First reactions to Windows 7
section: windows, for your questions: KezNews forum, 6.1.2009
Tip: Click here to update all your PC's outdated driversHaving my hands on the beta 1 of Windows 7 over the holidays has been an interesting experience because it’s allowed me to show the OS to people and get feedback from a broad range of users as to how they feel about Microsoft’s upcoming operating system.
First off, let me point out that these reactions aren’t based on some sort of half-assed Mojave Experiment that I carried out. Feedback is based on people having a play with the OS and then being asked what they thought.
Overall, reactions from all OS camps (Windows users, Mac users and Linux users) was fairly positive. In a world where the majority of computer users are happy if they can access the web, check email, sort through a few photos and play games, this isn’t all that surprising.
There was, of course, some negative feedback. A few points of concern included:
* The startup screens being too black, giving the impression that something had gone wrong.
* Taskbar too big/clunky/confusing/just too new.
* No classic Start Menu.
* Too many things moved compared to XP/Vista.
What I found interesting was the responses I got to the question of shifting to Windows 7 once it was out. I haven’t yet found a Mac or Linux user who feels tempted back to Windows based on what they’ve seen in Windows 7. Those Mac and Linux users who still make use of Windows in a limited way (for gaming or running specific applications) see themselves sticking with XP or Vista as their secondary OS until they either can break ties with Windows completely or until forced to switch. Late adopters of Vista (those who migrated to the OS in the last year or so) feel that it’s too early to start thinking about the upheaval of a new OS. Early adopters of Vista and some of those still using XP felt that the time was right to start thinking about a new OS. Some XP users are still very entrenched and have no plans to leave the aging OS.
When it came to thinking about upgrading, those who said they might had the usual reservations:
* Need a clear idea of the benefits compared to current OS
* Compatibility with existing hardware and software
* Overall learning curve
* Price
* General worries about the economy
My take here is that Windows 7 is going to be a tough sell for Microsoft. In a climate where people are concerned about spending money people are going to be extra reluctant to spend money on an OS that might end up costing them a ton of cash in software and hardware upgrades. Maintaining a high level of compatibility with Vista hardware and software (and encouraging vendors to fix issues quickly) is going to be a must. Microsoft also needs to make 100% clear the benefits that Windows 7 offers, and these have to be far more tangible than rejazzed interface and some restructuring of components. For me the increased performance that Windows 7 seems to offer is good enough reason to upgrade, but I don’t think this will be such a slam-dunk when it comes to the average home user or typical business user.
Given that Vista only has a market share of about 21%, compared to XP’s market share of about 65%, it’s XP users that Microsoft needs to be targeting for upgrade. And that’s a problem, because folks who avoided Vista because of compatibility issues and stayed with XP are going to be faced with similar issues when upgrading to Windows 7. This is one reason why Microsoft needs to release Windows 7 earlier rather than later in order to be able to capitalize on the mid-year “back to school” notebook buying frenzy - this market is less concerned about backward compatibility.
source:
blogs.zdnet.com
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Comments(11)
here is a converted linux user. from using windows 7 for the past few weeks i have found
it incredibly responsive, user friendly and stable for such an early stage in the
development.
fellow linux users i know seem to be clinging to their 'cult'
operating systems, but you can't ignore the facts. microsoft are on the right tracks
here!
as for the new start menu and new features, bring it on! that's the
whole point. i find the new way of organising windows much more clutter free, especially
using the grouped window preview.
lets not become oap's and say 'wow, i'm
not trying that cus its too new!' guys
apologies for the long post.
i dual boot up to 10 os's from stuff like apple to linux and ive got to say this is 2nd
from top
when i connect to internet,the system shows the window of "dumping physical memory" and
shuts down//....
it sux to be the guy above but this is one sweet looking piece of soft.. i am
impressed... woot
considering this is beta 1, what a way to start. i think it competes well macs os. i can
logon and run ie in 5-6 seconds. huge improvement from vista
i test pre-beta 6956 and it works very fast and no compability issues yet!
you need help if you've got a dumping problem
have used all os of recent releases and i am very impressed by the speed on my single
core laptop i have it loaded on, i have 1 program that will not run that is database in
nature and from the year 1998, nuf said.
to counteract some o/t comments.
1) i like the startup screen. i also liked
vista's apearing orb. but this animation is quite neat
2) i love the big
taskbar/menubar. it finally works as it should have been all those years. the realtime
previews finaly make sense. especially when opening different windows from the same
program. very well done
i also like the big beautifull icons. i presume they
made the big taskbar with pen- and touchscreens in mind. very smart. i already liked the
big colourfull close/mini-maximise from vista. glad they haven't changed that.
3) i definitly don't miss the classic look. though there's a clasic (grey) appearance
included i like the transparant theme. it's not as goodlooking as vista's shiny black
style but this is a clean uncluttered style.
4) they finaly made some sense in
the configuration screen. less items and less cluttered. some items are also on the
sensible place with a sensible name. vista was a labyrinth to find things win7 finaly
clears out the mess. sure items have moved again but this is way better then vista mess.
experiences. the network problems (with xp machines) seem to finally dissolved.
for that alone i'd ditch vista and use this beta. in fact i have the idea that windows 7
is more compatible with xp than vista was. the few programs that i installed gave no
problems at all.
bugs i discovered in build 7000.
if you disable uac then
the sidebar-gadgets don't work anymore. you also can't remove windows features when uac
is off. so for certain things to work properly you have to enable (even one notch is
enough) uac.
i really don't see the huge difference between vista and 7. 7 acts and feels like
vista.
my experience untill now (only a couple of days installed):
- i didn't use
the latest orbit crack yet (scarred to mess up updates)
- i have use the switch in
front of my laptop every day to get online (strange).
- i changed the taskbar to
small (vista like). don't like the big buttons.
- i use vistastartmenu because the
classic menu is missing
- i turned off many settings with advanced system care. also
turned off fading menu's in advanced sytem settings.
i'm sticking to aero for
now.
- i want the navigation click without sound. it comes back the next day ! (bug
?)
- i can't use the quicklaunch bar even after the regfile and manual registry
change. i'm also using rocketdock.
- i can't install the realtek sound driver (the
sound of the ms driver is not clear)
- i can't install perfect disk (don't like
o&o, diskeeper, ultimate defrag). using vopt for now.
- i installed moviemaker 2.6
because mm6 is missing. it's just like mm 2.1 in xp.
speed ? if you tune
vista its also fast. windows 7 is indeed 6.1. but really not bad for beta1.
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Converted
By the_sai on 06.01.2009 - 03:01