Gadget User Blog

Well, it’s here. Windows 7 (beta). Is it any good? Yes and no! I have to say, after some positive reviews of Vista on this site when it was introduced a couple of years ago (is it really that long, maybe not, it just feels that long) I have to admit to being a little cautious to make a call on Windows 7.

But… first impressions are positive. It did install without fault on my laptop, a R1F from Asus. No obvious driver problems. Installation took about 20 minutes (I installed on a partition so I can run Vista still).

I’m cautiously optimistic.The look and feel of Windows 7 has much in common with Vista but feels less cluttered and better layed out. The status bar is neat and clean. And finally the damn nagging can be turned off – these are the dialogues that always pop up in Vista asking if you’re sure you want to do this or that. Happily those nags are gone.

The system boots up quickly and shuts down quickly. However, so did Vista when it was first installed so I’m afraid to say the jury is still out on that one. Microsoft have lost much credit with Vista and so I’m not prepared to just say ‘it loads faster’ and be confident that will always be the case. In fact since I have installed a couple of other programs – Skype and some others – there has been a slight slow down in booting time.

The Aero windows look much better and there is some added functionality as far as seeing your desktop, or what windows are open from the status bar. These are quite handy. It would be good if you could see your tabs in Firefox or IE in this view but you can only see each individual window. But the views are useful.

I haven’t loaded a heap of software onto the system, but the programs that are on there all run pretty well. There is a neat function when you install that let’s you choose the compatibility mode for applications. I had difficulty installing driver and software for the MX Air Mouse – I simply asked it to run in Vista compatibility mode and voila – all operational. That is pretty cool.

I haven’t explored this feature too much but it may be very useful for running old software in the new operating environment.

I haven’t experienced any crashes yet, very happy about that. I haven’t used any Office Suite programs with the system yet either so can’t report on that.

But to be honest and cautiously optimistic, I think Windows 7 could be a signficant development for Windows. Vista was really a bit of disaster – visually nice but under the bonnet there were serious problems. Windows 7 seems to have addressed much of these problems.

Wireless connections are faultless and so far I haven’t encountered the frustrating drop-outs and loss of connection that plagued Vista.

I’m having some problems with speaker drivers with this laptop, but you can’t really blame Windows 7 for that. And one of the finally resolved issues is with bluetooth headphones – they all work just fine. This appears to be a vast improvement over Vista – bluetooth seems very robust.

So all in all, the first impression of Windows 7 is positive. Fingers-crossed that it delivers what it promises. And fingers crossed we never have to go through the Vista debacle again.

I have read some comments that Windows 7 is really just a fix for Vista and to be honest I think there is some validity in that view. But you can be sure that Microsoft won’t treat it as an service pack for Vista and will charge us all an arm and a leg for the upgrade. Still, at least this time we can feel reasonably confident that we’ll be getting our money’s worth – touch wood.

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