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Windows 7 evaluation

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Innuendo:
If you like that jammo, you'll probably also like the fact that a lot of stuff (Windows Mail, MSN Messenger, etc) aren't even included at all with the OS. If you want any of them you can download Windows Live Essentials. Windows 7 is definitely more streamlined than its predecessors.

Reports say there may be an RTM image by Monday.

johnk:
I'm disappointed to say that I share the OP's opinion -- I'm still struggling to find any compelling reason to upgrade from XP.

Win7 is certainly no slower than XP SP3, and may even be a touch faster on my system (but only a touch). But I've yet to come across any function or set of functions that makes the upgrade worthwhile. Win7 may make some techie things easier, but I know my way around XP pretty well by now. And I find XP to be very stable.

My opinion may be coloured by the fact that our household has four PCs, so upgrading is not a £50 decision, it's a £200 decision (as household tech admin, I'm only willing to manage one OS at a time!).

That, and the fact that I'm an old-fashioned guy at heart. The first thing I did on Win7 was to use the Classic Theme and switch the desktop to a plain background colour, make the icons much smaller.... Pretty soon it was looking just like all my XP installations (which, come to think of it, look just like all my Win95 installations.....).

XP until 2014, then, I guess. Can't really see why not.

Innuendo:
johnk, moving to the classic theme negates a big speed advantage of Win7 if you have decent graphics cards in your PCs as the new Aero theme harnesses the unused power of your graphics cards to dramatically speed up the UI.

Yes, if you change Win7 to look and act just like Win95 then there's no incentive to upgrade. However, give the default setup a chance for a week. I think you'd find yourself at the end of that time being very reluctant to turn off the enhancements. Aero Peek, Aero Shake, Super Bar, etc. are very nice once you have gotten used to them.

Personal anecdote time...I had to work on a Windows XP PC a week or so ago and it was a frustrating experience as all the UI enhancements and speed weren't there. After working on that PC for an hour I knew there was no way I could go back to WinXP.

I have a friend who thinks a lot like you. Once I 'forced' him to 'endure' the full Windows 7 experience for a few days he's now happily grooving along enjoying Win7. Only thing he's mad about is I didn't 'force' him to do it sooner.

johnk:
johnk, moving to the classic theme negates a big speed advantage of Win7 if you have decent graphics cards in your PCs as the new Aero theme harnesses the unused power of your graphics cards to dramatically speed up the UI.-Innuendo (July 02, 2009, 10:20 AM)
--- End quote ---
I'm trialling Win7 on a modest, four-year-old laptop (the Win7 installation said Aero would not be possible on the machine). So maybe I need to try it out on my desktop.

Innuendo:
There are minimum requirements to run Aero. If I am remembering correctly you need a DX9-capable graphics card with 256MB of RAM.

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