Windows 7 – After the Release

Posted on 10. Feb, 2010 by Toad in Technology, Windows

So it now been a little over a year since the beta release of Windows 7.  I have tried to spend a lot of time getting to know windows 7 as well as trying to find its faults.  I want to spend a little time covering my adventures over the past year and maybe give a little insight into what you can expect out of Windows 7 if you have yet to use it.

The Woes of a Beta Tester

If you have ever done any beta testing you will know that it’s not always a great process unless the beta is VERY mature.  I can remember seeing some very early beta releases of longhorn before the release of Windows Vista and it was definitely not a pleasant experience.  The first beta releas of Windows 7, build 7000, was an altogether different story. When I first installed build 7000 I installed it on a new desktop.  My intention was to play with it for a few days and then wipe it before setting it up for day to day use.  I was so impressed with it I actually began using it as my primary machine.  While it did a fantastic job of installing most of my devices during the initial install, there were a few left that I had to address.  This of course was an issue.  At the time there were NO windows 7 drivers available.  After a lot of searching I was finally able to find all of the necessary drivers, or at least something that would work, to get my system up and fully functioning.

So I was running a beta operating system as my primary work machine.  Beyond my driver trouble I ran into some minor software compatibility issue but really nothing of any major consequence. I continued to run build 7000 for the next few months until just prior to the expiration when I upgraded to build 7100 otherwise known as Windows 7 Release Candidate 1.

A lot of people speculated that release candidate 1 was the same version that would ultimately ship as the retail version of Windows 7.  Yes, it was that good.  As a matter of fact I am still to date running RC1 on the desktop machine at my office.  I will be forced to make the final upgrade  before March of this year however as the release candidate will begin its expiration process.  In the end, my use of the beta and the release candidate of windows 7 was amazing.  Not only was it a great opportunity to get a good look at windows 7 before the official release but it was a great chance to help make better a product I have come to really enjoy.

The Pre-order

I have never been a person to get so excited about anything that I would pre-order it.  Windows 7 is the first item that I have ever pre-ordered.  At the time Microsoft was offering a $30 upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium to college students.  I quickly jumped on the offer and ordered it the same day I found out about it.  Not only was this the first item I had ever pre-ordered it was also the first version of any operating system I had ever purchased.    This should give you some idea about the impact the beta versions had on my decision to purchase.  Whether or not Microsoft intended to have this effect on their beta testers or not, it definitely worked on me.  I was sold.

Release Day and Beyond

On release day I couldn’t wait to download my copy.  I know, what a geek huh.  I got to work that morning to find the email with the download link waiting for me in my inbox.  The download, thought large, actually went rather quickly.  After the download was completed I quickly realized the problem with my purchase.  I was expecting an .iso file but instead found myself with a folder containing the install binaries.  Not a big deal, but was it definitely not the most convenient way to release the software.  I took it home that night to do my first install.

The machine I decided to make my guinea pig was my office machine.  While I have a personal laptop and and work laptop, I prefer to use a desktop in my office because it best support my 3 monitor configuration.  It is ia 2.8ghz Pentium 4 machine with 3Gb of RAM and a 10000K SATA hard drive.  It’s probably 5 years old and it’s definitely no powerhouse but for basic wordprocessing and web surfing and other basic tasks it more than fits the bill.  I had copied the files to a thumb drive to bring them home ,but, I forgot it at work.  I downloaded the files again, unpacked them, and started my install.

Since i purchased the upgrade, Microsoft tries to make it as difficult as possible to do a clean install.  I had already backed up my machine so I went ahead and tried the upgrade and figured I would try the clean install later.  It took a while but the install was rather painless.  It’s was after the install that the painful part began.  Windows had managed to find a working driver for every piece of hardware it found.  That was great, the only problem was that in a couple of cases it was the wrong driver and in one particular case, my second video card, I was never able to locate a working driver that would properly support 2 monitors.  After working on it for a few hours I finally gave up.  That machine not been turned on since.  I did however have a much better experience after I decided to use my upgrade on my wife’s XPS.  Like the install on my office PC it found all of the hardware.  I did have to upgrade the video driver to get Aero working but in general it was extremely easy.  I have since done an install on my Dell Mini 10v with a similar experience, it found all of the hardware but one item.

As far as performance is concerned I will have to say that it runs great on my wife’s XPS as well as my Mini 10.  I have heard tales form Microsoft Reps that they have seen it successfully running on hardware as far back as a 1st generation pentium processor.  Not quickly mind you, but it does run.

As far as the look and feel of Windows 7, i would venture to say it is very similar to Vista but more polished.  With the addition of the new task bar and refinement of the many of the Aero features I was more than pleased with the end result.  It was pretty, functional, and still fast.  My only complaint would be speed of access for specific items.  As a Network Engineer I opten am changing IP addresses and other network settings.  What used to be a single click to get into the network properties is not three deep int the network control panel.  While it makes things perhaps a little more polished and harder for the inexperienced to mess things up it is definitely an inconvenience.  I do understand that I am not what microsoft would call a typical user.  With that in mind I do understand the reason many of these items are placed where they are within the operating system.

Conclusion

Now, looking back on everything since the beginning of all of this I can only come to one conclusion.  Microsoft has done a fantastic job with Windows 7.  While anxious to ty it out, I was very skeptical about Windows 7 in the beginning.  I was one of those people that HATED windows vista so bad that I took every machine I had and rolled it back to XP.  To go from that to Windows 7 is a long way but they did it and they did it the right way.  By opening up the operating system with beta releases they welcomed the criticisms of the public and in the end came through with a much higher quality product than they would have otherwise. I will end by saying this, If you have yet to try Windows 7 make it a point to do so,  I promise you will not be disappointed.

Tags: Windows 7