Windows 7 reviewed

Okay, here it is – The full review of Windows 7: Home Premium, 64bit edition brought to you by yours truly :)
It has been nearly two weeks since I first installed it, and so far its been good.
p.s. if you don’t like computers or couldn’t care less for new operating systems, please bear with me on this one. Thanks.

First reaction: I love it.
To be honest here, I guess this is starting out almost the same way as the Bush vs. Obama analogy: Windows 7 is amazing, simply because it is not Vista. It does right a lot of things that Vista messed up.
For instance, the power button doesn't directly put your computer to sleep (which was a major annoyance – how many people actually use “Sleep mode”?!); now you can choose which action you want to do...and the default is "Shutdown" which is quite the way it should be.

Actually customizability is the key here:
Almost every aspect of Vista that drove everyone up the wall can be customized to make it more bearable and even useful.
Like taskbar notifications, Windows defender (yes, its still here), UAC, instant one-click wallpaper changes (‘themes’ is a whole new feature in Windows7), Aero Peek options…it goes on!
But to make this more organized, here’s a list of stuff that makes this a winner:

  1. The taskbar is revamped, quite nice and takes a while getting used to, but I appreciate the fact that you can now "pin" programs to it just like you would on a dock. And the best thing is, a right-click gives you contextual options.
    Like for instance right-clicking Chrome shows new window, new incognito window and even some of your recently visited pages, while a right click on say, a media player shows recently played and so on.

  2. I'm happy it DOES NOT come with Windows Mail, Windows Calendar or Windows Gallery. Actually in Vista I was quite confused why they were there because the EXACT same thing is also available on WindowsLive! (as Live Calendar, Live Mail and Live Gallery.
    So now you don't have twice as many preinstalled software...only one set of them and I have to admit that Live Writer is pretty good.

  3. When installing say a program or something, the installation progress actually shows on the taskbar icon when minimized. Nifty!

  4. ‘Libraries’ is a cool new feature that allows you to collate different folders from all over your computer onto a single location to easily look through it.
    Like say you have your downloads from each of your browsers in different locations. You can now add all these locations to your ‘Downloads Library’ so that you can find all your downloads in one place – even as the folder content changes.

  5. Windows Media Player 12 does not automatically steal file extensions from your existing (already default) video players. Instead, it asks you politely if you do want it to take them. And of course, you only have yourself to blame if you click on 'yes'.

  6. Those gadgets are now on their own on the desktop, without that horrible sidebar. Unfortunately the changes here are only skin deep and it still runs as a single process called (what else?) "sidebar.exe".

  7. The drag-to-resize-windows is a simple yet ingenious new feature in Windows7:
    Drag to the top of the screen to maximize, or drag to either side to snap to it taking up exactly half the screen on any side (previously the only way to do this was to select "Show windows side by side" from the taskbar context menu.
    The best part is that when you drag it away, it automatically shrinks back to the original size when you drag it away. And because most people these days use widescreens, it really makes comparing two windows a ton easier.
    A tip of the hat to whoever at Microsoft though of this!

And I’m sure there’s a lot more to come – just as I am sure there’s gonna be bugs as well, but for now things look good.
Oh and btw, in case you are looking to buy, here’s a link:

14 comments:

A New Beginning said...

Thanks for informative post, a user is the best judge for sure.

Dhanya said...

The post I was waiting for! Nice review. Very detailed. Will have to get it soon! Waiting to check it out myself...

Rayees Ahamed said...

Interesting !

Well, how about the speed.. swift ?

PS: I am not getting your RSS blog updates in my page, dont know whats wrong with the settings.

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Sana
Yeah, and by the looks of it, W7 users are not complaining at all

@Dhanya
Thx
:D
Btw, if you already have xp (original :P) you can get an 'upgrade' edition that's loads cheaper than a full version...although it is exactly the same.

@Rayees
Well not really.
The default installation sets up your startup with every program you own...so it was actually slower than Vista in the beginning.
You then need to clear out all the junk software from the startup.
I feel its about the same speed as vista...no differences here.

And no clue what's wrong with my RSS...let me see wat's messing up.

Joseph Pulikotil said...

Hi Greetings:)

Very interesting and informative post. I understand Vista has been having problems since introduction and many people preferred XP professional. I suppose windows 7 will be ideal.

Have a nice day:)
Joseph

Darshan Chande said...

Wow! Thanks for this. I was waiting for the review.

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Joseph

Welcome to The Square Circle, and thanks for dropping by, Mr. Joseph.
You're right that Vista was a pain, as an ex-Vista user myself, I've experienced first-hand the problems it has.
Win7 is much better!


@Darshan
No problem...glad you found it useful
:D

Intern said...

for some reason, im not so impressed by win7, my thought may change, however :P

anyways thanx for the review :D
quite informative, and about the speed.. how is it?

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Shimmer
say what?
hmm, I hope your opinion changes soon.

And speed is not so much different from Vista; but then even Vista was fast enough on my laptop...I'm guessing it performs better on older computers though: I know a guy at work who's using this on a 3-yr-old thinkpad.
I doubt if you can ever run Vista on that!

Intern said...

dont know abt your vista speed,
my friend had it on her lappy, and it was pretty bad. like usin internet explorer on a low bandwidth connection :P
with regular 'not responding' notifs :P

for now, im happy with my XP and its vista look alike features :D

lets see what the future has in store :)

Insignia said...

Is this better than Vista?
I got Vista pre installed with Sony Vaio - 2 GB Core 2 Duo when I bought it early last year.

The performance was pathetic. I had to upgrade the RAM. I am not satisfied yet

haze said...

actually dude ... there are quite a bit of a thing more than just the view and all to windows 7 ....
incase u dint notice ... ur laptop wud be atleast 50 % more faster than before coz it couples up a lotta fuctions ....

another couple of things u mite like to say about windows 7 .... since it uses lesser processor functions , its more faster ....

next ..... u can and still use all the old programs which used to work on ur xp and not on vista ... heance optimizing the speed and saving resources ...

there are quite a bit of stuff hidden in the damn thing which i m still finding out .... but i must say ...using the xp compatibility thing ... it rocks ! =D

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Shimmer
xp is soooo old :P

Think your pc needs a makeover :)
Lemme know when you upgrade...


@Insignia
Firstly, welcome to The Square Circle, and secondly, sorry for the delay.
Hmm, "better" is a relative term depending on how you look at it.
But in all possibilities, this is a ton lighter than Vista.
The best part i like about it is that it doesn't drive you crazy like Vista did.
And it also runs on little netbooks.

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Hazoom.

you're right there...there's stuff hidden in w7 we're still figuring out.
Hopefully none of them nasty surprizes.