By Clive Longbottom, 13 August 2009 09:00
COMMENT
Clive Longbottom has got his hands on Windows 7. So what does he think: Microsoft saviour or Vista all over again? Read onÂ…
I've spent the last couple of days with Windows 7. The experience brings to mind that famous phrase: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".
Windows 7 became available for IT professionals subscribing to Microsoft's TechNet on 6 August, and, for a change, Microsoft had sized its servers so that people could download the operating system without everything grinding to a halt.
I've been running various versions of Windows 7 on a couple of laptops for some time, and have been reasonably impressed with its overall look, feel and response, as well as the fact that it actually runs the majority of applications I threw at it.
In comparison to when Vista first came out, Windows 7 did not seem to need a massive amount of system resources; it didn't seem to suffer from a dearth of device drivers; and application compatibility - while not brilliant - was far in excess of Vista.
Indeed, after the original alphas and beta of Windows 7 were released, Microsoft agreed that including a virtual PC capability for running Windows XP was a good idea. This enables companies to carry on using applications that would not run natively under Windows 7.
But back to the experience of upgrading to Windows 7. The pre-retail versions of Windows 7 cannot be easily upgraded to the full version, so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade my main desktop machine first. This is a 64-bit Mesh quad-core AMD-based system, which was currently running Vista Ultimate 64-bit.
The upgrade is almost completely hands-off: once the image is loaded up and you have said you want to carry out an upgrade rather than a new partition installation, you can go and make a cup of coffee, have a walk, read a book, or, it would seem, build a small extension.
In my case, the upgrade did not occur rapidly: it took over two-and-a-half hours. But I was relieved and pleasantly surprised when the machine finally rebooted, with everything working.
Windows 7 Libraries (Image credit: Clive Longbottom)
Now onto my laptop - a Lenovo X200 tablet set as a dual-partitioned device with Vista Ultimate 32-bit on one partition and Windows 7 Ultimate RC on the other. I decided to use the 'other' installation choice and pointed the Windows 7 installation at the Vista partition. The 'upgrade' (or overwrite) occurred rapidly, and again it looked like I had a clean machine on the final re-boot.
But then the problems began... Click here to read page two of this article
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. Clive Longbottom
An update on the experience: Finally managed to get fingerprint recog working on the Tablet: needed to get the drivers and software from Authentec's site, and disable the Lenovo attempts. On the WWAN connectivity, had to downgrade from Lenovo's Windows 7 driver to its Vista driver, and it worked.
An install on an old ThinkPad (non-Tablet) took around 30 minutes overwriting previous disk partitions and ssemed to go very smoothly.
Still experimenting to find what works and what doesn't, but generally happy with the overall performance, look and feel.
2. anonymous
Didn't you think of just trying the Vista drivers? Windows 7 is just a point release on Vista after all.
3. Damian Quinn
Personally, I like Vista. I had it for a year or more now, and I've had no problems with it. I can't see all the fuss with it. Am I the only one who likes Vista? But still, I'm going to have a look at Windows 7 and see what its all about.
4. Graham Thomas
What a useless bit of writing, what does it tell us, err that there are probably driver issues with wierd hardware at the moment, so what if your biometrics dont work they will I am sure when it ships.
The idea isnt to put it on a laptop and expect to see it work with everybit of strange hardware, thats for the manufacturers to sort out.
Yes windows 7 is very good there are a few bugs i have seen nothing major,
It is just like vista V2 except for some strange reason it does seem to run much smother,
2 hours for an upgrade is shocking. my 16 year old sone took less tha 30 mins for the whole thing. every single driver including the tv tuner perfect.
"Hands on with windows 7 how it worked for me" sounds like a date not a review. she was so well behaved on my pc, but when it came to my laptop she wasnt as sweet. LOL :)
keep up the good work.
5. Chris Parsons
I found Vista fine, too. Ok, you need a lot of memory, but that's cheap. I found it, on the whole, rock solid and unobtrusive. I have moved to Windows 7 64 bit Enterprise, it seems fine...a few things don't work, but nearly everything is just fine. It sure is pretty!