger the vendor is, the more they will tend to "bring their own" rather than using the OS-prepared way of doing things. Adobe has nifty apps (I really really love PhotoShop, Premiere and AfterEffects!) but their setup routine is just a pain in the behind! MSI based installations always come with a "repair" option. When you had to uninstall/reinstall CS4 Master Collection once you whish Adobe had used MSI :)

The icons that take up the old QuickLaunch space are "pinned" icons - similar to what Mac-OS uses AFAIK. You can actually right-click any appliction icon and "pin" it. This will make the icon permanent and just change its shading when the app is running. Also applications (like Explorer or IE) can add right-click items to pinned icons. Similar feature, more flexibility but totally different way of storing the icons and thus breaking the old QuickLaunch.

The icon-issue truly isn't an issue for me because I hardly ever use the explorer anyway. If you're a professional, I'd suggest taking a look at "Total Commander" (formerly known as "Windows Commander") it's a huge time saver for file operations and comes as rather cheap shareware.

EDIT: My current machine comes to a rating of 4.6 due to a lower-end graphics board that is only planned as a temporary solution until I can afford a better one :) HDD is 5.9 CPU/RAM is 7.5/7.4...

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

cool! Interesting specs about your computer, and thanks for the additional info! ^v^

I've been putting off trying to fix this, and I don't know why I am even bothering to try now... but in the last few hours I've decided to tackle it. Besides those links I gave you above, I am about to try this (http://winhlp.com/node/360) one, since the others still haven't fully resolved the issue.

Supposedly Vista SP2 fixes this, so I suppose I could just do that also. *IF* it does fix it. I've learned not to believe everything printed ;D

[furahi.livejournal.com]

QuickLaunch isn't completely gone, it's just been integrated and no longer needed.
What specifically do you miss about it?

Quick access to your programs?
- You can just pin them to the taskbar and you'll have quick access to them

Labels in the taskbar?
- You can right click an empty space in the taskbar and enable those, also disabling the grouping that gives you one icon per app instead of one per window

Launching new windows of the same app quickly? (ie. how in Win 7 after an app is r unning, clicking its taskbar icon switches to it instead of opening a new window as would happen with QuickLaunch)
- You can shift click to get a new window, as if you had a QuickLaunch shortcut

Anything else? (Like how QuickLaunch icons were smaller, were in a folder, were always on the left --or wherever you moved your quicklaunch to), etc...?
- You can enable QuickLaunch in Win 7 http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/888-quick-launch-enable-disable.html

I deliberately left that option last because, really, if your specific gripe can be addressed with one of the other workarounds, not having QuickLaunch and just getting used to the win 7 workflow will proably make your life easier. That's why ever since I first installed it I made a point to try to force myself to use the defaults, try to create new habits.... and only when after trying it for a month or two I couldn't get used to something would I try to switch it back to what I was always used to (Linux, whose shell metaphors are very WinXP-like)

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Vista SP2 is unlikely to have fixes that Win7 doesn't have, so if it's broken in 7 it's probably still broken in Vista.
I say this as a user, I'm not sharing any internal knowledge here, I don't work in the Windows division, so it's just a guess :-)

Also, YES... to what he said.
One thing I missed about QuickLaunch was having a myriad of remote desktop shortcuts to all of my workstations at work, and to my home machine. I had the QuickLaunch thingie as small as possible, and would use the ">>" icon to have a popup of all the others. That was nice and out of the way, not consuming a lot of screen real estate and allowed me instant access to each of my different computers.

At first glance it looks like the new taskbar won't be able to fulfill this need, but actually I found a solution that I actually like better than what I had with QuickLaunch.

When you right click an app that has been pinned to the taskbar, it will show you its MRU (most Recently Used) list; something like what you see when you open the file menu in most apps.

So for remote desktop I created RDP files for each of my computers (actually I already had those because I need settings that can't be specified through the command line), and now when I right click my pinned remote desktop icon, I see this list.
If I didn't want that icon permanently pinned to my taskbar, the start menu MRU also offers this functionality

Here's a screenshot of what I mean; notice how above the remote desktop icon, you see a list of 3 RDP files (what I didn't mention is that in my QuickLaunch I used to have like 7 RDP shortcuts, but only ever really used 3; that's why the list is only 3 at the moment, if I used more they'd show up there, but it's easier to connect to one work machine and then to the others through that one)