Just figured I’d drop in and state that I’m really starting to get used to Windows 7 on my laptop. Now I never bought Vista. Never even used it. That being the case, I can’t really attest to how good or bad it was. All I know is that I really like Windows 7. Everything is organized in a manner that is logical and easy to navigate. Oh, and having the search capability from the start menu? Genius!
Vista has the search field on the start menu as well, and I have to admit that I never used it until recently. Because the “All Programs” list is now confined to the start menu itself, once I loaded enough software it became unnavigable. Then I started to use the search…and man, it’s way faster than dicking around with some folder hierarchy on the start menu. Now I swear by it.
I haven’t really messed with my copy of Win7 RC other than to install it and poke around for a bit, but the install was completely painless, even though I was dropping it on a tertiary hard disk so it could dual-boot with Vista. I love the ability to rearrange items on the taskbar — I’ve been wishing for that for years. I am a bit peeved that UltraMon doesn’t seem to work on it (yet).
Decided to go with the 64-bit version. So far, no issues. I keep bumping up against the RAM limit on my current box and the only way out is through, as they say (to 64-bit…and a couple more gigs!).
Oh, and perhaps my favorite part? User Account Control no longer barks a warning every time you do some piddly trifling thing like rename a file in the All Programs menu or anything equally mundane. You can also disable the damnable screen dimming when UAC fires (which sometimes took forever to complete on my tri-monitor system). All of this makes UAC actually bearable for a change.
When the full release is finally here, it’ll be a no-brainer to upgrade from Vista.
The install was completely painless. You don’t have to sit there and baby it. I also like the fact that when it finds updates and you have them applied, it’ll take care of rebooting however many times are necessary.
Now the question begs: Which version? The more I’ve been reading, the only real benefit to Professional over Home is XP mode.
The lines of demarcation are indeed blurred with the Windows 7 editions. Professional includes some things I might use for work, including Remote Desktop session hosting and the encrypting file system. Even if I don’t touch those, I’m sure I’ll get use out of XP Mode.
If I didn’t need that stuff, though, it seems that Home Premium would more than suffice. It even has Media Center!
Yeah, my only concern is the XP Mode… though I don’t know that I’d ever use it. For encryption… TrueCrypt. I only ever remote into other machines. I’m torn.
I admit, I don’t use the encrypting file system much at all anymore since TrueCrypt. That software simply rocks.
I used to host Remote Desktop sessions when I worked from my boss’s place, but he doesn’t have a place here anymore, sooo…really it comes down to XP Mode for me too.