Hardware Geeks

Today Microsoft released a Release Candidate (RC) of Windows 7 build 7100 on MSDN and TechNet so that developers can get their hands on it and test it out, next week it should be available to the General public, so that everyone can try it out.

I personally have been using the RC for about a week now and while I think the OS is stable enough for everyday use and have it on several Machines, after speaking with Microsoft I get the feeling they are rushing it out the door instead of making sure it’s 100% ready for the public. But then again although Microsoft has said this will probably be the only Release Candidate, there may be another.

But even though it seemed as they were rushing it, I personally haven’t had any serious issues with Windows 7 RC, aside for the fact that some drivers that worked in the previous 7000 build do not work in the new 7100 build, for example my ATI graphics card is acting funny with 7100 and it worked perfectly on 7000, and a finger print reader that worked fine on the previous build isn’t even detected in the release candidate. But I am sure as drivers are updated and released those minor problems will be resolved.

For those of you who are considering upgrading or installing Windows 7 on your systems go right ahead, I can tell you right now it took less than 25 minutes to perform a fresh install Windows 7 Ultimate on all of my systems. What surprised me the most after installing Windows 7 was the majority of my hardware devices worked without having to download separate drivers, and when something didn’t work right there was a driver available on Windows Update ready for me.

I did upgrade 2 systems to Windows 7 from Windows Vista, and both systems I had to uninstall a program “NIS 2009” because of compatibility issues Windows 7 informed me of the compatibility issues before hand so I had no problems what so ever during the upgrade.

Everything worked, and if felt like a fresh install. Normally I tell people just backup and do a fresh install but Upgrading was just as good, however it did take 45 minutes to upgrade. Windows Warned me it may take up to seven hours.

After you install Windows 7, one of the first things you will probably do is connect it to your network if you have one, and if you do it is easier than ever to share your files over your network with Windows 7 HomeGroup.

You tell HomeGroup what you want to share on that machine and once you do that, it will give you a password to share with your other Win 7 Machines.

When you are adding new Win 7 machines to your network, it will basically ask you for that password, you again tell HomeGroup what folders and devices you want to share and enter the password.

Since it’s only been 2 and a half years since Vista was released, a lot of people are just getting use to the look and feel of Vista, and with Windows 7 coming around the corner there are a lot of changes that one will have to get use too.

One of the first differences you may notice is the Task Bar. Pictured below is the Task Bar from Windows Vista (above) and Windows 7 (below).

As you probably noticed the Windows 7 task bar is bigger than the Vista task bar.  I showed the new task bar to my mother, sister, girl friend and three friends, and ask them to if they liked the new Taskbar. Two Said Yes, one said not really but they could probably get use to it, the other 3 said they didn’t like it, that they would prefer a smaller taskbar. I like the new taskbar but on small screens I think it takes up too much real-estate, and a smaller one would be great.

But don’t worry if you don’t like the new taskbar you can make it smaller. Just right click on the taskbar and select “Use Small Icons”

When I showed the smaller version of the taskbar they were more receptive of it, although one of them said they still did not like it.
Sticking with the Taskbar, something else you will notice is by default there are no labels to what is open in the taskbar. With the bigger taskbar this isn’t an issue, however it does become an issue if you are using the smaller taskbar.

For example, my mother doesn’t like the bigger taskbar, however just having the ICONS on the smaller taskbar are difficult on her eyes, even with the big taskbar she has some issues recognizing what some of the icons are. So she prefers to have labels.

She also likes her programs to combine if she has the same program running more than once.  However some genius at Microsoft felt that if she wanted labels she can no longer combine her programs. Microsoft gave no middle ground it’s either one or the other.

However she found herself a work around. Never close her programs leave them all open. There is an option to combine programs with labels only when the taskbar is full. So on my moms Windows 7 machine she has literally over 20 programs open just so she can have it the way she likes it. Which isn’t a good idea.

Sure she can hover the icon and with aero peek she can see what it is, but she wants labels. Overall this won’t bother most of us, and I personally prefer the icons with no labels.

But brings us to another feature. When you have a lot of programs open and it may be hidden behind another application or two, when you hover over the icon for that program in your taskbar, a little window appears with the program in it, if you place your mouse over that window, all the other programs on your desktop become invisible and you can see where the program you are hovering is at. Just check the screen shot below to see what I mean.

This feature is perfect if you are at work watching a DVD or something, hide media player behind all your other programs and hover the media player icon and watch your movie the boss comes walking by just move your mouse over and wala media player is hidden. 

Back to the taskbar Another thing you may notice is, when you hover the start button in Windows 7 it flares and the colors of the Windows flag jumps out at you. In Vista it just glowed. Pictured below is the Windows 7 Start button when a mouse is hovering over it.

The Start menu in Windows 7 compared to Windows Vista is slightly different, but it’s pretty much the same.

The way your Documents, Music, Picture and Video folders are set up are also similar to Vista, however Explorer in Windows 7 looks a little bit different but you feel like you know where you are at with Windows 7, a lot of people felt lost in Windows Vista when navigating so I think the file structure and the way the UI in explorer is a vast improvement over Vista.

The Games Folders in Windows 7 has changed a bit also, it still does the same things that the Games folder in Windows 7 does, and it also gives you access to the Parental Controls. But now there is an area for Game Providers, which links you to online gaming services such as Microsoft’s Zone.com.

However when you visit Zone.com to play one of the 100 plus free games Microsoft offers there, the majority do not work with Windows 7. I know it’s too early to complain about that because the OS just went RC today but when Windows Vista was released it took nearly 2 to 3 months for all the games on Zone.com to work properly with Vista. I hope that isn’t the case this time with Windows 7.

Parental controls in Windows 7 work the same way they did in Vista, allowing you to control what times, what days, what games your kids can play.

One of my favorite improvements to Windows 7 is MS Paint and WordPad. But have been upgraded an upgrade that is well over do.

Microsoft added the Ribbon menu to both which you probably will recognize form Office 2007 if you are an Office 2007 user. MS Paint while still a basic image creation program just improved by a factor of 10 in my opinion because of the ribbon, and WordPad is officially MS Word Lite in my book and it supports more formats now such as the OpenDocument format and OfficeOpen XML. It would of been even better if MS added full DOC and DOCX support but whatever, a little disappointed about that.

Microsoft also worked hard on improving Media Center in Windows 7, however I haven’t had much of a chance to play with it as my cable provider SUCKS, but the little I have played with it I can say it’s fantastic. Its similar to what is in Vista but it has its improvements. It seems to run faster than the version in Vista also.

Speaking of running Faster, Windows 7 by far boots a lot faster in my opinion than Vista did, it’s also faster to work on than Vista was.

UAC for example isn’t as annoying and bothersome as it was in Vista.

But back to what Windows 7 has, it still has Desktop Gadgets however the sidebar has vanished. I personally always loved the Gadgets in Vista but never used the Sidebar nor did a lot of other people and so it’s gone.

Something else that is gone is there is no Email program in Windows 7 nor is there a Calendar. You will either have to download Windows live Essentials and or buy Office 2007 or another email client and calendar. There are many available for free such as Thunderbird.

Windows 7 will also have a tool available called XP Mode, this tool will require you own a license of Windows XP but will allow you to run Windows XP over your Win 7 machine virtually. This is perfect for businesses who want to upgrade but use old software that may not work correctly with Windows 7.

WIndows XP mode will also allow you to access USB devices in XP such as that old scanner that may not work on Windows 7.

Overall I think Windows 7 is Rock Solid and Stable and you should give it a try, it’s worth it.

Post Tags: software  review  microsoft  windows 7  xp mode 

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