Forced to use Windows 7

Tarasdad said:

Just as a matter of habit I usually wait six months to a year before moving to a new Windows OS. Gives them time to patch the worst bugs and for third party developers to write updated drivers.

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This is a great policy! I recommend it and do it as well, except when I was really itching to get away from some Vista quirks.

When Win 7 Service Pack 1 came out, I waited quite a few months before letting it install. I know several people with use cases similar to my own that had troubles with SP1, but these were ironed out smoothly. I didn't want to be an early adopter.



Marc

Now that Windows 8 had been released I'm feeling more confident about Windows 7...

LW Bercini said:

What is the "Aero" stuff?

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Basically, the frosted-transparency and animation effects that use game graphics functions on higher end video cards. I like it, but Microsoft itself has backed away from it in Windows 8, after finding that the "Aero-glass" (transparency) effects used a TON of power; obviously a big problem on laptops and now tablets. They also found it was mainly eye-candy, and no one used the effect for anything important.

Vista really wasn't all that bad, but I would never recommend it once Win 7 was widely available. Win 7 was just so much better.

Windows 8 will really freak a lot of people out, but it too is pretty good once you get used to it, and once you realize that you can just stay on the old style desktop and use the Metro interface as a full screen Start menu, you'll settle right into it.

On WinRT tablets where you don't have the desktop (because they can't run normal Windows apps) you'll have to get used to more restrictive (for awhile) iPad-style apps.

RoyAtl said:

Vista really wasn't all that bad, but I would never recommend it once Win 7 was widely available. Win 7 was just so much better.

Windows 8 will really freak a lot of people out, but it too is pretty good once you get used to it, and once you realize that you can just stay on the old style desktop and use the Metro interface as a full screen Start menu, you'll settle right into it.

On WinRT tablets where you don't have the desktop (because they can't run normal Windows apps) you'll have to get used to more restrictive (for awhile) iPad-style apps.

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Can you turn off the Metro interface? That interface is a deal breaker for me, so I would stick with W7.

Tronman said:

Can you turn off the Metro interface? That interface is a deal breaker for me, so I would stick with W7.

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No. For all intents and purposes, Metro is the main interface now. But the desktop is still there, albeit without a Start button (because Metro does everything you need the Start button for).

Peartree said:

Now that Windows 8 had been released I'm feeling more confident about Windows 7...

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Tongue in cheek? Thinkin of upgrade to W8 for the security enhancements, only.

Forced to change from non-supported Win2000 to Win7 this Sept.
Worst prob, Outlook files couldn't be imported to Live Mail.
Using Zimbra.

rocketsaway said:

Tongue in cheek? Thinkin of upgrade to W8 for the security enhancements, only.

Forced to change from non-supported Win2000 to Win7 this Sept.
Worst prob, Outlook files couldn't be imported to Live Mail.
Using Zimbra.

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Not really joking. Two reasons. 1) Until its been out for at least a year MS stuff has a reputation for being kinda buggy. 2) I'm not paying extra for it. Then again, if I buy new, whatever it comes with for free is what I will have.

I think I still have one machine in the house that runs Win2000 and it won't take anymore upgrades. 2000 is already an upgrade from 95. I will probably just copy the hard drive to an external drive and dump the thing. When we buy a new one, the XP machine will become an Internet portal with very little else installed on it. That may help keep us from waiting in line for email.