Yes, it does like to freeze up quite often but does eventually come back – sometimes. It really does eat memory too. The XP Mode is dire when compared to Sun’s xVM, though Win7 gives you a basic XP license whereas Sun does not.

Sorry, the last sentence should have started:
“Perhaps you should let us know…”

Thanks, Tim, for the measured response!

I find the RC very good – setting up a VPN, and a Remote Desktop connection to a work PC, took a couple of minutes! (I’m sure I can get it to work on Ubuntu before the end of the year…). Virtual PC and XP Mode also seem to work fairly well, but I doubt we’ll need these in practice. It’s just the interminable “where have they hidden this time round?”

The funny thing is that I’ve found every iteration of Vista inexorably slow on any sensible hardware, but I tried server 2008 with the Vista extensions enabled and it was great.

I’m running windows 7 RC on 2 machines (home and office)with perfectly usable performance, the nicest feature is how well remote desktop runs and the ability to select app windows on the remote machine -a real productivity aid.

However the engineer in me still finds the idea that you need a quad core processor and 4Gb of memory to get decent performance ridiculous when 10 years ago a Sun workstation with a 75MHz processor and 32Mb was the bees knees.

Not sure about an upgrade.I have had Vista Ultimate x64 since near the beginning.Having put up with the bad drivers and bugs, it now seems near what it should have been from the start.Having just got it to this stage (Vista SP2)why now spend more to upgrade onto windows 7 for very little benefit and go through bugs again?

Generally found it to be stable and more usable than Vista (and, unlike many, I don’t dislike Vista). My only big criticism is of the XP Mode – it’s too slow starting and closing and its integration with the host operating system is far from seamless. Also, it won’t work on a lot of our fairly new computers (less than 2 years old) due to their processors not supporting it.

I do really think Microsoft are taking the Micky out of users, effectively charging users for what would have been the equivalent of a service pack update including some system optimizations to tune the OS. Windows 7 is only a minor upgrade built around or on top of the same Vista code.

It is Vista in a new frock but with default features removed. It is no more than a service pack and should have been priced accordingly. I also detest the new taskbar/start menu and prefer the Vista one.

In the last issue of PCP, the performance of Win7 was shown as being slower than Vi$ta and considerably slower than XP. I think people are being swayed by the fact that it runs ok on netbooks when Vista doesn’t. Presumably this is to do with memory requirements. But if Win7 is slower???? I for one don’t want it. How are it pro’s going to support all the versions? I find it distinctly worrying that the software most of the world is going to run it’s business on, is going to be produced by Microsoft, a business that seems to lurch from one commercial blunder to another.

Windows 7 does freeze for 2 seconds or so, quite a lot when doing two thing at once or when using media center and media player. (might be driver problem)

Memory usage is a lot higher than XP (Windows 7 64bit) and seems to leak in some apps. I have had a few blue screens off death, but I was pushing it at the times, Is more stable than XP and is very good at fixing file problems it self unlike XP where I would need it reinstall the OS.

I will buy it when it comes out, but it still need some work.

“John Hind”… You destroyed your comments as soon as you mentioned.. OSX. How much are they paying you?

So far, the settings that brought Vista to it’s knees on medium hardware have been dialed down for Win7. Fantastic os and it’s currently running on four machines, with one being a HP 6830s laptop with Virtualisation, VMWare etc. No diver problems etc

“Gavin”
Did you know that you can revert the taskbar to the same type as Vista? Easy to find setting.

Lets see some hard faced 3 way performance Benchmarks this time around eh?

Identical machines running XP, Vista, & Vista 1.2 (Windows 7)

Or do we all still have to go to Toms hardware for factual information?

I’ve been using the Win 7 RC since it’s release and have already pre-ordered the RTM. This is simply the best OS I have ever seen or used (and I’ve been around since the Sinclair ZX80). It’s FAST, stable, pretty, it works flawlessly (on my machine). BUT… the virtual machine app has not managed to resurrect any of my older software. It looks great and the idea that you can slip back to XP to run a particular app will be worth it’s weight in gold (when they fix it). Beware if you are a business user with a mission critical app. Check that the Win 7 or the virtual machine can run it before you commit to the upgrade. Oh, and speaking as a programmer what version number we use is up to us (The software development team) isn’t it? Normally a significant jump forward in the project results in the primary version number (in this case 6) incrementing by 1. Yes MS could have marketed this OS as 6.1.11.3 but it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it now does it? Next you’ll be telling me to buy a Mac ;O)

Several points to mention here.

One: can people who have performance issues PLEASE describe what the machine platform is they are running with? My Win7 machines don’t do the two second pause thing, and I remember all the flame wars around each previous release of Windows which were purely and solely about some unlucky chap finding their hardware platform had been left high & dry. They would declare the product “buggy”, and commence disbelieving anyone saying any different. Let’s do better this time!

Two: I find Win7 streets ahead of Vista. Network performance is much improved, though there is a lot of work to be done understanding how to get under the hood; in particular, I think the IPV6 layer which gets left on by default, has a fair bit of blame for some weird outcomes in certain networks – but I haven’t yet figured out what tests will show me those behaviours nice and clearly yet. I suspect some BT home hubs are speaking IPV6, for instance…

Three: What IS it with the assumption of dishonesty thing? Damian, comparing OS X with Win 7 is an important piece of comparison, because it’s certainly the case that MS have done the same. I’ve left my MacBook at home for this trip and I’m on a T60 Lenovo with W7 RTM build 9and 1.5Gb of RAM and a 320Gb 5400rpm SATA moving-parts disk), and they seem to me neck-and-neck for basic usability, with the usual Windows advantages for browsing larger directories: the network resource browser with the twisties on the LHS of an explorer window, though, is a direct rip from OS X Leopard. Sneering about imaginary “payments” just doesn’t deliver useful responses, and this is an important topic.

I’ve been running Windows 7 on my Pentium D 3ghz 8800gt system since the rc came out. I can appreciate that it does not stutter. If an OS did these days it should be binned. Some aspects of it are usable -the live previews is nice.

As a tool that manages my files it is dreadful. The foisted on folders are NOT a good idea. Symlinks – the libraries – have been around for a long time, and are a step forward, but not as a “You MUST use this new feature!” blurb.

Favourites is still spelled incorrectly, and, frankly has no real value to me as it is. It is difficult to customise and hard to manage.

Managing files is the real role of an OS, and Windows 7 makes this difficult.

Managing connections to non Microsoft systems is now made deliberately difficult. Pro glossed over this with a minor sentence of “You should be moving to an all Win7 base anyway”. No, no one should. From NAS boxes to Macs to Linux desktops all should interoperate without any problems.

The network and snaring center (spelled incorrectly) is useless as a way of managing network cards.

The UI is glossy and shiny and most people will swoon over that without actually considering what the OS should really be used for. It is NOT an application in and of itself. That notepad now has “the ribbon” is irrelevant.

I do NOT want windows search enabled. The few times I used it I find it wrecks thunderbird and ignores obvious filenames. It is awkward to configure and difficult to disable. IE 8 is miles behind Firefox 3.5 and still forgets proxies when it can’t find them.

Windows media player is horrid. Unstable, wobbly, requiring endless codecs to bring it up to any level of usefulness.

As an OS it fails to make easy those things that it should. Localization is a farce and generally, as an OS it is monstrous in size and foisted features that are unnecessary.

As a comparison I installed Windows 2000. By the time Win7 had installed, I had Win2k up, running, my files copied across, vlc, firefox, thunderbird all ready to go and was watching a DVD quite happily.

It was just easier, simpler and a damned sight lighter than Windows 7 to use. It also boots in half the time as well.

In contrast – I can colour code folders on my Mac. Coverflow is gimmicky but easy to use. Mouseless navigation is far more consistent. Yes there are default, built in folders but I can ignore these and focus on getting work done.

There’s little in Windows 7 that is better, or even an improvement and many things that are a big step backward. It just seems as if it’s determined to get in the way.

Confortable = Comfortable

Further to my initial blog, can I ask everyone if they’ve suffered any network connection problems? It looks like it’s a widespread issue, and I’m trying to get some information together.

If you are suffering problems, let me know if you’re running RC or RTM. And which wired chipset you’re using.

If you aren’t suffering any problems, I’m equally interested – same questions apply!

Tim Danton
Editor, PC Pro

- Used XP since it was released and have to say, not one blue-screen that wasn’t caused by dodgy Sony Vaio hardware…
- Using Vista at work, and have had no end of problems with buggy graphics drivers (this is even after SP1)… and the good old BSOD which I thought I left behind with Win98 and ME (heaven forbid).
- Windows 7??? Used the Beta and still using the RC on a number of machines and it easily is the most reliable beta/RC I’ve seen in a while from MS and has not crashed or BSOD once – even when using BETA graphics drivers.
I WILL be moving to Win7 Pro with 3 machines at home and at work.

PS. Loving the new taskbar, jumplists and revised “Favourite” folders – more practical then ever.

Steve Noel Sr….

Your topic ” Setting Up Bluetooth in Windows Server 2003 was interesting when I found it on Thursday searching for microsoft bluetooth mouse driver. Good Reading! Steve Noel Sr….