The State of Windows 7 Satisfaction

[Night Hawk]

I couldn't pass this one up!

The State of Windows 7 Satisfaction

Early adopters report they're mostly happy -- and that goes for Vista users even more than XP users.

Harry McCracken, Technologizer
Dec 2, 2009 9:50 am

Windows 7 is scarcely more than a month old. Most of the people who will eventually use it haven't gotten around to trying it yet; those that have are still settling in. And the Win 7 experience will change rapidly as remaining bugs are squashed, missing drivers arrive, and compatibility glitches are ironed out. Even so, it's not too early to start gauging what real people think of Windows Vista's replacement.

So to riff on Ronald Reagan's famous question from his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, Are Windows users better off today than they were a few weeks ago, back in the Vista era? We decided to ask the Technologizer community, a group of tech enthusiasts with a high propensity to acquire new operating systems quickly and push them to their limits. Starting on November 16th, we surveyed our readers (and Twitter followers) about their experiences with Windows 7. Our goal: to do a reality check on the mostly favorable initial reviews of the new OS (as well as our own survey of largely enthusiastic Windows 7 beta testers back in March).

The 550+ Windows 7 early adopters who took our survey mostly echo the positive response that the upgrade has received from professional reviewers, pundits, and users of pre-release editions. A sizable majority say they're extremely satisfied with the OS and rate it as a clear improvement on both the beloved Windows XP and the widely-panned Windows Vista. Crippling installation problems-the bane of every upgrader's existence, and always a legitimate reason to postpone switching OSes-were rare.

All four pages full seen at: The State of Windows 7 Satisfaction - PC World

 

[The Wise Vivi]

Its just more evidence that Windows 7 is actually good.

 

[Night Hawk]

Good? 7 so far has already proven itself "The Best"!

And now that is simply being reflected even with a limited number of people as the article there points out. After the ME flop onto the XP flop full of security holes and Vista's not so warm welcome MS had to buckle down and get busy coming up with a working version!

 

[Zeca Urubu]

For me it's perfect, the unique question about my hardware is the microphone (unfortunally it's don't work)

In games I don't have problems with compability and/or performance

In reproduction of video files, unique question is about rvmb files, solved with Real Alternate installation

 

[Night Hawk]

With mics you have to go into the Control Panel>Sound and recording tab there to set the default recording if the mic is listed. When looking at the image attached here note the usb head set with mic was the item right clicked on and set as default.

 

[The Wise Vivi]

Good? 7 so far has already proven itself "The Best"!
!

Well, you know what I mean.

 

[Night Hawk]

Good? 7 so far has already proven itself "The Best"!
!

Well, you know what I mean.

Naturally!

 

[Gornot]

I remember the very first time I heard about Windows 7 and the rumors like: Windows 7 will be safe and stable like Windows XP was in the beginning, and maintain the revolutionary look of Windows Vista
And it's actually true. And beyond. 7 works better than XP and even though it looks similar to Vista, all the visual features were upgraded and ironed out, giving us the "perfect" OS, if I may say so. Windows 7 WILL become a new standard in Windows operating systems just like XP was almost 10 years ago.

 

[thefabe]

If I were MS I would thank all of the beta testers along with the OEM manufacturers getting onbaord with driver updates. And of course their own people with figuring out what went wrong with the Vista OS and what users wanted in a new OS. Just my opinion.

 

[Win7User512]

I'm very satisfied. I'm not even spending much time thinking about Windows 8 because I am content with what I have.

 

[bobtran]

In my opinion there is no such thing as a perfect OS but Windows 7 is the best OS that Microsoft has produced so far. I am extremely satisfied with it and feel that the bad taste Vista left in peoples mouths will finally fade into the past. Good job Microsoft.

 

[Night Hawk]

The "bad taste" as you call it there was for many simply running older gaming builds were the performance lagged a bit being the newer larger Windows at the time. Actually I found Vista there to be less problemsome then the constant errors the previous version suffered tremendously.

Many are surprizingly satisfied with that version maybe having skipped over XP from ME or 2000. 7 on the other hand however stuns people when they see it go on and run for the first time! During one install of 7 I had someone watching and the disbelief in how fast and how responsive 7 was became obvious!

"Gee it would have taken me all night with..." was one remark made!

 

[Debutstudios]

It was with the necessary trepidation of a long-time Windows user that I wiped out my Vista system and replaced it with Windows 7.

I think it was installed all of 5 minutes and my wife got to break the computer's cherry and experience W7. Now she's a very picky woman...obviously with good taste as she picked me. But enough of that...

Long story short, she loved it almost instantly. And so did I.

Although it's hard to pinpoint what exactly I like about it...I have already advised friends and family to run from Vista as fast as humanly possible. W7, in my opinion, is what Vista should have been.

Kudos, M$, you win this round

 

[stammer]

My first PC I had was this HP Pavilion. Bought in 2005 with Windows XP. Never had a chance to try Vista (also with my current Hp PC I knew that Vista was to much for it). I was given a copy of Win7 and have not really looked back. My PC runs faster with Win7 on it. I use 7 about 99 percent of them time. Just a few minutes ago I loaded up XP it look forgein to me (almost forgot how to use it). Had about 20 updates to install on Xp. I just dont use XP that much anymore.

Dont know much about Vista as I never used it. I have friends that love it and some hate it. I am glad that I am running Win 7 know. I currently have no issues and my 5 year old PC runs like a champ.

IMHO Microsoft did all the right things with 7. Windows 8 better be an awesome OS for me to switch to it when it comes out. Cheers to MS for a job well done.

 

[Adamd]

Well I don't want to go out to bold but in my opinion Windows 7 is as perfect as an OS can get I think.

I installed 7 on my Asus laptop since the early beta days and now have 7 pro installed and can't ask for anything else.

1. I have not had a complete system lock up

2. I forget to restart now a days because it is so stable and does not slow down like old xp days. I just sleep my laptop all the time and never restart unless an update requests me to.

3. The new look and feel is very smooth and the improved search box is amazing and makes finding stuff so simple.

4. My Zune software works perfect with it and just is very responsive and great over Itunes.

5. Overall just a great experience with no lock ups and no other real problems that make the computer fun.

Kind of makes it boring since I can't fix it or tweak it to make it faster and faster. I am sure I can but it just runs so great as is lol.

I also use Microsoft Security software that was released that was free and that seems to work well along with Spybot search and destroy.

 

[Night Hawk]

Stability was a plus for Vista over XP there as well. But 7 has gone a long ways in seeing a tremendous overall performance boost as well as the newer updated features.

It installs in less then half the time of previous versions going back to 95 as well as faster startup and shutdown times. But I think the one thing that stands out the most you touched on there Adamd about previous versions like XP slowwwwwwwinggggg downnnnn.... a bit once the softwares were packed on!

With 7 so far being loaded up and hammered heavily from the betas, RCs, and now the retail editions I have to say that MS is finally maturing when looking at what the average desktop user wants to see! The plain facts are that they finally got it together with 7! A lot of work had to go into 7 however to see this kind of progress when looking back over all previous versions.

 

[sygnus21]

Since moving to Windows 7 I haven't even looked at Vista even though I never really had any big issues with it.

Windows 7 just rocks. For the first time in a long time I don't hear cries of service pack please.

That's extremely positive.

Two thumbs up MS

 

[Night Hawk]

That will be interesting for sure when those eventually come out. I doubt I will be installing the beta versions of those however since 7 seems to keep running strong regardless of which flavor(32bit, 64bit, 64bit RC) I boot into.

The largest help to make 7 a working OS was all the feedback collected as well as the additional feedback still being seen for the RCs many still run as well as that for the retail 7. This is something that sadly lacked quite a bit for the previous versions since not as many were running beta or RC releases. Everybody wanted a look at 7!

 

[noobvious]

I'm less than a week into it, and I went from XP to 7, bypassing Vista...but I love me some 7