Windows 7: Not to impressed with Win 7 yet

Ok, I have been testing the capabilities of Windows 7, both x86 and x64 for quite some time now, (since Nov 2008), starting with the first release v7-7000 to the latest v 7-7100 on as many as 6 different computers.
Some old (x86) hardware platforms and a couple of fairly new 64 bit platform hardware. 3 Laptops and 3 Desktops.



I use some of the most complex software you can imagine, Design Engineering and Diagnostics, Like Auto Desk Inventor 2008 (pretty expensive) and CST 2006 (Very Expensive), as well as Network Monitoring software and pretty high levels of Security software and Hardware.

I have been informing Microsoft on a regular basis (like I hope all members here have been) about bugs, glitches, problems and especially crashes (Send Feedback links). And I have noticed quite a few improvements on many issues I have submitted.

But, The latest Windows 7 release still has a lot of glitches and bugs , and a few driver issues. Now no insult to Microsoft Developers, or Hardware Manufactures and Driver Developers, cause "IT IS BETA", and a lot of work is still needed to make it more stable. And I do run Debugging to find out what is causing the problems.

But I recommend that everyone use a multi boot foundation or at least a separate hard drive or partition to save or maintain all of you documents, files or program completion operations. Cause just like Windows (all since v 1.1) from the beginning, "s*(t" happens and you could loose any or all files on your operating systems partition. On a regular basis I never went to the latest release for my work till the SP1 pack was released, Including Win 98 (till SE), Win 2000(till sp1), Windows XPP(sp1) and to this day I do not use Vista(cause it is still full of crapy bugs). There is no such thing a a perfect operating system.

The RC has quite a few more bugs/glitches than the beta, I reckon. My nVidia Graphic Driver from nVidia, for example, refuses to function properly. It used to work well with the pre-7100 build.

Yea buddy,
I have had nothing but problems with nVidia drivers.
The latest released driver (v 185.85) for all OS's (MS) have been full of glitches and problems. I have constantly gone to the nVidia Developers forum asking questions about the bugs and never get an answer from them (the Dev team), only comments from others trying to find the solutions.

Hi there

This is EXACTLY the sort of software that IS likely to have the most problems both in Hardware and Software for using in a new OS.

1) It's expensive so relatively few (compared with the "consumer" market) installations.

2) People who often run this type of software aren't the one's usally pushing for updating their PC's / software so not too much pressure on the manufacturers to provide Windows 7 updates.

XP compatability mode was designed for smaller businesses who use these types of applications so they CAN upgrade the PC's whilst still using the older kit until software updates are available.

I don't think you can actually blame MS for this one -- I suspect the manufacturers of the packages you are using don't feel a business need at the present time to spend a lot of effort in updating this stuff to Windows 7 yet especially if there isn't any pressure from most of their customers.

Cheers
jimbo

While it is true that there is no such thing as a perfect operating system, W7RC is easily the least glitchy pre-release windows or Linux OS I've ever used. In fact the only bug I have encountered is that shift-dragging files onto MS Word in tv taskbar doesn't work, no big.

Also, I don't think that is the case hear, but lots of the people who complain about RC problems have upgraded from previous builds when MS warned us not to. Haven't had a single issue with 7RC on any of the 5 computers I've installed it on.

Also, I agree with what Jimbo said. There's only so much the deb team can do unfortunately :/ I'm surprised people are still having drivers issues, RC fixed all previous drivers issues I've experienced.

Some older system still has driver problems, I installed Windows 7 RC 7100 on my elder brother's notebook and I had to search for the graphics driver (915 board), mass storage and 2 or 3 other drivers which I don't remember now but one good thing was these all drivers appeared in windows Update and the only thing which I had to do is to check whether to download the drivers and install updates.... So far So Good..... But my memory consumption has increased after installing the RC, has anyone has the same problem...

I have no intention of multi-booting, windows 7 works just fine for me. I don't use any fancy expensive applications like you but I do play some pretty demanding games.

Yeah, but the drivers are new (185.85) and WHQL-ed. Once my monitor comes back on from sleep, it crashes into BSOD. Without Fail. So I rolled back into the default driver

Quite possibly true Jimbo
But, I don't pay to much attention to the "consumer market" groups, mainly with other Engineers that do the same type of work I do.

But, the software I use for Engineering work requires a lot of resources on an Operating System, My point of the testing Win 7 is to be able to run more than one of these apps at the same time without the system slowing down, especially using my copy of CST (Computer Simulation Technology), This app cost me $43,000.00 a number of years ago, it has the capability to simulate Physics and Engineering Technology simultaneously at the same time running the design programming using lots of graphics resources.

On my Windows XPP x64 version running these programs at the same time my resources for them go up to about 94%. On the Windows 7 x64 version (which these are Vista compatible level) run at or around 58%. The main problem always reverts to the drivers for the nVidia cards, these cards (2 of them) each have 1 Gig of their own Memory, so the graphics resource demand is not that bad. It always goes to the controllers (.dll's) in the library.
Most other Engineer's I know are looking for the same reasons, to reduce the resource demand for better performance and quicker testing of our designs.
I don't blame MS for any of the bugs still in this release, This is a BETA design, which is still under development, The biggest issues is from the nVidia Drivers. Constant Bugs and BSOD's happen and I have been running the Windows Win 7 Debugging programs to find the issues, so far almost every crash was caused by the nVidia driver issues, not all but most.