Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

Here comes Windows 7, nearly three years after Windows Vista and eight years after Windows XP. By most accounts, Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Do we finally have a worthy successor to XP?

PROS:
- Fast startup and performance
- Stable
- Nice aesthetic and functional changes to the desktop
- Improved networking, power management & security
- 32-bit & 64-bit versions included
- Windows Media Center
- Windows XP Mode

CONS:
- User Account Control still annoying
- Upgrade can be challenging
- Expensive

There are only two Microsoft operating systems I've personally skipped since DOS 6.x-- Windows ME and Windows Vista. Windows ME was so terrible that PC World coined it the "Mistake Edition." Vista, when initially released, was considered to be bloated, relying on higher hardware requirements than XP, while being outperformed by XP on identical hardware. With Microsoft fast-tracking Windows 7, I decided to skip Vista altogether and upgrade to 7. This review briefly touches upon some of the key features and enhancements of Microsoft's latest OS.

PERFORMANCE & STABILITY
One of the welcome enhancements Microsoft made was start-up time. The shutdown time has been improved as well. Also, in my non-benchmarked experience, Windows 7 has been at least as fast as XP if not faster. The kernel changes and ability to run the 64-bit version probably has a lot to do with that. Most benchmarks from around the Internet seem to support my observations.

64-BIT
I am elated to finally upgrade to a 64-bit operating system in order to take advantage of more memory support and modern processors. I have Intel Core 2 Duo processors in both my systems with 4GB of physical RAM but XP only allowed 3.25GB for system use.

DESKTOP
At first login, you'll notice the changes to the taskbar. The taskbar is no longer just a place to store quick launch icons and view open windows. It now provides functionality in the form of Jump Lists, which allow you to select your most frequently opened files or links from the apps you have "pinned" on the taskbar. The clock and calendar are improved and the Show Desktop icon is now integrated in the far right corner. Other desktop enhancements include Aero Peek, Aero Shake, Snap, new themes and wallpapers. You also get gadget support. All of these features combine to create a much improved and enjoyable desktop experience.

LIBRARIES
Windows 7 introduces a new feature called libraries. Previously, your system had shortcuts to My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc. which had files residing in only those specific folders. Files can now reside anywhere on your system and be organized inside libraries. It's similar to how many music and photo applications organize files.

NETWORKING
Even as good as XP was, networking was cumbersome. Windows 7 makes connecting two or more Windows 7 systems together easy, using HomeGroup. This enables easy sharing of files and devices. One downside is that HomeGroup is only supported between Windows 7 systems. File transfer performance between computers has been vastly improved and connecting to a wireless network has never been easier on a Windows machine.

SECURITY
Security in Windows 7 is good and comes with Windows Firewall and Defender. Still, you'll probably want to invest in a more comprehensive Internet security suite, like Norton Internet Security 2010. User Account Control (UAC) has been tweaked in order to give user accounts more flexibility in controlling their own security as well as providing more detailed information so the user can make better decisions about whether to allow certain actions. Coming from XP however, it is still annoying and I choose to turn it off. Also, in Windows 7 Ultimate, you can encrypt entire hard drives as well as external portable storage devices, like USB thumb drives. Though this is a welcome integrated feature, much of the functionality can be found in a popular open-source program called TrueCrypt. If you want encryption but not multi-language support, you could just get Windows 7 Professional and use TrueCrypt.

POWER MANAGEMENT
Power management has been improved overall and you should be able to squeeze more battery life out of your laptop, even when using your DVD drive. Sleep and resume has also been improved. XP wasn't always consistent when entering or resuming from sleep mode, but Windows 7 has been perfect.

WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER
I've only briefly played around with WMC but it looks promising. It has some fun options for media, especially when you're connected to the Internet. It may even be an adequate replacement for component DVR's should you choose to use it as the centerpiece to your entertainment center. The biggest advantage for me is that Windows 7 now includes a DVD decoder. This means that I can now watch DVD's natively. WMC is available in all Windows 7 editions except Starter.

WINDOWS XP MODE
For applications that ran in XP, but won't on 7, there is now XP Mode. It isn't perfect and your system has to have virtualization support and turned on. Go to your system BIOS to check. If supported, then install Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode. Check your hardware if you intend to use XP Mode.

RECOMMENDATIONS
If you're an XP holdout, like I was, I recommend upgrading. Vista SP2 users may have less reason to upgrade but might want to just for the changes to the taskbar and the UAC improvements. For users who don't need to use their computers in a corporate environment, then Windows 7 Home Premium edition is a good choice. I'm guessing most power users will choose Professional, which adds XP Mode and Domain Join. Ultimate also adds drive encryption and multi-language support. I suggest a clean install for best results. If you're a Mac OS X user, there is probably nothing in Windows 7 compelling enough for you to consider switching.

SUMMARY
Windows 7 is the premium Microsoft OS that Windows users have been waiting for. It's fast, secure, stable, visually appealing and fun to use. Windows 7 will make your old system feel fresh and new again. New system owners with Windows 7 pre-loaded can feel confident that they're getting the best Windows OS ever produced.

Microsoft clearly understood that it was "betting the bank" on Windows 7. This is evident from the fact that installation of Windows 7 Professional is trouble-free, and the OS is attractive, easy to figure out, and easy to configure. It has quickly become a cliche' that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, but it is also true. In my installation all of my hardware peripherals (3 printers, a fax, a scanner, and numerous external hard disk drives) installed instantly and easily. Only one of my printers required me to log onto Hewlett-Packard's website, and right there was a Windows 7 64 bit driver waiting for me. This is one day after Windows 7 was released to the public -- Microsoft clearly worked closely with hardware developers to ensure that everything was ready to go. Installation of all hardware went without a hiccup. In fact, most times when you plug a device into a USB port, Win 7 automatically finds the necessary drivers and simply installs the device.

One caveat -- XP users must do a "clean install" from XP to Win 7. This essentially means that if you skipped Vista (as many did) you will have to install Windows 7 and then reinstall your programs. I did this, and it was about a two hour exercise getting everything set up the way I wanted again after installing Windows 7 64 bit.

LOOK AND FEEL.

The "look and feel" of Windows 7 is better than either Vista or Windows XP. Unlike Vista, users of XP will have no difficulty finding the screens and menus they are looking for. The new taskbar in Windows 7 is very sharp. The user can "pin" any program to the taskbar for easy access. When a program is running, the user can hover the mouse cursor over the program icon, and a mini snapshot of the actual program appears, to show what is going on with the program. Right click on an icon on the taskbar and it will show you what files have been recently used or are open. The new so-called "aero" styling of Windows 7 is very pleasant to work with. One nice little feature is a little box at the right bottom screen--hover the mouse over it and the desktop appears without having to minimize all the open programs.

Performance wise, it is not clear that Windows 7 is wildly faster than Vista or XP. Most users will probably think it is simply because computers are in the midst of an upgrade cycle, with more and more users using more DRAM and faster processors. And, of course, the issue of 64 bit is emerging.

64 BIT

Windows 7 will likely lead the charge to 64 Bit software. Windows 7 gives the option of either 32 bit or 64 bit installation, and most users are expected to opt for 64 bit. They should. This will not immediately impact most users, but it opens the door for much better performance in the times to come. 64 bit software running on a 64 Bit OS can access far more memory than 32 bit, which was limited to 4 GB of DRAM. Those of us who manipulate large digital photographs, or use other processes that involve handling large amounts of data, will notice extreme performance improvements once true 64 bit programs are available. Now that a 64 bit OS is in place, and the accompanying hardware support (fast CPUs, cheap DRAM) is available, 64 bit computing will become common; very likely within a very short time. As always, once the capability exists, we will find new uses for them. Digital photographers such as myself have been looking forward to 64 bit applications for a long time.

In the meantime, I have found that every single one of my 32 bit programs runs just fine in Windows 7 64 bit. Supposedly some legacy programs have difficulties, but none of mine did.

CONCLUSION

After running Windows 7/64 for a couple of weeks, I have found essentially nothing negative about it. It is snappier than XP, which was starting to get long in the tooth, and seems to have eliminated some of the irritants of Vista. Most importantly, I am certain that almost all users will find that their hardware works fine on Windows 7, which was not the case with Vista. Overall, Windows 7 is clearly a major upgrade from Vista and XP and is what Vista was supposed to be.

Exec summary:

Don't stay on XP, this would be a huge mistake, security-wise. W7 is an _required_ evolutionary step forward. Not a great leap, in 10 yrs, except when contrasted with Vista. Compared to XP, it has a number of frustrating issues which really lead me to question how Microsoft spends its time.

I've been working and using on Windows for 20 yrs now, as a developer and a power user. I've largely switched to Mac OS aka OSX at home (w. a Win7 Pro bootcamp on it), use Win 7 at work and sometimes use Linux (Ubuntu).

The emphasis here is largely that of a home user / home office. So why Windows Pro? Simply put, if you need to bring your laptop onto a company network for some reason, like consulting, you will find that Microsoft puts limitations on Home versions of Windows joining company network domains. Can you get it to work? Maybe, network admin is not my strong point. But easier, if you care, to just get a Pro, it'll run your games just as well. Mind you, you can always get Home and use the upgrade-from-Windows feature to bump up to Pro. At least, I assume you can.

To me, the best Windows was XP. It was a big, stable, step forward from previous consumer Windows and it could run games, unlike W2K. It was reasonably fast, didn't get in the way and Linux and Mac OS were not as polished or not even available.

But it's been 10 yrs, we have new technologies and new threats. Forgetting Vista, which I never used, what does 7 bring to the table? How does it compare to other personal computer operating systems?

Good/adequate

- General UI is adequate but not super innovative either. Aero is cute, but... so what? Full-window previews on ALT-TAB are actually distracting. Its saving grace? Gnome on Linux is so-so, I hate KDE 4.x and Ubuntu's Unity is unproven. So Linux GUIs are still lagging. The Mac's GUI is well done, but not without its own quirks either.

- Pinning programs on the task bar - like Mac OS. Jump lists and multiple windows - way better than Mac OS and infinitely better than Gnome.

- Security. The annoying do-you-want-to-allow-this prompts, aka UAC, aren't super well implemented, but they are a necessary security enhancement for Windows. Mac OS and Linux both seem to remember your elevated privileges better and don't bug you to just open admin programs. For example, I get prompted every time I run my antivirus at work. Is this really necessary - pointless prompts teach users to always click OK. Still, a welcome change.

Turning off UAC, as some reviewers irresponsibly recommend, is not terribly clever if you care about security.

- Admin vs. user mode. Windows 7 has mostly gotten programs to work correctly when run by unprivileged users, unlike XP where many required you to be an admin. Why would you want to be a low privilege user on your own machine? Security, less risk of malware sneaking itself in using your user privileges. A big plus.

- Version upgrading within Windows. Say you bought a laptop with XP Home on it. You had to jump through hoops or buy a new box to upgrade to XP Pro. This has been fixed in Windows 7. A huge thank you.

- MS Security Essentials. Nice addition as I dislike Norton & McAfee, which tend to slow machines down more than most viruses. I continue to use AVP or Avast instead, but it's nice to have the option.

- Support for Blu Ray hi-def movies. If you care about that - Apple does not support it. Linux & Blu Ray are not exactly a match made in heaven either. So Win7 wins because the others didn't show.

- Games. Games under Linux are a bad joke and have been for years. Games under Mac OS are few, mostly belated ports from Windows, difficult to find at retail and are more expensive. Again, Win7 wins by default.

- Tons of programs available. Quality is what it is but most well-written programs make things easy for the user and don't require effort to install and start using.

Frustrating

- Significant re-design of the interface, without a real need for it. For example, we lose the classic menu, we get more ribbons a la Office 2007, the configuration panel is changed. Is it better than before? Not really. Is it different enough to be annoying? Definitely.

Anyway, a big Windows drawback is it configuration by dialog box. Everything is in a dialog box, somewhere. Finding it is not fun, especially when it is buried 3 or 4 dialogs deep.

- Freezes, gray outs and "not responding" programs. Something Windows 7 never quite seems to realize is that its job, except in rare cases where the user requests a high-priority, long-duration, computation, is to... respond to the user. It is supposed to do my bidding. Period.

Windows 7 repeatedly pauses itself, or other programs and goes gray. During that time it accepts no input. And that while no urgent tasks are taking place. This is much worse in W7 than in XP. Neither Mac OS nor Linux have these types of issue. BIG FAIL.

- Encryption (Bitlocker). Available in higher-cost versions of Win7 only. Save money, use TrueCrypt instead, which has many advantages over BitLocker or Apple's FileVault.

- The DOS command shell. Yes, we have Powershell, but I fail to see what it does that BASH cannot do more easily. DOS itself is an embarrassment. Get a grip.

- Explorer. Same old, same old, except for the searches which are slow. No smart folder a la Mac OS.

- IE. Thankfully I use Firefox, but IE 9 also spends about 5-6 seconds on my machine thinking before it accepts any input. See my point about user responsiveness. What about having a NoScript equivalent for IE?

- Do we need 6 or 7 versions of Windows? Home, Pro, Ultimate. Shiny, Not Shiny. Not to mention that each has subflavors: Retail, OEM, Upgrade. Really? Greedy Microsoft.

- Expensive$$$, unless you buy it baked in with a new system which I rarely do.

- Boot time & especially boot time profiling. My Win 7 at work takes 2-3 minutes from the login to actually accepting user input. Probably due to some non-responsive login script is my guess. In XP there was a nice boot profiler and you could see which programs were taking their time. No such thing in W7, except through an entirely inadequate Event Viewer entry. You can profile W7 boot times, but you need to download the profiling parts of the .Net _developer_ framework, multiple GB, which can be trimmed down to 242 MB, if you work at it. Then you need to jump through additional hoops to actually profile. BIG FAIL.

- Event Viewer. Slow as hell, twice as complicated as the XP Event Viewer, limited if any increase in capabilities compared to XP to show for it.

- Sleep/Hibernate/PowerOff/Resume. Win 7 under Bootcamp on my MacBookPro behaves fine. It is a dog on my 2-3 yr old laptop at work. Half the time I need to shut it down by holding down the power button. And I've had that work laptop repeatedly wake up and power on in my backpack, which causes huge heat ups in the enclosed bag. Big Fail. Bigger fail yet: start a shutdown - which takes forever. Close the laptop, which puts it in hibernation. When you power it back up, it resumes where it started, which is to shutdown. Like it couldn't finish its shutdown instead of hibernating. You can't make this up!

- Some programs (Explorer, IE), now have menus turned off by default, replaced with an entirely inadequate ribbon with 5-6 icons that give you very few of the functions you need.

- Windows Update & its reboots. News to you, Microsoft, I don't want a potential reboot every time I install a patch. Apple and Linux mostly get this. You don't. Have some respect for my time.

- various. Try to shutdown a program from the taskbar and it will often ignore you. Sometimes when you get an error, you are presented with a "Windows is looking for a solution" wait dialog. Never seen any solutions come out of that 20-30 seconds wait, waste of time.

- Security. Despite getting more serious about security, Windows still gets most of the malware. Part of it is its design, part of it is just that it is more popular, so more worthwhile to write malware for. Macs and Linux can get caught out, but a virus that is seen on a few thousand machine is usually really big news, whereas Windows zombie networks can rack up 100K+ machines. Still, look up MacDefender for laughs.

Depending on your needs, skills and budget, Ubuntu Linux or Mac OS are nice alternatives.

Linux:

For someone with a technophobic grandmother for example, installing Ubuntu on a PC and setting it up for email & browsing only is quickly done. The system will be at least as stable as W7, will self-patch very well, Linux will not cost you a penny and it will run quite well on low end hardware. Your grandmother will be in the browser and the email anyway so she won't notice the difference with Windows.

For a real power-user who likes to tinker with the system, Linux wins hands down. Also good for a computer savvy person on a budget or someone with an older computer.

In between the stereotypical granny and the super savvy admin, there is a uncomfortable gap with Linux. Once you step off the beaten path, Linux often needs quite a bit of tinkering and research before you get things working. If you are always installing cutting edge stuff, you may find yourself reading quite a bit of manuals and semi-helpful forum entries. Not the place you want to be at if you just want to get on with things and not spend much time tweaking your system. On the other hand, many free stable programs are available from online repositories and require LESS effort to install than under Windows and Mac OS.

MS Office is not available under Linux. I don't like Open Office/Libre Office much myself, though many think it's adequate.

Mac OS:

Apple kit is pricey and often a status symbol first of all. But the hardware is now first class (that was not always the case before), new releases of Mac OS are dirt-cheap ($30). Macs just work. Most of all, to programmers, you have the raw Unix power available under the fancy exterior. Quite a few Linux programs run just fine under Mac OS and open source availability is more than adequate. You can get MS Office if you want. A lot of open source web technology geeks I know use Macs precisely because they just work. And with Bootcamp you can install a licensed version of Windows.

I have been using Windows 7 Professional for over a month now. (Received an early copy) I must admit the upgrade experience is a hassle but once you install Windows 7 you will be pleasantly surprised. I recommend a clean install for all users. Windows 7 has a noticeably snappier boot time than Windows Vista. What users will notice most are the changes to the interface. It took some time to get adjust new taskbar but once I became familiar with the new interface, I found it to be an improvement over previous Windows versions. Windows 7 also includes a comprehensive device drivers, I have only had an issue with an old printer where Windows 7 could not find the drivers. But with Virtual XP this was no problem, I simply installed the Virtual XP, and used my printer within the virtualized environment. I also noticed improved power management, including once of my favorite features which is the auto dimming of my laptop monitors once my computer is not being used.

Improvements/Pros/New Features
-New Taskbar interface, each program is represented by an icon for a clutter free taskbar
-Quicker boot times
-Comprehensive driver library
-Supports many devices out of the box
-Less annoying
-Virtual XP (for those who still need Windows XP)
-Networking

Recommendations
-Microsoft Security Essentials: A free antivirus program provided by Microsoft that fights viruses, spyware, rootkits, and Trojans. This program is a separate installation, and is also compatible with XP, Vista, and 7.

-Ninite: Free program that provides easy PC Setup, and helps to install Multiple Applications at once. Is a lifesaver for Windows 7 upgrades. Caveat, limited to popular programs such as pidgin, flash, firefox, skype, itunes

-FYI, if you are a student with a .edu email address, you can get Windows 7 Professional from Microsoft for $60. Just google "Ultimate Steal"

When I built a new system a few years ago, I installed the "new and improved" Microsoft OS, Vista. I don't need to tell anyone who did the same how disappointed I was. On three occasions, Vista updates caused total system failure; Yes! Microsoft updates. This required re-installation of the OS, all the apps, and usually some user data, although I save data to disks other than the boot drive, so it was mostly the aggravation, and ~10 hours wasted time.
I built another new machine a year ago, using an i7 mother board, and installed 6GB of ram, and Windows 7 Pro 64bit. I have yet to have a system crash, and many of the user niceties promised for Vista are part of Win 7. There were no monetary incentives to go to Win 7 from Vista, save the fact that nobody in their right mind would want to stick with Vista. I guess Microsoft knew that.
Several people writing reviews have compared Win 7 to Mac OSX. I see that as ridiculous. Win 7 is based on DOS. OSX is based on freeBSD, a unix OS, created to be a multi-user, multi-tasking OS from time zero. Apple has the advantage of running on hardware designed by Apple, and in my experience, is MUCH more stable than any Windows incarnation. I have 4 Apples; Mac-mini, Mac-book Pro., Mac-pro-G5, and an iMac i7. I have never experienced a system crash on any of them, and they are left on/sleeping 24/7. The iMac i7 is 2-3 times faster than my Win 7, i7, machine, even though the Win 7 machine is over-clocked CPU-20%, Memory-15%.
In my opinion, Win 7 is a vast improvement over Vista and some improvement over XP, and since I run several engineering programs requiring a Microsoft OS, I'm really happy that, on my hardware, it has been stable.
I'm still looking for the guy/gal who says "I'm a PC, and Vista was my idea... grrr!

This is the full version of Windows 7 Professional, so chances are you're looking at it because you are building a new computer and plan on putting this on it. If you're wanting to upgrade your old XP or Vista computer and start from scratch, it's not like the old days where you could only format by using a full version. Save yourself some money and purchase the upgrade version: it will still offer you the ability to do a "clean" install and jettison the old Windows baggage.

I HIGHLY recommend you stop by Microsoft's website and look the different versions over to confirm you have the right one. If you're running a computer old enough that you're upgrading from Windows 98 or Windows 2000, I don't recommend it: your performance will drop and you'll see compatibility problems, some of which may be major. If this is the case, stop by Microsoft.com, grab their "Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor", and run it first.

That said, Windows 7 Home Premium is probably the best bet for the average home user. Unlike XP Home, which made basic things like networking a pain, or Vista Home, which really seemed to only be missing some eye candy, 7 Home Premium truly is aimed at the everyday consumer. Professional is going to be more suited to a corporate environment, or if you are an individual, you will probably want Professional for a personal machine that you regularly use to interact with a workplace.

Pro gives you:
1) complex networking made simpler (for example, connecting to AD domains and/or interacting with your workplace/corporate networks)
2) "XP Mode" - which runs a program within a virtual version of XP. You still have the ability to use "XP Compatibility Mode", which fools your programs into thinking they're running in XP, but the XP Mode is an honest-to-god XP shell that runs within Windows 7. Your hardware will need to support "Virtualization Technology" in order to take advantage of this.
3) Automated backup (which can be done using free tools such as Macrium Reflect if you'd rather save the money)

Ultimate also adds:
4) Hardware-level encryption (and your hardware will need to support this)
5) Native multi-language support: which means you switch from one language to another on the fly and need to make things easier on yourself than they were when you used the Language Bar in XP or Vista

If you're a typical home user, chances are you'll be perfectly happy with Windows 7 Home Premium. If you're an avid gamer who often has to rig that favorite game *just so* in order to get it to run, you might consider Windows 7 Pro to ease your headaches. Ditto if for some reason you have a lot of older "barely XP compatible" programs that you think might be completely unable to function in just "XP Compatibility Mode" (check user forums first). And of course, if you have a desktop or laptop that you often use to connect to work with, check with your support guru, and he'll tell you whether you need to go with the Pro.

Probably one of the biggest advantages with Windows 7 over earlier versions of Windows is that it makes sorting out your networks easier: specifying whether a network is a Home, Work, or Public network means Windows will be more open about sharing across your machines at Home, easier to access your files at Work, but much more cautious about information when you're on a Public network (which means, free Wi-Fi hotspots and the like). This will help you a lot if you're jumping from a home environment to a work environment on a regular basis. It also helps Windows decide how often to nag you about security: more when you're connected to a Public network, less if you're at Home or securely connected to Work. If you dealt with that in Vista, you'll be relieved at the fewer security nags in 7.

Another huge improvement is "Windows XP Mode". If you have a program that is picky, XP Mode will run it in a native XP virtual environment. This doesn't have to mean the user has to know how to manage Virtual Machines; it can be configured to be localized to the program: stop by CNET TV, and look at the video "Windows 7 video: Windows XP Mode" for an excellent explanation and demo).

If you're putting this on a new computer that you want to use to replace an older computer, you will be happy to know that you can migrate all your old stuff from one machine to another. Search Microsoft.com for "Windows Easy Transfer": this program will let you migrate your old user accounts and settings to the new machine very simply. If you want to take it a step further--for example, you have a lot of programs on the old machine you don't want to have to sit down and reinstall one by one on the new machine--you can migrate all of them for $19.95 using Laplink PC Mover: their website is currently offering a special version that is just designed to migrate one computer to Windows 7 one time. Read the documentation very carefully and keep a copy of it handy as I've no room to go into detail on that here.

So what are some of the things Microsoft doesn't tell you in the description above?

Windows 7 isn't just "fixed Vista": it's a full overhaul of Windows based on a ton of feedback collected directly from Beta and RC 1 users (of which I was one--I let 'em have an earful and I think they actually listened)

Windows 7 does things drastically different from XP in that, like Vista, it does a lot of the eye candy in a smoother way. XP and earlier used to send graphics work through your processor before it'd get to your video card...now, it bypasses the processor and goes straight to the video, clearing up what was a pretty substantial bottleneck. This system was imperfect (to say the least!) in Vista, but it's been improved here, particularly in the area of being compatible with older games

Windows 7 is trying to slowly "trim the fat" we normally have to put up with by making itself more compatible with other devices. Where you typically have to install a new device by running the manufacturer's setup disc, installing a bunch of junk and tray icons, and etc., Microsoft is making native support more common. My sound card, for example, used to need about 5 or 6 "helper" programs that would drain my performance and occasionally annoy me. Now it's just using the drivers that came with the installation of 7.

New Operating Systems are always a bumpy road: your journey might not be as easy as others. However, compared to previous Windows releases, Windows 7 is a substantial improvement, and I'm pleased to say that I haven't been burned by 7 like I was with Vista (and Windows Me--agh, the horror, the horror). If you just want to get yourself onto the 7 platform and don't need a lot of customization, Windows 7 Home is a great place to start. If you need more for your work environment (or you are building a workplace environment), then 7 Pro is the way to go.

I purchased this Full Retail Windows 7 Professional from a Amazon.com seller called New Century Alpha,Inc. in June 2010. Condition was advertized as NEW and it looked legit. It turned out the Product Key was a counterfeit and I was locked out by Microsoft. Microsoft Activation Center verified the product key was for a "developers" code and already in use and should not be used for a Retail Disk. I wrote to the Seller but they never responded. Amazon refunded me 50% of my purchase price as I had used it on my computer for several months without any problem. Amazon also said they will remove this seller from their database. Bottom line: Do not buy anything from New Century Alpha, Inc as they obviously deal in counterfeit products.

Recently I purchased Windows to install 64bit version and run on a newly purchased Apple Macbook Pro 15" Laptop 2.3 Gigahertz I7 and 4 gig DDR3 Memory via Bootcamp on OS 10.6.8. It installed fine and use Boot Camp Windows Drivers. Running Windows runs nicely on Macbook Pro. I wanted to Dual Boot both Windows 7 and OS 10.6.8 for the purpose of being able to run both and still use some windows software that I have not purchased Mac versions yet or not available on Mac.

I mostly use it for Adobe CS4 software since I don't have the Mac version yet and also learn about Windows 7 to train other people to use it or Troubleshoot problems they may have. I did encounter installing some of the Adobe CS4 programs from the DVD's.

My over all impression of Windows 7 is very good, but find things in different places or renamed differently then in Windows XP of which I am used to since 2002. The user interface has a more glass look to the windows that pop up due to the Aero interface. Start button is in the same location as before, along with Taskbar.

I've used Windows since 3.1 and can't say I've ever been a fan. But until recently, I felt that it gave the best desktop experience around. Vista was a huge disappointment. I never bothered with the flashy Aero interface, nor have I with Windows 7, so I have little to say on the matter except the more I can make my GUI look like Windows 95, the happier I am.

What ticks me off most about the post XP OSes, and to a lesser extent with the previous releases, is that the OS fundamentals; security, user management, file management, networking, etc. don't make a lot on sense. Too much complexity and a slavish refusal to remove crufty features have created an OS that is more legacy than new. And that's a huge problem, because the system is too difficult to learn and properly maintain, even for a computer expert.

For instance, I have to click through three dialogs just to figure out who owns a file. Permissions are granted through a completely opaque process, and I have yet to figure out what is special about a junction, and why we need them vs. the classic shortcuts. All I know is I have icons on my system for which I theoretically have privileges as an administrator that I can't access without of going through all sorts of strange hoops. Ironically, in my experience, the Linux security model is really quite a bit simpler and more intuitive to use.

Like many, I had hoped Microsoft would have fixed Vista's problems with Windows 7, but they opted for building DVRs and eye candy and all sorts of things into an operating system that don't belong, instead of focusing on managing the basic functionality of a computer.

I only switch to Win 7 because I just built a very fast PC about a month ago, So this XP vs Win 7 is a little unfair. After my initial install (Win 7 Pro) I was wondering why I even bothered. But, I figured might as well go on with it.
I have been using Win 7 pro for about a month now, I have installed and reinstalled it 4x just to see if there is any problem, so far it is stable and fast, I also tweaked the registry, and there are a few things that I miss with XP, full control of icons, and thumbnails features on folders.. I like the flip3d on 7, I think to really appreciate it a little more than the Xp is to use the Virtual XP, only then you can compare the esthetic between the 2 OS,I do understand it is not a direct comparison, simply because Virtual XP is not a full Operating system running by itself but it is fast switch between two stages. I do not have problems with the apps that I run on XP, haven't encountered any compatibilty issues, of course I had to download 64 bits patches which is expected. I cannot find any negative issues just yet. Also on my final install, I have eliminated the Virtual XP mode since I really do not need it now... If you are skeptical about moving from XP to Win 7 because of older hardware, then stick with XP, because it has proven itself reliable.I could add more about new features, but I think that is well covered up by others already...