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**Unofficial** Have Comments about Windows 7 RC - Part 7
**Unofficial** Have Comments about Windows 7 RC - Part 7
- (I am reviving the "Have Comments About Windows 7 RC" comment threads.
Post your comments about Windows 7 RC (NOT RTM ) here.
Note that this thread is unofficial and MS does not support comments on the RC version (build 7100) anymore, so your comments here may not reach MS developers.)
Please start your own thread for any question you have, as you won't get a response to your question here in this thread.
For the RTM / official comment thread, please see here: Have Comments about Windows 7? (Part 3 - Do not post questions in this thread)
Post away!!
JoelbX's favorite threads | Space | ----- | Email me | 'Gadget' programs- Edited byJoelbX Monday, September 14, 2009 3:04 PMEdit link for "Have Comments about Windows 7 [RTM] (Part 2)
- Edited byJoelbX Saturday, August 15, 2009 10:35 PMedit signature :)
- Changed TypeJoelbX Saturday, August 15, 2009 10:35 PM
- Edited byJoelbX Wednesday, November 18, 2009 7:47 PMedit link for comment thread part 3
All Replies
- Joel -
Er... You might want to revise that.. According to the Official Support Forum Policies posting by Ronnie Vernon:
"Updated August 6, 2009
The official support policy for the Windows 7 TechNet Forums beginning today (August 6, 2009) is that we only support Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) Build 7100 and all Windows 7 “RTM” Editions. As of today, Windows 7 is available to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers, and shortly thereafter, customers with Software Assurance (SA) or Volume Licenses (VL). As of today, we will not support any builds/versions other than the ones mentioned above."
Note that he says the Release Candidate is still supported. I would imagine support for Build 7100 will end with it drops dead on June 1st, 2010. - Yes, I have seen that thread before, I was reffering to the comments part of the RC in these forums isn't supported anymore.
Hello! Please reply back, promptly if possible with the results to solutions to your problem!
Curious about Win7 min. system requirements?
Readme for older ATI graphics cards or Intel onboard graphics and Windows 7 users
Windows 7 tips
- JoelbX Windows 7 RC? Pretty good. I like it.
- Any comments?
Hello! Please reply back, promptly if possible with the results to solutions to your problem!
Curious about Win7 min. system requirements?
Readme: Older ATI, Intel onboard graphics, or NVIDIA graphics cards on Windows 7
Windows 7 tips
- JoelbX - Well, I came to the Windows7 RC late... too busy trying to ship *our* software to get down to deep testing of *other* company's products.
So, here are my opinions of Win7 (For what it's worth)
P.S. I hope if anyone reads this, they can point out if any of my issues are fixed in the RTM version.
First, who was testing....
Myself, and My farther,
Who isn't testing...
All the people in the office. they're too busy, and are happy using XP.
What was tested:
Me: Win7 x64 and 32bit on x48 chipset with core 2 duo, and Nvidia 9800GT graphics card.
Farther: Amd Athlon 3600+ with Nvidia 6800GT graphics card, and *slow* tiny hard disks.
Threw a whole bunch of 3d and 2d graphics software at it, plus some developer tools.
Level of knowledge:
Me: Software engineer with 7+ years experience. I have experience with Windows from 3.1 through to XP, Linux, and much more, but limited exposure to Vista.
Farther: Retired designer. Software novice, more into mechanical things than PCs. He has only used XP, but in the 80's he was tendering for IT products, and researched CAD and DTP systems.
==============Annoyances===========
* The shutdown screen... after pressing shutdown, and if some programs bring up dialogs, you will yet to "N programs have yet to shut down" screen.
This screen nicely displays the problematic apps, lets you see them close in real time, but yet you have only 2 options... cancel, or force shutdown.
So, to save your work you have to cancel shutdown, and start all over again. with XP it was as simple as click on the dialog... while avoiding the "this program has stopped responding"
This is the only issue my Farther has really complained about.
* Drag and drop over executables in explorer will try to open them.
I was surprised by this today.
I was trying to drag+drop to copy a file, slipped and ended up attempting to open an exe.... luckily it was an installer that prompted me for
admin rights to install.
I consider this to be a security risk.
Applications shouldn not just open like that!
For me it breaches the principle of least surprise. (My jaw literally dropped when I realised what I had done)
* Legacy drivers were a struggle to install. (32 bit only)
I know I shouldn't really expect them to be installable at all, but having to fiddle around with compatibity settings is a pain.
But I'm amazed what worked, even a sound card from the early days of XP would install after fiddling.
* Missing 64 bit drivers.
Knowing something about the architecture of x64 vs. ia32, it's not surpising that 32 bit drivers aren't supported,
but for some drivers this could be possible:
Any driver that doesn't access hardware directly (I'm thinking USB here) could be sand-boxed, and run in a safe kenel.
Overall I was impressed with the support, only 2 devices, my printer, and sound-card didn't have 64 bit drivers.
* Missing features in Nvidia drivers.
nView Horizontal and Vertical Span Modes
We may need this for work, if we cann't ship our products on XP boxes we *might* have to consider moving to Linux.
*OpenGL feels like a second class citizen.
I know this all started with Vista, and I know that opengl still works in most clases,
but it would have been nice to have some inproved support for opengl.
I develop with openGL, and so any lack of support makes me look at alternative platforms.
*ICM for my Samsung monitors seemed to be truly broken.
Thankfully, display colour calibration wizard allowed my to get an adequate calibration.
A visual media professional would be extremely concerned by this experience.
============= Pleasures =========
*The UI seems nicer than XP, or Vista.
I can't say what feels better, or worse.
It feels like a step forward from Vista, but on equal footing or maybe marginally ahead of XP. It's disappointing to see so much UI work, and yet feel it's got Microsoft back to where it was with XP.
Many of the icons are still too busy, and not bold enough (someone obiviously spent a lot of time making these indivual icons look beautiful.... but at 128x128 pixel resolution. They should have be concentrating on 64x64, 32x32, or even 16x16.
I do like the lack of colour on the standard Notification area icons... this is how Icons should be, simple functional with minimal use of colour.
The new explorer can be annoying at times, but apart from the significant issue I mentioned above, I consider it adequate, infact while I cannot place my finger on it, some features are improved.
Regarding the UI My farther seemed to take to it quite well, he liked the rotating ring that replaced the hourglass. (He always thought it naff).
One thing neither of us liked was the default colour schemes and backgrounds. Neither of us still has the default desktop background, nor do we like the startup background.
*Faster on slow machines.
It does seem faster on old, sluggish machines.
Maybe this is due to it being a fresh install, maybe it will slow down like XP does, as more and more applications get added to it.
*More sensible boot system than XP.
The boot system introduced with vista handles SATA drives much better.
The XP boot system will get tangled by Linux dual boots, or plugging the wrong sata cables in to the wrong ports.
The limited testing I did in this area on win7 shows promise
*Under the hood stuff...
Most of the interesting under the hood stuff (stuff that interest me as a Software engineer) has been around since Vista.
I just can't justify moving the products I work on to a Vista/Win 7 only platform.
*Software mostly just works.
For the software I tested, this probably has little change from Vista.
Most of the software I threw at win7 just worked.
The only software that was buggy, was just buggy in different ways.
============== Conclusion ===============
For my Farther, he'll problably be getting a copy of Windows7 some time in the new year. And he'll be pleased with it.
For myself I don't know.
I will probably get a copy of windows 7 64 bit so I can get more knowledge of software working on windows7, but for the office, I wouldn't advise for or against windows 7. In the office we will probably get some windows7 machines for testing purposes, and evaluate if our software says on windows.
In the end, for the average user, it's not that big a step.... why... because the feeling is that some things have leapt ahead, while some have gone into reverse (they went into reverse with Vista, and stayed there) - Good:
.- Quick Launch Icons are accessible through shortcut keys (e.g. <FLAG>+<T> - <First letter of Link name >)
. - Connecting to Wi-Fi networks has become more streamlined and easy.
.
Bad:
.- Still impaired keyboard support (started with Vista):
- The Split bar can not be moved by using keyboard shortcuts.
.
- The Split bar can not be moved by using keyboard shortcuts.
- While in earlier versions of Windows all personal files had been stored in sub folders of "My Documents", now all predefined personal file folders are stored directly into the user's personal folder. This makes taking backups and moving all personal files to a separate disk VERY cumbersome.
. - Windows Explorer starts having the focus set into the ListView panel (started with Vista). It's always an unnecessary <SHIFT>+<TAB> to get the focus to the TreeView. It's VERY unlikely that someone EVER will need to do anything in the default startup location!
. - The Windows Explorer TreeView doesn't scroll horizontally. Following a couple of folders in the TreeView using the keyboard cursor keys get's you lost in invisibility.
. - Too much space left between each of the Quick Launch and System Tray icons. An unnecessary waste of space.
. - It's hard to tell quickly which window is the active window if Windows Aero is turned on. The only cue is the red closing button in the right upper corner of a window, which is rather invisible for the eye's corner if a reddish background is active (having, e.g., background scheme "Landscapes" activated). The active window should be much more easy to identify without losing focus on what you're working on.
.
.
One more idea comes to my mind:
When copying a number of files, Windows copies each file one after the other if the user has selected and dragged them to the target in a single operation. But what if you want to add some more files to the copy operation? Windows then would start a second, parallel, copy - slowing down the whole process significantly!!
Why doesn't Windows just add the new files to the first copy operation window and why doesn't it then just copy the new files after the copy process of the first batch has finished? It would have done the same thing if the user would have selected them all right in the first place.
So: Please create a copy queue for the copy/move process having new files simply being added to, so that the copy process is not going to be struck down by two simultaneous copy processes interrupting each other.
Axel - Quick Launch Icons are accessible through shortcut keys (e.g. <FLAG>+<T> - <First letter of Link name >)
- To me it is crazy that you can't upgrade from XP to win7 without clean-installing, but then it is better because then you can potentially eradicate some viruses you had with that XP install!
- forum9851
:) I also don't see why there is no inplace upgrade from XP. Windows seven to me is the same as windows vista but with the addition of libraries. Libraries are a strange folder structure that get in my way. Some functions are removed and others are added but vista was closer to xp which was more usefull and not over simplified. Tests have shown vista and 7 are nearly identical performance wise and share the same kernal. Windows 7's theme is may be preferred over vista's dark and gloomy one. Dockable toolbars are removed and the ability to assign size and position to individual explorer windows is gone - bug? My video chipset was an issue and would not work with the inbox or windows update driver and I had to go to intel to get the right one and force install it diffecult, but recently I was supprised that windows update this week has revised the graphics driver it automatically installs and is now the right one.
- Note:
Please see below for previous win7 RTM comments threads:
Have Comments about Windows 7? (Part 1 - Do not post questions in this thread)
Have Comments about Windows 7? (Part 2)
Hello! Please reply back, promptly if possible with the results to solutions to your problem!
Curious about Win7 min. system requirements?
Readme: Older ATI, Intel onboard graphics, or NVIDIA graphics cards on Windows 7
Windows 7 tips
- JoelbX - Below I have documented my experiences with win7 (RC version, haven't tried the RTM yet)
I decided to document my experiences with Windows XP and Windows 7 (RC) on my 3 win7 test PCs, and see which system performs the best on each system.
Here is my experiences and how I got around to using win7 on these PCs. Experiences are in chronological order and each system has at least a triple-boot setup with Windows XP (SP2) (never have gotten around to trying XP SP3), Windows 7 RC, and Ubuntu 9.04.
1st test Windows 7 PC:
Dell Optiplex GX270 , Pentium 4 @ 3.2 GHz, 1.25 GB RAM, ATI RADEON 9800 (AGP, 128 MB memory)
Intel never made graphics drivers for the comp's chipset, 82865G, so I had to add a graphics card to get Aero running. I had to look around all the computers I have and the parts bins and find a 128 MB graphics card (as that was the min. memory I wanted) and finally found one in another computer, a Radeon 9700. I took that and put it in this test PC, but somehow the graphics card was conflicting with the modem (for dial-up) so when the comp was online, BSODs with the ati drivers would happen frequently, I had in the span of a hour of being online about 5 BSODs. Dad bought another graphics card at a swap meet since the seller said "it probably has 256 or 512 MB or ram", but it was a Radeon 9800 with 128 MB or ram. Dad wasn't too happy that he paid $16 bucks for a card with the same amount of graphics ram than the card he already has in his comp, so this card went to this test PC, and I haven't seen a BSOD since.
I liked the win7 OS, but still didn't see any reason to upgrade yet (especially since I don't have the money to go buy win7 right now).
Comparisons between XP and win7:
XP and Windows 7 run pretty much the same with this hardware, since I don't have a DirectX 10 capable card I can't test the benefits of DX 10 on this hardware, but at least win7 shuts down a lot faster than XP can!
Winning OS on this machine: Windows 7
2nd test Windows 7 PC:
HP Pavilion a1210n, AMD Athlon 64 3500+ @ 2.2 GHz, 2.5 GB RAM, NVIDIA Geforce 8500GT (PCI-E, 1 GB memory)
I enjoyed using win7 so much that I decided to put win7 on this pc (my "Primary home or business pc") and try it out. Win7 works great on this comp, I never really had any problems with it...
Comparisons between XP and win7:
I decided to buy Need for Speed: Undercover for PC, since this time around the game has a plot to it... Anyways I put it on the PC's XP install set aside specifically for games, and it ran okay, about the best I would expect out of this hardware. I then realized I had replyed to this forum thread ( Need For Speed Undercover problem ) and so decided to try the game in win7. It was rendered a lot better than XP did it, and I was finally able to turn the Smoke on, and the whole game rendered with a noticably higher (to the eye) framerate. I was stoked and that provided me the reason I needed to get off the fence and buy win7 (except for the getting enough money to buy it part).
Winning OS on this machine: Windows 7
3rd test Windows 7 PC:
Dell Optiplex GX110, Pentium 3 @ 665 MHz, 512 MB RAM, Intel 82810 graphics (onboard graphics, 32 MB memory)
I replied to a lot of forum threads quoting min. win7 system requirements from Microsoft, and people kept replying back saying that is not the absolute min., that you could run win7 with lower-specs-than-I-quoted hardware, so I started a win7 min. system requirements thread ( Windows 7 min. system requirements ) so I didn't have to reply back to each one of these replies saying "OK you can go lower than what I quotes, I was just quoting the min. specs to give you an enjoyable win7 experience". After a while of having that thread open, I decided to install win7 on a P3, to see exactly how win7 runs on there, instead of just quoting a bunch of numbers... Now I just had to get a P3 test PC ready (not too hard since I have about 25 or 30 of them to sell), I got one with a 40 GB HDD but partitioned the win7 install off to 10 GB so I could see how well win7 would run on not a lot of HDD space, then found 2 256 MB RAM sticks and put them in, and whala. The win7 install took about as long as a XP install on that machine would, but this comp suffers from the same problem my 1st win7 test PC did: Intel stopped chipset support for the 82810 as well, so there are no Vista or win7 drivers for the graphics.
Comparisons between XP and win7:
My DVD test (with my test movie as 007: The Living Daylights) on XP delivered a enjoyable DVD experience rivaling set-top DVD players. By contrast, win7 provides a horrible DVD experience on this machine, with the video displaying only a few frames per second (FPS) (normal framerate is 29.97 FPS for NTSC), yet the audio keeps playing on, making the audio usually at least 10 seconds ahead of the video. The framerate seemed to get a little worse when I installed the XP graphics driver and played it on 800x600 and not 640x480 screen resolution. However, other tasks like web browsing are great with win7 on this machine, just don't expect any multimedia features to run well...
Winning OS on this machine: Windows XP
That is my experience with testing out Windows 7 (at least RC)...
Hello! Please reply back, promptly if possible with the results to solutions to your problem!
Curious about Win7 min. system requirements?
Readme: Older ATI, Intel onboard graphics, or NVIDIA graphics cards on Windows 7
Windows 7 tips
- JoelbX - I'm currently testing it on all the systems at home; 4 Desktops and 2 laptops and am quite impressed with it.
Laptops are Compaq with AMD chips and ATI M300 graphics. Also both predate Vista but do have 1GB of memory. Recognized everything except Audio from the beginning so quite pleased with things.
The desktops break down this way:
AMD AM2 w/Sempron64 (1.6GHz) on a 5400 RPM 30GB DMA33 drive that's about 6 years old. It's a bit slow loading due to disk speed but once up and running, performs quite well as there is a full Gigabyte of memory.
Next is an older 2.4GHz P4 w/o hyper-threading . Only problem we saw was the onboard audio. SIS chipset and non of the drivers after Win2K work worth a damn. So the problem isn't Windows. Just crappy driver support.
Next is an Emachine that came with Vista Home Premium . It runs fine. Only problem is handicapped owner needs dedicated sound card (onboard isn't loud enough).
Final System is custom Built Intel Core2Duo (e6300 1.6GHz) with an Nvidia 7300GT for graphics. System currently has 3GB but has had 8GB (max supported) and is running the 32bit version since 64bits seemed to be to unstable (online flash games crashed system to often).
