Why do people like Windows 7 so much?

[DocBrown]

The operating system that works best for the user & what tehy are most comfortable with is the system they should use.

 

[bigboxes]

I'm a tinkerer when it comes to my pc. I want to do what I want with my pc when I want to. I love Win7. I build custom PCs and put Vista in for my customers, but never made the jump myself. I found Vista to be quite annoying. Well, I was forced to upgrade my own machine and by then Win7 was released.

I did not like the task bar taking up so much space so I made the icons small. I used a hack to bring back the taskbar including a 'show desktop' icon. I also figured out how to have msn messenger show in the systray as it did in previous version of Windows. I didn't like having the pinned shortcuts along with the opened apps/folders/files. I decided to clean up my desktop and move all of my desktop shortcuts (only frequently used apps) to a dock, more specifically ObjectDock. I don't like the dock on top of my other windows and want it to stay on the desktop. I keep it at the bottom very close to the taskbar. Whenever I need it I don't have to go to the desktop to access it. I just move my mouse cursor to the bottom edge of the screen and that brings the dock to the top. One click and the app opens.

I don't game that much, but I wanted a second dock to house my games. The free version of ObjectDock doesn't allow multiple docks. I'm all about the free so I used RocketDock and created a dock for the games and put it at the top of my desktop.

 

[Nemix]

Because XP has no more Service Packs coming out and support for XP is limited...:huh:

 

[Dzomlija]

I like Windows 7 mostly for the Search features, which in Vista would take several hours to update. In Windows 7, even with 683,658 files in the index, if a file is added or modified, the index is updated within seconds. And it doesn't slow the PC down as it did in Vista.

In terms of the GUI, I love that in Windows Explorer I can customize the views in such a way that I can (for example) manage a music library AS A MUSIC LIBRARY (Track, Title, Artist, Duration, Album, etc.), instead of files. The downside is that we can't (yet) edit metadata for most videos files as we can for images or music.

The default settings for the taskbar rocks. I love that the same icons used to launch an application is used to switch to same. It literally helps to prevent me from opening too many instances of the same application.

I've been through all flavors of Windows since 3.1 (except 98, which was a disaster from day one that required a second edition to fix), and I honestly believe that with Windows 7, Microsoft finally got it right.

 

[pezzonovante]

I love the Windows 7 taskbar. It makes launching and working with applications much easier. The whole Windows 7 UI simply rocks.

 

[rover3500]

Battery life alot better in seven for laptops for a start.
Aero shake,
window tiling when u drag to edge(is well useful when a window goes off bottom of screen and u can't get to it)
better firewall(if u use it)
Networking better and easier
Driver installation MUCH better
All plug and play,everything works straight away unlike xp or vista.
If u look on microsoft site to compare editions there are many more visible improvements,these are just a few that i like that makes things alot easier

Here's a MS page of some differences:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/versions.aspx

 

[Riho]

Everyhing runs perfectly fine, even with a shitty computer configuration i have still Windows 7 proffesional is fast. Altough i ll have to start thinking about buying new computer

 

[chrysalis]

When I first used windows 7 I was really put off by the new taskbar. However I have since come to like the new icons without text, however did find the available options very restricting (microsoft seem to hate user choice).

I have since done the following.

1 - Turned quick launch back on, what a relief this wasn't fully removed.
2 - Unpinned all apps, horrible messy feature. If unlaunched pinned apps always stayed on the left it may have been ok.
3 - Found an app called '7 taskbar tweaker' which allows apps to be ungrouped on the taskbar whilst hide labels is set. So I can now dictate order of my apps again. The app is freeware.
4 - msn messenger in windows 7, what on earth did they do to it. By default, it can no longer be minimised to the system tray and as a result it could only be shutdown via task manager as to shut it down you supposed to right click the system tray icon and click exit. Thankfully also an easy fix. I run it in vista sp2 compatability mode and it now has its icon back in the system tray instead of the taskbar.
5 - I also tuned various registry settings for aero stuff.
(a) aero shake turned off, kept triggering it by accident.
(b) made the bottom right desktop preview trigger at 100ms
(c) made the taskbar aero preview trigger at 2000ms (2 seconds), before I kept triggering previews by accident.
(d) menus trigger at 100ms (not aero and old tweak).

 

[win7]

I like windows 7 because it runs a lot better/faster than vista on all my machines, has nice looks and many more features than xp. I also had a lot of fun testing it and waiting for/finding the leaks last year, maybe even more fun than having the final product

 

[CarlTR6]

Well, if Vista is working well enough for me (no BSOD's, no graphic problems or anything, etc) and I don't really like the Windows 7 taskbar very much... is there any real reason for me to switch to Windows 7?

Would the behind the scenes improvements mean anything to me, like extending the hardware life of my laptop (hardware not working as hard maybe), or anything like that?

And I'm guessing theres not much I can do about the cluttering in the Win7 taskbar? Outside of a third party dock program?

Windows Seven does manage resources more efficiently than Vista and does a much better job managing services.

 

[Thorsen]

I like the preview that pops up when you hover over a program on the taskbar. also, when multitasking, the ability to preview before releasing alt-tab.

I dont like, however, that the desktop is shown in the alt-tab list. Is there a way to turn this off?

 

[Win7User512]

I like the preview that pops up when you hover over a program on the taskbar. also, when multitasking, the ability to preview before releasing alt-tab.

I dont like, however, that the desktop is shown in the alt-tab list. Is there a way to turn this off?

I doubt you can turn it off. I allows the user to quickly get to the desktop without using a mouse; much like most operations in a Microsoft application.

 

[Thorsen]

I like the preview that pops up when you hover over a program on the taskbar. also, when multitasking, the ability to preview before releasing alt-tab.

I dont like, however, that the desktop is shown in the alt-tab list. Is there a way to turn this off?

I doubt you can turn it off. I allows the user to quickly get to the desktop without using a mouse; much like most operations in a Microsoft application.

I understand that and it would be great if it was listed when a full screen app is present and it was not listed when all the windows are currently in window/non-fullscreen. I see your point, but still it would be great to have the option of disabling it. I guess I'll just adjust lol.

 

[pparks1]

Well, if Vista is working well enough for me (no BSOD's, no graphic problems or anything, etc) and I don't really like the Windows 7 taskbar very much... is there any real reason for me to switch to Windows 7?

Absolutely no reason to switch. My wife has an HP laptop which came with Vista Home Premium. It's licensed, works properly and I have an extremely easy to use recovery tool from HP to put it back exactly the way it was the day that we bought it. I do not feel compelled whatsoever to spend $1 upgrading this machine from Vista.

My new desktop machine that I built in July of 2009 ran the 7 Beta and RC builds and is now running a retail copy of Windows 7. Since I had to start somewhere, I just started with 7 and have been totally satisfied with 7 on this machine. And now my work laptop and desktop are both running 7 (laptop is 32-bit enterprise, while desktop is 64-bit enterprise).

So, even though I am delighted with Windows 7...I am perfectly fine with leaving Vista as it is on my wife's laptop.