Win 7 Reactions

So I have had Win 7 installed for 3 days now here are my thoughts.


I like its layout and I think it has some really cool new GUI features, like snap and shake. I also seem to be running better temperatures on CPU and GPU (not sure why Win 7 matters here) and also far fewer procceses than with Vista.

I am not 100% thrilled with the new toolbar, I wish you could make it a bit thinner because it takes up a bit more real estate than I would like, and the auto hide function seems a bit slow / buggy. I also don't understand why for instance if I have itunes open, a seperate itunes icon needs to open on the toolbar in addition to the one I have pinned, seems redundant to me.

I dropped about 100-150 points in 3dmark06 no big deal though a bit annoying, but I will chalk it up to Win 7 being new.

I am really impressed by the amount of compatible software and drivers!

Things seem nice and snappy, though I don't see a huge improvement over Vista and sometimes things even take a bit longer to load. Chrome seems a bit slower in Win 7 as well but Chrome is still a early browser and I assume after Oct. 22nd GOOGLE will release some updates to help it be faster in Win 7.

 

The taskbar has sometimes two of the same icons only because it is slightly buggy and some programs don't support it. Firefox does not have this problem, but I have noticed that one of my programs, Rockstar Games Social Club (GTA IV), does have this problem, so I haven't got it pinned. iTunes is probably one of those programs that just won't work with it. However, you can have multiple Firefox windows open and there is still only one icon.

I think you may be running cooler because of less background processes, therefore allowing your CPU to do less work, and making it cooler.

However, I don't understand why your 3dMark06 performance would go down: my laptop is now way better when it comes to gaming, and I'm seeing an average of 5 - 10 more frames in games. Probably just because my Vista had lots of background processes. When it comes to clean installs for both, they are practically the same. Hell, with my laptop, I can even turn Shaders up to Medium in Crysis with a good framerate, and if I tried that in Vista, it would go to something like 12 - 15 FPS.

 

Yea not sure - definatley dropped in 3dmark tho from 9772 to 9678 ...

 

Right-click the task bar, select 'Properties', and select 'Use small icons'.

 

I'm surprised you dropped in benchmarks. I gained a notable ammount. However, I did a fresh installation with all new drivers. Did you do an upgrade?

 

Nope fresh install... win 7 prof. x64 RTM.
like i said im not overly concerned atm, I uninstalled 3dmark 06 after because it installed all sorts of crap like "OpenAL" and "Futuremark System Info" that I don't remember having before - apparently now its required for some reason.... kinda lame.

ALso 3dmark 06 did not run full screen for some reason, I mean it was "full screen" but the there were black bars on the left and right sides and the actual image only took up the center portion which I thought was strange

 

It seems as Windows 7 has improved all the things which was bad about Vista.
That's what I like! And yes, you're right. The toolbar could be a little bit thinner but I guess I will get used to it when I purchase Windows 7 along with a new computer.

 

I am going for a PC-Desktop instead of Laptop.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit just works flawlessly for me and I already getting better on it. Compared to Vista and XP, I would say 7 is the best. I will get Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit for my new Desktop too. 7 have lower resources and uses DirectX 11, as well as lower temperature. Moreover, 64bit of 7 enhanced the GPU slightly too(every 64bit OS do this) and can use more than 3GB/4GB of RAM(every 64bit OS do this).

 

Did you do this to make your taskbar smaller?

Also, you do realize that 3DMark means NOTHING when it comes to actual gaming performance? It's not really worth worrying over a loss of a couple hundred points. Start up some games and see how they work instead.

 

I like the new taskbar personally. It wasn't that much of a change over the Vista taskbar IMO. The biggest change I like is the Libraries.

Rather than having to scroll through 20 folders in my favorite folders list, they are more organized in 6 different libraries.

 

I use it. It makes it one line like Vista's and XP's taskbar.

 

I dock my taskbar on the left, where the icon size has no effect on the actual size of the taskbar.

 

lol, I never even thought of that.. mine's still on the bottom.

 

It makes it easier for me to read long PDFs.

When I'm in portrait mode, I move it back to the bottom.

 

I didn't know you could make the taskbar smaller.
I learn something new every day.

 

Big Taskbar is working great for me.
Even on Vista, I have changed Vista Theme to 7 Theme to have the large and crystal clear Taskbar.
The Taskbar function increased a lot on Windows 7 but some of them is quite annoying too.

 

I use the taskbar mainly to have access to the jumplists. The Libraries on explorer, recently used files on adobe reader, playlists on media player, pinned rdp files on Remote Connection, and pinned files on word.

It would be nice when Firefox gets Live Preview with its tabs. FoxyTabs is mad slow.

 

Yea I made my icons slower - then added another toolbar... so now I have basically a quick launch bar on the left, and my open programs are in the middle in a dock like sort of thing. on the right is the usual.

I like this because the default setup is kind of annoying when you have open programs right next to the pinned icons. Now my "pinned icons" are like quick launch buttons, and my open programs are set aside in the middle. I posted a SS in the show us your desktop thread, check it out.

(p.s. I think it looks better with small icons, more screen real-estate too!)