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Surprised by Win7

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siouxdax:
So is anyone else out there that is surprisingly pleased with Win7? I'm the average guy that uses Windows only because it's so ubiquitous and has no interest in Mac only because of the "culture shock" of switching. Actually, I should say 'above-average' guy, in that I like to do lots of tinkering and learning along the way. So when I took the plunge and installed Win7 on my desktop PC, I was dreading the hours of installing this-and-that, tweaking everything to my picky standards. But with Win7 I found myself having fun installing and tweaking, learning about all the changes and additions that this new OS had to offer. It was like I fell in love with my desktop PC all over again. Now when I look at my laptop, running XP, I start to drool, thinking about installing Win7 on it just as soon as I have my desktop PC tuned just right. (I have to have at least one machine that is 'complete' before messing with the other.) I was worried that the shiny bells and whistles would make my desktop crawl, but was pleasantly surprised by the judicious use of memory. My worries of incompatible apps were thwarted; 99% of my apps ran as smooth as silk. (Unfortunately, Stellarium isn't yet fixed to work on Win7.) The 'library' section is nice; needs some rounding out, but I love the concept. I love the total control over the system tray. I was ecstatic that my documents section was labeled 'documents', 'music', 'pictures', and not 'MY documents', 'MY music', etc. And the simplicity of C:\Users... brings on a sigh of relief.

So, am I alone on this? Is it just my heavy medications inducing Operating System Euphoria?

Dormouse:
Well, I'm very frustrated with it.

Had no real problems with the beta, but I've installed (clean install, dual boot with Ubuntu) the final version on one computer so far and it won't connect to the network (set up as a Windows network on XP, also with Vista & Linux computer). Since it's not my own computer, my access time is limited, so I can't just try things out and then read up on the net for the next thing to try. No problems accessing the internet, which is a good thing, but it seems a lot of people have had frustrations getting 7 to talk to non-7 networks. And like the Office Ribbon, getting past the wizards and buttons to actually set things up directly seems to be a very hidden option, assuming it is there. Apart from that, it installed faster than XP and without problems - though tbh I've never had problems with a Windows installation.

Ubuntu, of course, just installed easily (and faster) and just works - including accessing the network.

Ehtyar:
I would have to agree that the obfuscation as it were of configuration and troubleshooting interfaces is extremely frustrating, you're definitely not alone in that. I find that oftentimes the command line is the best way to get around it, though you frequently need 3rd party utilities or resource kits to get as deep as you'd like.

I have no experience configuring Windows 7 networking in a home environment, so I cannot speak to your issues there.

Ehtyar.

Dormouse:
I'm sure (famous last words) I can sort it out it's just that it is a relatively simple thing and should be straightforward (though come to think of it, Vista wasn't quite as straightforward as XP) and I will get access for an hour or so at a time, so I need to have the right approaches in my locker immediately or there will be another wait. And just have to hope it doesn't need a two stage solution. It's probably just a minor setting or two but it is interesting seeing so many reports of people getting 7 & XP computers on the same network (I certainly don't propose to set up a 7 network and then try to get all the other machines to join that).

MilesAhead:
I won't know until I end up with a "Home Premium" on my machine.  Right now I'm still running the 7077 build, which is Ultimate.

I like that you don't have to hack system dlls to put themes on.  Plus it seems like all I had to do to reduce the HD usage to an acceptable level is turn off file indexing and use Everything Search.

But it's all conjecture until I buy a Home Premium OEM edition or whatever is the cheapest that still has the Aero.

afa the networking goes I don't know why they keep changing stuff.  I set all the workgroup names to MSHOME to match XP.  Maybe instead I should set them all to WORKGROUP since I rarely use XP now.  But I hate to change stuff that's working.  I'll leave well enough alone for the time being.

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