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Is Windows 7 All That Good?

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Windows Vista gave everyone such a bad result that people like me are now apprehensive about buying Windows 7. The general talk is that it is much better than Vista but I did hear some reviews where they said it just seems like a service pack of Vista! So could someone tell me which version to believe? Is it worth buying windows 7 or can i spend a few more months with xp?

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I installed Windows 7 three days ago and I have to say that I am very happy with it so far. If you are coming from Vista then you will appreciate how well it just works. If you are coming from XP then expect some getting used to because a lot of things are different. Personally, I installed Vista several years ago so I already have the learning curve down and there are not that many differences between Vista and Windows 7 on the GUI level. The biggest difference that I see is the system performance. A boot in Vista was well over 30 seconds and in Windows 7 it is about 13 seconds. The overall computing experience feels snapper and more responsive. If you are looking for a system upgrade, for now skip the hardware and install Windows 7. Here are a few more of my thoughts.• The install only gives you three basic options: repair, upgrade, and clean install. I was surprised at how the new hard drive utility suspiciously looks like the Linux hard drive install utility.• As the desktop was reviled for the first time, I noticed again how the desktop reminded me of a Linux install. The icons are bigger and the taskbar has been redesigned. Most of this was short lived for my installation because I quickly shrank the desktop icons and changed how the taskbar worked.• The !@#$%’s took away my classic start menu. Don’t’ even bother trying to find an obscure registry setting to re-enable it; it’s really gone for good. I personally am a very location oriented person so I loved the classic menu because I could start a program from the start menu without even looking at the start menu. My hand knew exactly how far to move for each stage of the opening process and opening a program several folders deep was second hand. In the end I decided to stay with the new start menu because it looks like I will have to learn it eventually. Microsoft has made up their minds and the classic start menu is not in the future.• UAC is now useable. The new UAC has been modified in a subtle yet efficient way. There is now a distinction (in the default mode) between if a program is asking for permission or if the local user is asking for permission. A setup program will still trigger the protected secure desktop (grey screen) with the extra step of approving the request but local tasks such as deleting the garbage the last program installed in your start menu only shows a shield icon next to the continue button. I have read several security experts advise moving the UAC control up once notch but I am happy with the default setting. If a program wants to do something, it gets the smack down. If want to do something, I don’t.As I stated before, if you are coming from Vista, you should have little to no pain in upgrading to Windows 7. I would highly recommend the upgrade if anything but based on the improved performance.

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So the new Windows looks similar to a linux distro? That's interesting news! Thanks for the review. I think the new taskbar, start menu are managable and can be gotten used to in a few days. What I'm more concerned about is not the looks but the security of the system.Is it better than XP and Vista in that matter?I hope so because there are a lot of people concerned about security these days than anything else

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So the new Windows looks similar to a linux distro?

Not Windows looking like linux! From tansqrx's post I understand that the installer looks like the Linux installer. I guess that, once installed, the product has the standard Windows look and feel. :D

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Windows looking like linux ? Nah, in some views newbies find windows user interface and navigation easy than linux. Why they'll make interface similar to linux or in that case like gnome or kde or icewm etc ? No way, they're just making it different which may look like linux installer so you did misunderstanding HOD.

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I am very much satisfied with Windows 7. It's very fast and Microsoft has improved it a lot. Apart from improvements they added new features and upgrades. The old Paint program was updated. New DVD maker and movie maker. Also, Windows 7 don't add a sidebar by default. If you want it you have manually enable it from All Programs option in Start menu. In short, Windows 7 performance is pretty good as XP and look is stylish than vista with more desktop effects.

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But if i'm not wrong windows classic look is removed from Win7. Am i right about this ? Can you check it if you've win7 running ? Let me know about it.

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But if i'm not wrong windows classic look is removed from Win7. Am i right about this ? Can you check it if you've win7 running ? Let me know about it.

You are correct, there is no longer a classic menu style.

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No No buddy. Windows Classic theme is there in Windows 7. By default Aero will be there, but we can change themes from control panel. Windows Classic theme is there on my Enterprise edition, don't know about other editions. I think it will be there.

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I don't have the win7 with right now. But when i get it how to enable it ? I mean how to enable the classic theme. Assume i have same version like you, how will you tell me to enable classic theme for win7? Let me know.

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The theme in question can be enabled from the personalization settings in Windows 7. The Windows 7 classic theme is a GUI skin just like any other theme which is different than the way the Vista classic theme worked. When you switched to classic in Vista, some underlying GUI changes were made to make the desktop to make it behave differently. In Windows 7, the look changes but the underlying functionality does not. The specific example I am thinking about is how the task bar works. Even if you turn off auto grouping and show all icons, the taskbar will still rearrange open windows. In XP and Vista if you open Internet Explorer, calculator, and then Internet Explorer, you will have the windows arranged in the task bar as IE, Calc, IE. In Windows 7 the two IE windows will be side by side (in the front) and the calculator window will be last. As far as I know there is no way to change this behavior. The Windows 7 classic theme will make the machine look like Windows 2000/XP but it is more of eye candy and not a functional change.P.S. I am typing this up on my XP machine so I may have a few details wrong. Feel free to correct me if needed.

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All over the internet there have been mixed reviews only about this new OS but I must say it swings in favor of the positive reviews. This is definitely better than Vista, and already new PCs and laptops are coming preloaded with it. My only complaint is that Microsoft have as usual , put a high price on it, and even the Home Basic edition costs too much. Added to that are the local extra rates. If I'm not wrong, Home Basic costs $120 in the US? In India that is equal to Rs.5400. But the market rate is Rs.6000 :D This happens everytime - the iPhone was supposed to cost around Rs.10000 (~$200) but it costs over Rs.30000! Ok let's not go off topic about that....

 

Windows 7 surely seems to have given Microsoft some new hope, but they're still getting unpopular by the day and Mac and Linux are becoming more and more popular - soon we will have a lot of competition between these three OSes!

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If I'm not wrong, Home Basic costs $120 in the US?! Ok let's not go off topic about that....

It's not completely off topic. Because if the price is really what you mention, I will not buy it! This post tells me that it will be far better than my current Vista, but for my own purposes the difference is not worth these $120!

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There are indeed improvements to Windows 7. However, if you're on Windows Vista, there's not much important improvements that is worth the $100+ upgrade from Vista.If you're on Windows XP, you have to get off XP and go Vista/7. I've had almost no problems with Vista ever since SP1 even if there were problems they're just minor user solvable issues. xboxrulz

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