V-Flyer

seeing as this has been out for a bit now, what are the benefits?

Toying with getting rid of Vista as very frustrating;
years to boot up
'do I want to continue'? Yes!!
etc etc

Any one noticed any day-to-day advantages for this newer OS?

nh

yes - it doesn't suck ike Vista...

I've found Windows 7 is much more streamlined than Vista. It's been described as 'Vista on a diet' which I have to agree with. It boots up and shuts down faster than Vista did.

Not had any issues or problems with it so far. You do still get BSOD's with 7 (I've had one so far after a Windows update the other week)

Win 7 does appear to use less RAM than Vista did (although I'm now using 64bit Windows 7 compared to 32bit version of Vista which probably also helps now as I can use all of my 4Gb RAM, whereas, a 32bit O/S can only use a maximum of ~3.2Gb RAM).

You don't get as many of those annoying Admin pop-up boxes either with Win7 either (although you do still get the odd one)

I've now also set up 2 HDD's as RAID 0 which also probably helps with my PC's overall performance too.

The only thing I don't like is the hidden icon bit of the task-bar. If your not careful you can miss messages from programs like Skype etc. You have to make sure Skype is set to 'always show icons and notifications' otherwise you miss incoming messages.

Regards

I've upgraded to W7 from Vista.

I did a clean install - I used the supplied W7 utility to store and restore data files.

W7 has been very good - much quicker start up then Vista and less nannying.

Had a bit of wig shredding re-establishing local network with an XP machine, but eventually sorted.

In addition - I use a utility to check what is being loaded at start up and I disable a lot of these.

Any useful insights or comment from LRoM would be very welcome and most helpful?

I've been using WIN7 since it went on Beta and compared to Vitsa, it's a totally different beast under the skin. Far more responsive with none of the resource-hogging behaviour. So far, no BSOD and the only issue is a tendancy for Windows Media Player to stop responding when opening a new video clip before the current one has finished.

Networking is far better, especially to a Mac, with file-sharing being substantually better.

Glad I bought the Pro version too.

Currently running Vista on both my PCs, Ultimate on my laptop and Business on my desktop, both in 32 bit incarnation, must confess to missing XP Pro, does 7 begin to get back to XP (with later improvements, etc., of course)?

DEFINITELY worth the upgrade from Vista. Windows 7 is really slick in comparison, so much faster, better, nicer, and really what Vista ought to have been.

Thanks,
Sarah

I love Windows 7 at work (though still use a Mac at home) and am involved in rolling out to 3,500 machines in our EMEA offices. It's slick, reliable and a lot faster (even compared to XP).

I echo the postive comments.

We are still 'forced' to use XP at work, so I run W7 in a VMWare session for personal use.

W7 is much quicker and one you understand the still differences in the GUI it is excellent.

Obviously as others have said underneath the GUI the engine is completely different and soooo much better than Vista.

Agreed, I've also used it since it went Beta and found it far more streamlined and quicker than Vista!

It is in fact, what Vista should have been had Microsoft had the time/money/resources they needed to develop Vista!

Although, you still get some of the 'are you sure' dialogs, it's not quite as uninterfearing as XP.

Steve,

Could you give me more info re what utility and what you disabled?

Thanks,

I use msconfig from the run box. As to what you disable, it'll be different for each build.

Out of interest, has anyone tried Office 2010 yet?

In general W7 is what Vista should have been.

My only two gripes are (a) the time it takes sometimes to refresh folder contents on occasion and (b) it has given some third party software vendors an excuse to roll out chargeable W7 compatible updates.

Can't comment on Office 2010. I still have yet to work my way around that stupid Office 2007 user interface. In fact I don't think I use any of the new functionality that's been introduced since about Office '97. The most useful improvement to Office since then was to get rid of Clippy.

Howard

quote:Originally posted by Howard Long
In general W7 is what Vista should have been.

My only two gripes are (a) the time it takes sometimes to refresh folder contents on occasion

It's still far better than MAC with this, especially when browsing a network.

Upgraded to Windows 7 last month after deliberately avoiding Vista due to the issues people were having. Took me a while to get used to (been using XP for all these years before) but I really like it. That and a high-spec desktop/laptop go hand in hand, especially if you're not wanting to get a Mac.

Downloaded Office 2010 yesterday and it all installed fine, needed to upgrade my Hotmail connector as well.
It hung the first few times doing a send/recieve and had to kill the process.
After deleting my Windows Live/Hotmail account and recreating it I was then able to do a successful send/receive.
Even though I have saved my Windows Live password I keep getting prompted but not sure if that is for the mail account or to access shared calendars I am using on Office Online.

I like the look and feel, bit more 'square' that Office 2007.

Will keep you posted.

quote:Originally posted by thompst
Downloaded Office 2010 yesterday and it all installed fine, needed to upgrade my Hotmail connector as well.


I thought this was still in beta? Anyway I'd be interested to know of any useful new features that could be used as a business justification for upgrade, i.e. can an RoI case be made purely on productivity gain? I suspect, as with other Office 'upgrades' that it is more likely going to end up being a cynical excuse from MS to withdraw support from a previous version and thus force a chargeable upgrade path to something that was already functioning perfectly well.

If, by some fluke, it introduces sensible bullet numbering in Word that is not influenced by the alignment of the planets then that might be enough on its own for me to upgrade. That's assuming of course that what remains of my screen real estate isn't taken up by even more meaningless icons and seemingly randomly distributed menu items that were far simpler to navigate in earlier versions.

Cheers, H

Yes sorry it is still in Beta.
I did not make that bit clear!

Hi just been playing a bit more with Outlook and discovered the 'Outlook Social Connector'
Apparently you can get it for 2003/2007 as well but it is the first time I have seen it.

Seems LinkedIn is the only one avaialable at the mo but MySpace Facebook etc are to follow.

quote:Originally posted by thompst
Hi just been playing a bit more with Outlook and discovered the 'Outlook Social Connector'
Apparently you can get it for 2003/2007 as well but it is the first time I have seen it.

Seems LinkedIn is the only one avaialable at the mo but MySpace Facebook etc are to follow.


What, no v-flyer?

I could see that as being a reason not to upgrade in an enterprise environment. That just might have a significant negative impact on the RoI!

Cheers, Howard

quote:Originally posted by Howard Long
If, by some fluke, it introduces sensible bullet numbering in Word that is not influenced by the alignment of the planets then that might be enough on its own for me to upgrade.


Howard - this is something that drives me insane, as is the completely random indentation of sub-bullets. Talk about stress!

quote:Originally posted by slinky09
Howard - this is something that drives me insane, as is the completely random indentation of sub-bullets. Talk about stress!


Yes I can only surmise that some Bayesian aficionado wrote some truly amazing algorithm that no-one else in Microsoft let alone anywhere else could ever possibly untangle.

Probably the same PoS who gave us Clippy. 'It looks like you're writing a letter' followed by, in Vista, 'Are you sure?' and then 'You moved your mouse. Windows will now restart' plus a smattering of critical updates and a browser selection screen. By which time you have written the letter in long hand, posted it, and the recipient has received and read it.

Howard

What Word 2010 might look like:

[img]http://www.howardlong.com/images/office2010a.JPG[/img]

H