My Windows 7 Experience

Seems that they have taken out the BS that was making Vista unique.
It still feels like Vista, but only slightly different.
If Vista came out with a patch, this is what you would basically end up with.
I find that Windows 7 64 bit to be almost identical to Vista with its hard to find stuff attitude, and its lack of innovation. But hey, I have only been beta testing it for about a hour now…

Speaking of “beta” here is the default screen after a fresh install.

Is Windows is trying to look like KDE…?

Sooner or later I think Microsoft is going to make their own version of Linux.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I am beta testing it on my laptop.
Size of Windows 7 after update(s) yes, they have them already…
And one NVIDIA video driver install. 14.7 GB.

Seems they are trying to hide the system functions running in the background, and making everything “auto-magical” for the end user.

Nine days later…

OK, here is my story as I am using Parted Magic right now on my laptop. I am finished with my beta testing of Windows 7.

I am partitioning my laptop to dual-boot Linux. The way it was before I was beta testing. I will be dual-booting openSUSE and CRUNCHBANG Linux.

I was going to beta test Windows 7 for two weeks, but I only lasted nine days. It did not end well.

Windows 7 is almost identical to Vista with slight improvements. If you know somebody using XP, tell them to wait until Windows 7 is out and bugs are fixed before upgrading. Or, just stay with XP… Especially if you are a gamer.
It took XP seven years of patching to make it as solid as it is now. Which is why Microsoft is having a hard time beating its own product.
I was going to try and stick it out for a solid two weeks with Windows 7, but I was not strong enough… I had a few issues that were very annoying…

It was a memory hog… it used anywhere from 32% – 39 % of my ram while IDLE!

Oh, I am sorry, I forgot to mention I have 3 GB ram on my laptop, so basically it takes 1 GB ram to sit….. and do nothing except its normal 45 background processes.
The CPU reserves were better than Vista’s, and during idle it would use no more than 03% CPU power, even with Vista I have seen it wander around up to 19% while idle.

The battery life was extended by about 30 minutes compared to Vista. It actually runs slightly cooler, and my battery lasted 1 hour 58 minutes, at idle.
This is with the screensaver off, and any power saving features off.
Vista 1 1/2 hours.
CRUNCHBANG Linux is still the winner for me for battery life, with 3 hours 55 minutes.

So the small issues which made me drop Windows 7, I am sure they will attempt to fix them before they release it.

My printer… which is connected to my desktop PC, running dual-boot Debian / XP is a printer server. All other PC’s can see and print from it, including XP, CRUNCHBANG Linux and openSUSE. Windows 7 did not see the printer on the network, but it did see the printer when I connected it directly to the laptop, BUT it still does not have a printer driver for it. So that was a big disappointment.

Oh, for more annoying issues which shortened my beta testing….

I started a backup function to see how well it worked, but I noticed I had no Cd’s to write to, so I canceled the back-up, and it continually kept asking for me to insert a blank CD about every 20 minutes to resume back-up.

Another HUGE issue… after a FRESH install of Windows 7 and a NVIDIA driver, it took up 14.4 GB of drive space.

14.4 GB is not a typo.

I did not even attempt a dual-boot, even though I was planning on it. But it was just slowly getting on my nerves. Yesterday… last day using it, even though I planned on 14 days, I only needed 5 more days.

Rewind back to the beginning… After the initial install and the nvidia driver install. Would you believe it already had updates available? and after updates 14.7 GB

OK, back to yesterday, last day…. there is a update available! it said it was for nvidia…. I downloaded the update, and received a error stating the update failed. I had two options [Retry] or [Cancel] I clicked [Retry], so it went through the entire process of downloading the update once again, and yet again I had a fail. I retried about 5 times….

I kept getting the updates are available, and please insert CD to resume backup… So, I decided to attempt a RESTORE back to the day I installed it.

The Restore said it went successful, I selected the very first restore point, before I installed the nvidia driver, and any updates. So, I went through the process of installing the nvidia driver once again, and then a reboot…. The screen resolution looked the same as before the driver install! I checked out the driver version installed, and it was not installed! So, there I was… upset at the fact that the video driver did not want to install, and the little reminder that popped up and told me to insert a CD to resume backup every 20 minutes…. That is when I ended my Windows 7 experience…

Yes, it started nice and all, but it reminded me of the OS airlines.

Good points?

• Wireless worked flawlessly for me
• Battery life has been extended slightly
• Windows 7 runs slightly cooler than Vista

Bad points

• Driver support
• Failed update
• Annoying pop-up reminder for something that was CANCELED