Is Windows 7 beta better than Vista?

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Geoff Spick05 March 2009, 1:00 PM

Some reader comments on our Windows 7 articles suggest that the OS is not as big a boost as Microsoft would have us believe. We took to Twitter to see what other people think.


Computing used to be a highly personal experience, each user suffering their own problems in silence, bar the odd phone call or letter to technical support. Now any issue can be all over the Web in a matter of minutes and resolved just as quickly by the hive-mind of online users.

In a similar manner, opinions that used to be privately held can now be broadcast across endless websites, forums and other outlets. Top of these, in hype terms, is Twitter, which has a very active stream of comments about Windows 7, making it a very useful barometer of progress and feedback. You can view these yourself by visiting Twitter Search and entering "Windows 7" in the text bar.

Studying the flow of messages, it seems there is more real world belief that Windows 7 is an improvement over Vista and more people are willing to start using the beta version rather than cling on to Vista until the official launch.

Tweets for:

"I have windows 7 on my laptop and it's awesome. Way better than vista, even with a few (not many) hangs." - JulianDominquez

"Holy crap Windows 7 just installed a new video driver without rebooting.. I'm impressed more and more each day." - Nurd6

"From what I can tell, Windows 7 is the most boring operating system in existence. Though it boots like a whole 8 seconds faster than Vista." – Jiahadye

"I liked Windows 7, shows newer approach in developing a core OS that is free from the pointless frills & likes of XP and Vista." – irealgeek

"Windows 7 gives users the option to turn off the Internet Explorer browser, how sweet is that." - Miss_Info

"dear microsoft: I hate vista SO MUCH I've installed Windows 7 beta 7000 on my new Dell XPS Studio 13.." - corcoran

"Windows 7 blows server 2008 away for everyday use" - caseycharlton

"I'm not a MS fan, but I have Windows 7 in a VM and it's really nice - it might be too little too late though. The damage from Vista is done." - jackhamm

Tweets against:

"Well I have gone back to Vista, Windows 7 degrades quickly over time, like all windows products. Eyeing of the new IMACS hmmm!!!" Technoandy

"5 bsod on windows 7 within 1 hour ... Does not look good" - gusdlr

"Just put Windows 7 on my eee pc. Sucks just as bad there as it did on my desktop. Sorry, not a fan. Putting the linux SSD back in now." - 101u4bw

"unfortunately the tabs look terrible (and unusable) under Vista/ Windows 7 Aero UI widget set. Seems XP is best of windows bunch." - brendanb

"Trying to install Windows 7 on my work laptop. Hoping this isn't going to be a terrible mistake. 3 hours and counting." - yuzow

So, from this small sample, it seems that the positive opinion for Windows 7 is not just Microsoft's marketing machine at work, not bad for a beta of an unfinished product. What do you think?


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Me In Oz (Cornerstone member):

I shouldn't think so, what with the limited driver support.
Although it feels slicker even under VMWare. But anyone that says that there is not much difference should read SLi excellent post on the ...
"Hands-on with Windows 7: the desktop" thread here at APC.


05 March 2009, 1:28 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Your Average Joe (Regular user):

" ... not bad for a beta of an unfinished product..." - APC

Not bad at all !

But can you hear all the naysayers yet ? With rants like ....
"Win 7, the OS Vista should have been !"

BTW: Good post SLi :)

05 March 2009, 1:34 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Negatives:
Network and file I/O is just as slow as Vista.
Taskbar is screwed up (some sort of wannbe Apple thing?)
The bloody "ribbon" is sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong (I think even notepad is burdened with it).
Quicklaunch toolbar removed

Positives:
It reinstalls in much less time
It only takes 2GB instead of 10
Starts up (including logon) way faster than XP or Vista under similar config

05 March 2009, 1:38 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

techdribble (User):

The quicklaunch is still there MS just did their best to bury it. I currently have it set up to behave like its does on my Vista and XP machines with ie with the ql bar stacked on top of the taskbar. Ribbon is very much a personal thing I hated it to start with in office 2007 but now find it hard to go back.

05 March 2009, 2:03 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Your Average Joe (Regular user):

Quoting techdribble:
Ribbon is very much a personal thing I hated it to start with in office 2007 but now find it hard to go back.

Sinofsky's hand is all over this OS. Which is a good thing !
I personally have liked the ribbon since day one on Office 2007.




05 March 2009, 2:06 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Quoting techdribble:
The quicklaunch is still there MS just did their best to bury it. I currently have it set up to behave like its does on my Vista and XP machines with ie with the ql bar stacked on top of the taskbar.


How did you get the quicklaunch back? Where's it hidden?

05 March 2009, 3:20 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

techdribble (User):

This is the link I used to get it back and working
http://windows7center.com/windows-7-tips/how-to-enable-the-quick-launch-bar-in-windows-7/
I then unpinned everything from the taskbar and used the quicklaunch bar as I did before.


05 March 2009, 4:05 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

CBR1100XX (Cornerstone member):

Yes ! Even in this early beta stage.
Running it on a 5 yo Acer 2.8C laptop with 512 MB RAM and apart from the intermittent PCMCIA controller for my wireless card, everything looks and runs well. Cosmetically it is quite 'ugly' at beta.
The XP driver that came with the onboard Radeon 9100 GPU runs flawlessly :)

05 March 2009, 2:19 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

BN (User):

Well considering its Vista redressed up it should be better.

They start with Vista SP1's stable code then redesign some of the UI of course it should be better its not like its a completely new OS.

06 March 2009, 2:09 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

bartonlp (New user):

Same old thing. Windows is still Windows, if you like it you love it and if you don't you hate it. I hate it and am glad I no longer have to use it. Linux works for me.

06 March 2009, 3:53 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Darth Guybrush (New user):

I love it and all my software works even better, the Adobe CS4 range, ColdFusion 8.0.1, SQL Server, games even. Bring it on! Am running it in Virtual Box at the moment as I don't want to spend 2 days re-installing everything I need on my brand new notebook. Well done Microsoft so far!

06 March 2009, 8:10 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

BN (User):

No Blu Ray Support!!!! WTF

Well no sale here then, Lazy pricks.
And the network and file browsing and transfers is still as slow as Vista.

How is it that XP file transfers are almost triple the speed of vista and win7 so as we progress into the future our OSes are going backwards instead of getting faster.

08 March 2009, 12:28 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Bus909 (New user):

I ever try Windows 7 on my laptop. it suck and didnt good as well..




Installed Windows Vista back. it better thans windows 7





windows 7 is fail

10 September 2009, 4:28 PM (6 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Bus909 (New user):

I ever try Windows 7 on my laptop. it suck and didnt good as well..




Installed Windows Vista back. it better thans windows 7





windows 7 is fail

10 September 2009, 4:29 PM (6 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

bimmer (New user):

3 hours to install 7 on your computer. Get out of town! You're not good, not 7. I installed it on 10 minutes, flat. Best OS there is. And by the way, stot the crap about Vista being bad. Vista was also tons of times better than XP. Idiots who knows nothing about OS are the ones who talk more, since most people who are smart and have no problems installing and using the OS, stay quite. It's like politics, where the few noisy unhappy get the attention and good laws don't go forward. Too bad! Yeah, all you people, go to Apple.

10 December 2009, 5:08 AM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Quoting bimmer:
Idiots who knows nothing about OS are the ones who talk more


Hello Mr Pot. I'd like you to meet my good friend Mr Black... He's a kettle.

10 December 2009, 10:00 AM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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