Today I installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate. OMG!
It looks good. It installed easily. It seems to be quicker than Vista on startup. That’s my first, fleeting impression.
As is tradition with any Windows OS update, Microsoft moved almost everything and changed its look, which I expected. The Control Panel is terribly confusing; it took me too long to find the Digital Camera/Scanners icon. I do not like the Category View!
I cannot get my old HP printer to work. It works on Vista, but apparently the drivers aren’t working in Windows 7. Ditto for my Logitech Quick Cam.
I’m not sure if I like the new taskbar, though I might get used to it. I mean, I’ve only played with it for a few hours.
The changing wallpaper images is pretty cool, something that I know people have wanted in the past. Animated wallpaper could be more annoying, but I’ll test that later.
I opened Paint. Wow! What a surprise. For the first time since possibly Windows 386, they changed the interface. It’s more along the lines of the Ribbon from Office 2007. So it’s basically the same program, but it looks radically different:
I’m not sure whether I like the Libraries approach to organizing files. Files and folders are difficult enough for people to understand without having to add the extra level of Libraries. Don’t know who was clamoring for this feature. I’ll have to use it a while to first understand it and then explain it to the universe.
Libraries also tie into the network sharing concept of the Homegroup. I’ll have to learn about that one as well.
All this random nomenclature reminds me of why I love Unix: Go back 15 years and it’s pretty consistent.
Despite the Libraries and Homegroup, I was able to access files on the Windows 7 PC from the network, even from a Macintosh.
Weird: The Pictures folder is called My Pictures in the window, but its real name on the disk is Pictures. Why be confusing? Why have two names for one thing? That’s going to cause some folks to be annoyed. Again, it’s the consistency issue I have with computers, and Microsoft especially.
Bottom line: Well, I wouldn’t recommend installing it for the casual person. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it as your primary OS right now, and even Microsoft agrees with me.
The Windows 7 RC is for the bold and brave at heart. For now.
Homegroups. Phhht. They took away Workgroups in 7 and now my 95, 98 and Win2k computers can’t access my 7 box because there are no workgroups. I know that stuff has GOT to change, but can’t we at least see old stuff made new?
Anyway, Windows 7 is… interesting. It’s fast for a Pentium 4 with 768MB of RAM. IT would be neat to get Aero working, but on an old 64MB video card, it’s not happening.
As for my thoughts… It’s Vista on steroids. I prefer Windows XP, System 7.5.5, Linux, or even MS-DOS to 7. Right now anyway.
Comment by linuxlove — May 6, 2009 @ 9:42 am
Oh yeah, something else I forgot to put in my comment — The new Microsoft Paint program looks a whole lot like Windows 1.01 paint…
Comment by linuxlove — May 6, 2009 @ 9:44 am
Well… it’s an improvement on Vista, and an improvement on the beta.
I think I’ll stick with Ubuntu and OS X, though, with XP as an occasional fallback.
Comment by Jonathan Rothwell — May 6, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
I’ll have to check out the “XP box” next time I boot into 7. I continue to use my Vista computer as my “test PC” until I can get some of my key pieces of software to run.
Another broken item is the Java JRE, which won’t install properly. Oh! I love betas!
Comment by admin — May 6, 2009 @ 9:51 pm
admin said: Another broken item is the Java JRE, which won’t install properly. Oh! I love betas!
And if it’s security you want with SuperAntiSpyware, you’re out of luck as trying to run the installed program will casue 7 to STOP.
Comment by linuxlove — May 7, 2009 @ 8:02 am