Windows 7 - Feedback

[#1]

I know there are a couple of Win7 threads already, but I thought I would start this one since the others seem to be on a slightly different tangent.
I'm looking for feedback from the brave souls out there that, like me, are playing with this new offering from M$.  I have only just installed it, and at a glance it's clear this apple didn't fall too far from the Vista tree that preceded it.  Fair enough, since Vista is nice to look at after all.  The lightening of the desktop has also been fairly well done. Multiple instances of the same app stack up in the tool bar like a run of cards in solatair, and the removal of the side bar is - lets face it - not exactly a bad thing.  Performance wise I have noticed it's more than just a couple of gears up from Vista when compaired at the same stage of development.  I remember Vista Beta speeds and they were not exactly impressive...at all.  All this initial observation just digs in and builds a big wall arround my opinion that Vista was simply another MilleniumEdition.  And let's face it, I am far from alone in thinking that Vista was simply a stop-gap money erner for the comming "real OS". 
As I said, I havn't had much time with it yet, So I'll post more as I find it.  One of my main curiosities has been left untouched though, as it seems that Win7 doesnt like the virtual NIC in my instalation of VMware Workstation. I have as such not been able to fiddle with the networking side of things much to my dissapointment.  Interesting though (or maybe not), I did notice that a DXDIAG tells me that Win7 Beta is running a strait up DirectX 11 (not 10.x variant).
I'll keep updating, and will put together a more consise post in the next day or two once I have had a chance to get it installed at home as well and had time to see how uptime affects memory and page file performance.
Look forward to seeing what you other guys and gals have to say on your experiances.
Regards
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Muppet

[#2]

So far, with a "real" install (not virtual) I'm finding many things work properly that didn't with Vista, even after SP1.
And it's faster.
I'm running it on hardware that I also use for XP and Vista, about 5 years old (AMD Socket A @2.2GHz, 1.5GB of DDR400 and SATA)
The only thing that is "worse" is the onboard AC'97 audio - a few quirks and broken functions. Driver issues I guess.

[#3]

Not my feedback but interesting reading http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/392/1050392/windows-7-is-enough-to-kill-linux-on-the-desk...

[#4]

I love it, so much so its being moved from my IDE to my SATA drive.  Everything it does it does well in an unquantifiable way, it just feels better, perkier, more responsive.
The little changes all add up to make a big difference, it is the best OS I've used, and is more stable in Beta than Vista/XP were before SP1 (or SP2 in XP's case), the new Library function is fantastic, everything "just works".  Apple is going to be in major trouble, 7 is a *lot* prettier than OSX and with a greater range of hardware/software.  Linux will be in less trouble, 7 looks prettier than KDE4, but Linux owners tend to prefer the FOSS philosiphouyouyy long word, and server editions will lack Aero and so Linux won't be under threat there.  People who went to Linux rather than use Vista though may be tempted to come back.
All in all, its been a great OS to use, its going on my laptop too.  People who hated Vista for the UI though won't change from XP, and its their loss, they will be 2 generations of DirectX behind

[#5]

Well I have made a hard install on my home PC and hit not a snag at all.  it found allmost all my devices on it's own.  It seems that there is a lack of support for legacy NIC's since it couldn't install drivers for my age old Netgear 10/100 PCI card.  Everything is going along well, and testing is in full swing, even dug out Crysis to see how the DX11 worked out.  I have noticed a fair few niggles, and a few gems as well, but on the whole it's looking very promising.  I'm going to do another hard install on a test machiine at work for further networking support tests when I get the chance.  Will keep you all posted.

[#6]

The only issues I've had is with Creative drivers for my X-Fi, and to be fair Creative have always sucked as far as driver support goes. There's also a bit of initial choppiness when playing GTA IV, plus the occasional stutter - not sure why though I'm going to blame the creative drivers again. My experience has been much the same as the others here - pretty much entirely positive.
Except for MSN no longer sitting in the system tray - that's just annoying. It works though.

[#7]

How did you get MSN to work?  Mine didn't work out of the box so I had to turn off network tuning to enable connection, but I prefer network tuning to be turned on.

[#8]

On the windows 7 download page there was a link saying something like 'If you are using Windows 7, you'll want to get Windows Live Essentials.'
The link leads here: http://download.live.com/
You should be able to install it from there.

[#9]

I'm going for an install later tonight so will report back with my findings after a day or two...

[#10]

I downloaded MSN from the essentials and it just refused to work with tuning turned on, I had exactly the same problem when Vista came out, or did I say that already, anyhow its been fixed with the cmd prompt but I would have prefered it to "just work", that and the new task bar are really my only gripes with 7 so far.
/edit - trying to install on my laptop, at the start it bugged out with a 0xc00000e9 error, its gone past it now but so far thats the only big error, doesn't bode well for my laptop when 7 goes RTM.  Its currently installing, fingers crossed

[#11]

I'm currently trying it in Virtual PC and so far I've had a few BSODs.  These seem to be related to the choice of AntiVirus (Avira and then Avast, neither recommended by Microsoft).  I since moved to AVG and it seems stable so far...
Richard

[#12]

I must admit I had a couple of random reboots due to AVG - one was when scanning with avg the first time, and the other was either during or straight after the first windows defender run. It hasn't happened since though. I'm not sure if it was a BSOD as I was accessing it via remote desktop at the time but I suspect it was.

[#13]

Got it on my laptop alright, its just getting drivers to install that is a nightmare.  My laptop VGA card (S3) isn't supported and they do an OS check before hand and refuse to go any further, used my Vista wireless drivers though and they work fine, and ironically were updated when I connected to the internet.
My laptop is quite underpowered though, only 1GB of RAM but Win7 is still so fast and perky, its amazing really.  Now to sort out that VGA

[#14]

What does the OS check? the setup.exe? If it is then how do you get on using the device manager to update the driver manualy?

[#15]

OK, installed fine and running smoothly. I can't see my second hard drive but I suspect that's because I haven't plugged the SATA cable back in properly (I swapped them around before install). Only problem now is the fact that I can't get my wireless adapter installed! Should have pre-empted that one really, I'm using a Voyager 1055 USB adapter, has anyone managed to find a USB adapter that will install as I'm going to need to get one as my desktop's miles away from the router. Either that or I'm going to have to think about some Powerline adapters or a PCI card. Grrrrrr