My Issues with Windows 7

[Tepid]

I am dissapointed that they wont let you install to a USB device though. I guess its too big of an installation anyway. Would really like to see a mini Win 7 that only takes up a couple gigs and less then 500mb of ram...

Yep, it's called Winbuilder.

And no, it is not stable, but it does work.

 

[Zomby88]

You can make the task bar smaller , looks just like Vistas and why do you need a quicklaunch ? Just put the icons you use right on the taskbar.

 

[BunBun]

You can make the task bar smaller , looks just like Vistas and why do you need a quicklaunch ? Just put the icons you use right on the taskbar.

Umm they take up to much room... they move around in weird ways... I dont like taskbar items grouping in this manner...

I like my screen neet and tidy. I dont have a 1920x1200 monitor to have its space wasted by useless large icons with large spaces between them and having to hunt for items that move around...

 

[BunBun]

Ok finally got around to this...

Win XP Restart Time (non tweaked)



Win Vista Restart Time (semi-tweaked)



Win 7 Restart Time (tweaked)



Now I must make note on a couple points. Windows 7 shuts down in a hurry... quite a bit faster then XP in my case. So the ratio between shut down and start up is lower making XP's boot even faster then what it seems in the above numbers which is really what I am going after. However that said Windows 7 is much more responsive and usable at first seeing the desktop on start up. XP is very sluggish to begin with and sometimes network traffic is not possible after immediate boot up, have to wait a few seconds before loading IE where as 7 I can load IE instantly.

All the above was on my raid array. Now being that Windows 7 is booting with twice the memory usage of my XP build it is quite an impressive feat. However that is a slow XP boot up for me. I can cut that time by 50% I just dont have time to mess in a OS right now that I have no intentions of useing.

However all said and done I am almost willing to say that Windows 7 boot is more appleasing to the user experience due to the fact that it is more responsive immediatly upon showing the desktop (and the windows 7 loading screen doesn't chug like XP's loading bar does sometimes) and I have a suspiscion that 7 would perform better on a SSD then XP would, although I have no personal experience to make any claims on that. My initial claim of XP booting faster and being overall more responsive still stands as I beleive Windows 7 could be a lot better had more thought been put into optimizing boot times and onboot memory usage.

And now to the nay sayers about my external drive...

Win 7 Restart on external hard drive connected via e-Sata (tweaked)



And my windows experience index showing the drives performance



Which is the same as my raid array.

 

[Barman58]

A lot is made of the relative speed of start-up and reboot between win7 and XP this is a non issue for me as it's something I only do once a week or so on average (or when an install/upgrade requires it).

I would also add that whereas XP would tend to slow down over time when left running, forcing the need to re-boot, win7 does not. This results in the relevent comparison being, "is the boot of win7 faster than three or four XP re-boots"

Just my opinion and experience of course

 

[housry23]

MaximumPC got a Windows 7 rig to boot up in just 30 seconds. Depending on your hardware, you may not see these results, but I bet reading this article could help you shave your boot time.
In Search of the Sub-30 Second Boot | Maximum PC

 

[BunBun]

A lot is made of the relative speed of start-up and reboot between win7 and XP this is a non issue for me as it's something I only do once a week or so on average (or when an install/upgrade requires it).

I would also add that whereas XP would tend to slow down over time when left running, forcing the need to re-boot, win7 does not. This results in the relevent comparison being, "is the boot of win7 faster than three or four XP re-boots"

Just my opinion and experience of course

Definitly your experience as I have to restart Windows 7 quite regularily as it slows down after awhile as well. I prefer to turn off my systems when not in use rather then standby (side exception of my media center of course and with my power hungry machine of 250-300watts on idle I tend to shut it down quite a bit) so boot times are very important. Vista this was not possible as its boot times were horrendous so I always would put it to sleep restarting it only once a week.

Also I do a lot of troubleshooting and testing of various technologies on a consistent basis and waiting for my computer to restart multiple times in short period is not fun.

MaximumPC got a Windows 7 rig to boot up in just 30 seconds. Depending on your hardware, you may not see these results, but I bet reading this article could help you shave your boot time.
In Search of the Sub-30 Second Boot | Maximum PC

Thank you I will check that out later. My point still stands however as out of the box XP is still quite a bit faster and Microsoft doesn't seem to understand this concern. Yes SSD's are here which improve everything 10 fold but if they keep on this path then boot times and memory usages will keep going up and we will be in this constant state of slow booting unresponsive computers. As hardware gets better the user experience should get better not stay the same as the trend has been.

 

[Merlin2000]

My point still stands however as out of the box XP is still quite a bit faster and Microsoft doesn't seem to understand this concern.

- That's pretty much what I've seen too. A lot of people don't really do a correct comparison between the two. An XP system running for 6 months, 2 yrs, etc.. will already be slower than a fresh installed XP (meaning you can't compare a running XP install with a fresh Win 7 install and expect the tests to be even). Right now, few people can compare how Win 7 does after it runs for 6months to a yr.

Like Barman, I only have to restart my system once a week. I haven't seen a single bit of slowdown for extended use.

However all said and done I am almost willing to say that Windows 7 boot is more appleasing to the user experience due to the fact that it is more responsive immediately upon showing the desktop

- That's probably what the major goal was. If you load a desktop that still takes some time to get going, people automatically assume their computer is slow, but when you take an extra 20-30 seconds to get everything else running, people see a fully loaded desktop that is completely workable, and think it's fast.

I guess the only thing to learn here, which is evident in other benchmarks too, is that Win 7 doesn't always boot faster than XP. I think we can all agree this isn't really a deal breaker, but hopefully something MS may look at in their next OS.

Thanks for posting those restart times

 

[pdxireland]

Let the Thread Live & Thrive!
fmg

 

[Barman58]

Just for the sake of the argument :devil:

I think that the only true comparison between XP and win7 would have to be performed on a level playing field, with XP at the same stage of it's development as win7 is now.

That would mean testing XP on an machine that was available at that time and using an XP at the same stage of development, that is no Service packs, and just the first few months of updates.

I'm sure that win7 will run at an amazing speed on whatever hardware will be available in eight or nine years , but as only Doc Brown would possibly have access to those benchmarks and real comparison can only be conjecture

 

[Merlin2000]

I think that the only true comparison between XP and win 7 would have to be performed on a level playing field, with XP at the same stage of it's development as Windows 7 is now.

- Never really thought about that, but you're right.. XP with years and years of fixes, is not comparing apples to apple when vs the new Win 7.

 

[CarlTR6]

I would also add that whereas XP would tend to slow down over time when left running, forcing the need to re-boot, win7 does not. This results in the relevent comparison being, "is the boot of win7 faster than three or four XP re-boots"

Just my opinion and experience of course

My experiencing also and my computer runs 24/7. I reboot about every five days - usually because I've added or eliminated something requiring a reboot.

 

[BunBun]

The level playing feel for apple's to apple's comparison is a valid arguement... from one standpoint. Also XP would have been designed and optimzed at that hardware as well but you would also have to uninstall all service packs and updates to get back to that point as well. However being that SP3 was done on today's hardware I feel that this standpoint is moot with a fully updated XP install.

However the other standpoint is this. As technology improves the user experience should improve, not stay the same or get worse. If Windows 7 is about the same on today's hardware as XP was back then, we have not made any progress. A linux developer talked about this quite extensively and I completely agreed with him. He left the Linux scene due to problems with the cpu scheduler that no one was listening to. He said that the user experience should improve with better hardware and technology, where as with the way linux was and has been going the user experience is staying the same. So you could compare apples to apples from then to now but in the end what matters is the user experience. Windows XP improved with hardware and new software should not slow it down it should only make it better. Albeit there are some exceptions to the rule and a bit more overhead and other random things are to be expected. I just feel that Vista and Windows 7 took it too far.

The way I see it is Vista took the user experience back too far in terms of boot times/used resources etc. Windows 7 has regained some of that back. Is it enough? That is up to the individual user to judge based on their experience. Is it enough for me? I think Vista was abysmal and Windows 7 is acceptable. However there are many other benefits to Windows 7 that make it a clear winner which is why I am now useing it and am happy with it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying Windows 7 is a horrible OS or a failed attempt by Microsoft. I never said that about Vista either. However it is not perfect and still has a lot of room to improve and one of the area's that is a major concern to myself and many others is boot times and used resources on boot. IMO the OS should boot at least just as fast if not faster then its predecessor. Back when I got Win XP I had a pretty low end machine. Once I upgraded to a midrange machine for the time I found that XP performed better in almost every respect then Win 98. It used a bit more RAM but it wasn't that much more and I was still ok with my 256MB. However boot times were faster, the OS was more responsive, and everything just gave a nicer feel to it. This is because the OS was coded to take advantage of newer arch advancements of CPU's that 98 was not designed to do. However a lot of changes have been made to Windows 7 from XP and maybe theres some improvements that were not yet taking advantage of yet in our hardware (like how Athlon XP's improved XP so much) but for now IMO Windows 7 is off to a slower start, but like I said brings much more to the table that is a lot better which makes up for a lot of its downfalls.

And the biggest thing of all is simply with all the praise Windows 7 has been getting I was expecting a 98-Win XP type of experience. However this was not the case, and felt misled. I am simply sharing my experience with others so that hopefully someone else will learn from my experience and realize a few things and maybe learn something about their computer.

I hope all that made sense. My brain isn't quite with me today.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Why do y'all keep encouraging him to go on and on and on?

 

[pebbly]

Why do y'all keep encouraging him to go on and on and on?

:roflmao:

 

[1Bowtie]

Why do y'all keep encouraging him to go on and on and on?

+3 Same tired arguments over an over an over

 

[pweegar]

Hmm.. What can I say. Xp is old. Let it die the peaceful death it deserves. I happen to like Vista (It's still on a laptop). I use Win 7 Ultimate X64 with a a mere 2 Gb of RAM. Boots fast. (Fast being relative). Yes, I know I could make it faster. Removing a couple of gadgets would help a lot (One that shows the Network useage meter, the other being my weather gadget).

You want to boot faster? Disable or delay services/programs/etc that you can. Defrag your hard drive, run chkdsk on occassion. What memory hog type programs are you running? MS SQL Server? It'll take almost as much memory as you have and it grows. Also slows things down after a bit. Stop and restart it's services (MS SQL Server and agent, at the least). Wow, maybe save 10-15 seconds saved. You still can't live with that??? Maybe you shouldn't be using a pc. Get a life. Read a book, go for a walk, etc.

My point is, at least in my experience, Windows 7 is faster than XP, and maybe a bit faster than Vista (and on my machine with a dual core AMD X2 proc and 2GB of RAM isn't slow).

Sorry, but you who are saying Win7 boos slow, runs slow, whatever sound like your doing nothing but trying to cause trouble. It's old and tiresome.

 

[RST101]

rb:* yawns emphatically.

What? Who said that?

You really do have an axe to grind don't you.

My windows seven installation boots faster, plays games better, is more responsive, a lot more stable, better to look at and a lot more functional than xp.

That's all...................


ps, are you an apple boy with a windows wig on?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

   Note

This thread needs to be allowed to fade away peacefully.

.

 

[BunBun]

Why do y'all keep encouraging him to go on and on and on?

Why do some of of you have this serious issue with some people actually having something negative to say about Windows 7? The positive opinion of those around here is not the only opinion.

Hmm.. What can I say. Xp is old. Let it die the peaceful death it deserves. I happen to like Vista (It's still on a laptop). I use Win 7 Ultimate X64 with a a mere 2 Gb of RAM. Boots fast. (Fast being relative). Yes, I know I could make it faster. Removing a couple of gadgets would help a lot (One that shows the Network useage meter, the other being my weather gadget).

You want to boot faster? Disable or delay services/programs/etc that you can. Defrag your hard drive, run chkdsk on occassion. What memory hog type programs are you running? MS SQL Server? It'll take almost as much memory as you have and it grows. Also slows things down after a bit. Stop and restart it's services (MS SQL Server and agent, at the least). Wow, maybe save 10-15 seconds saved. You still can't live with that??? Maybe you shouldn't be using a pc. Get a life. Read a book, go for a walk, etc.

My point is, at least in my experience, Windows 7 is faster than XP, and maybe a bit faster than Vista (and on my machine with a dual core AMD X2 proc and 2GB of RAM isn't slow).

Sorry, but you who are saying Win7 boos slow, runs slow, whatever sound like your doing nothing but trying to cause trouble. It's old and tiresome.

If you notice I have already tweaked windows 7 quite extensively and have very little installed. And it is still slower then a fully patched non tweaked XP (which I proved with restart times and on boot memory usage).

I am not trying to cause trouble. I am trying to get the "other" side of the story out so to speak. Windows 7 is not perfect like everyone makes it out to seem. I am not the only one who feels this way as there is plenty of forum members who join in my threads but get overshadowed by those flaming/trolling about how we should just give up and that windows 7 is perfect.

If I didn't realize how incredible inpractical and outrageous it would be I would say that Microsoft is paying off 1000's of people to just up talk Windows 7 all over the internet...

rb:* yawns emphatically.

What? Who said that?

You really do have an axe to grind don't you.

My windows seven installation boots faster, plays games better, is more responsive, a lot more stable, better to look at and a lot more functional than xp.

That's all...................


ps, are you an apple boy with a windows wig on?

Comparing your boot time to what? I agree games do run better in Windows 7 thanks to the new video sub system introduced in Vista. I also agree certain things are more responsive. The UI is matter of taste, it is subjective you can not say that for everyone.

And I do sorta have a axe to grind. I get tired of everyone saying how perfect Windows 7 is yet bash Vista when Vista doesn't deserve the extent of bashing it has (Vista 32bit on 1gb RAM 5400 RPM HDD laptops, which was the majority of the hardware being released with it at launch, is not a fair testbed) and Windows 7 is definitly not perfect.

And no I am not an apply boy. Never owned a mac and disliked the OS everytime I have tired to use it for anything. I hate how aspects of it are creeping into windows.

   Note

This thread needs to be allowed to fade away peacefully.

There are those who have found this thread useful and informative and others who have contributed. If you are neither then why are you here?