Windows 7 Review

4 July 2009 Update. I downloaded the trial version of the new Windows 7 operating system and this is probably one of the first evaluations or reviews on the internet. My first impressions are that it is fast, impressive, smooth, stable, and really astonishing when compared to Vista. I had some problems with the audio, but it is now working well. No other problems yet.

The version of Windows 7 available to developers, called Windows 7 RC, is Windows 7 Ultimate. The trial version will work until March of 2010, so there is still plenty of time to experiment with it. It has the kitchen sink, as it were, all the features and options Microsoft could throw at your computer. The presentation is terrific. It is easy to use. I had no trouble installing my old software. The improved program compatibility attributes may not be available in lesser versions of W7, so I would have preferred to experiment with a Home Basic edition. My Logitech mouse software for XP caused Vista to crash hard, such that I had to start all over and reinstall Vista, (but I ended up installing XP again later). I had no problems with W7. I think W7 is light-years ahead of Vista. I do not play games on my computer, but I would expect games to perform at least as well on W7 as on XP.

I am using an older computer, an Asus a8n-sli with an AMD 3500+ processor and one Gig. of DDR400 memory. The way W7 handles memory usage is the best ever. I installed Flock, Mozilla Firefox, Seamonkey, as well as experimenting with Internet Explorer 8, already in W7. My wireless adaptor was recognized instantly, and I had no trouble connecting to the internet. When I tested my internet performance in PCPitstop.com, the performance numbers were the highest I have ever seen on any of my computers in the last five years. Browser performance was instantaneous, and most webpages loaded as quickly as I have ever seen. Microsoft obviously put a lot of work into this operating system. Despite opening numerous webpages, Flock would not crash, as it does in my other computer with XP, no matter how far I pushed the limits. The internet experience in W7 is the best ever, in my opinion. Despite hours of trying to get my browser and my computer to crash, it did not. Maybe somebody else will prove me wrong.

After some hours of surfing the net, I wanted to see what information W7 had gathered about my activities. I found a huge number of files in my Temporary Internet Files folder; I cannot even count that high. I found 26 (twenty-six) index.dat files with lists of websites visited and every other activity, files opened, programs used. The issue of personal privacy would be of concern to someone who did not want his wife to find out what websites he has visited or whom else he has sent private messages to. Anyone with kids, who might download music or other files that they were not supposed to download, would be concerned about the trail of backup files on his computer, even after all the downloaded files were deleted. I was unable to view files in hidden folders in W7 as I could with XP, so obviously W7 does not want you to know what hidden files it has and where it collects data that it does not want you to know about. George Orwell would be proud.

To summarize: Windows 7 Ultimate is undoubtedly the best operating system Microsoft has ever produced, in my opinion, with five stars out of five all the way, if you are a saint. Gloria in excelsis Deo. If you are a saint with a wife and kids, stay with XP. If you are a flawed saint or are human, XP is your best bet. Your priest may be able to absolve you of your sins, but your computer will keep detailed catalogs of every pure and impure thought, which is even more true with W7 than with XP. You could also consider the Linux Ubuntu operating system, which can be downloaded for free. There is another software called Wubi that makes it easy to install Ubuntu from within the Windows operating system.

24 August 2009 Update. As a computer enthusiast, I have purchased a copy of Windows 7 for one of my computers. It continues to work very well. I have turned off all the fancy eye-candy, adjusting the settings for best performance. It continues to be a vast improvement over Vista, but not quite as fast as XP SP1, which is what I will continue to use on my main computer. When I install Windows, the first thing I do, before connecting to the internet, is to turn off all automatic updates. While that may concern those who worry about viruses, I must say that I have had far fewer problems with viruses than I have had with Windows, particularly Windows Automatic Updates and System Restore. I do, however, protect my computer from viruses by using a firewall from Zonealarm, which you can download for free.

1 November 2009 Update. My new Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade finally arrived from Amazon and I have installed it on my newest computer, the Phenom above. I discovered immediately that the upgrade only works from the much-maligned Vista, not from XP. This did not affect me because I always opt to perform a clean installation, having had so much trouble with Microsoft upgrades and updates in the past, but many XP customers will be extremely upset. If you have XP, you should therefore not change to Windows 7. After formating the hard drive, the clean installation went smoothly. However, it took a long time to install and took up a lot of space. Whereas XP uses about 3.6 Gig, W7 uses about 20 Gig. Considering that W7 is not a new system, but merely an even more bloated version (6.1) than Vista (6.0), XP (5.1), Windows 2000 Pro (5.0), and NT (4.0), the bloating has resulted in obesity. W7 did not give me 30 days to activate it over the internet, in order to give me time to make sure the installation went well before I activated it. W7 wanted me to activate it after only one hour. I believe the reason why W7 does not allow upgrades from XP is in order to make everybody reinstall all their software, thereby reducing unauthorized use by those who do not have the installation disks. This is Microsoft's way of giving the software industry a boost, while simultaneously increasing their irate customer base from including all ME and Vista customers to including all XP customers as well. Maybe they chose to allow upgrades from Vista because Vista was so awful that customers were demanding to "downgrade" to XP and they did not want to anger their customers any further. In fact, Vista was so awful that every Vista customer should get a free upgrade to XP or to Windows 7, or a full refund for Vista, though I am not holding my breath, waiting for that to happen. I never got a refund for Windows ME.

64 bit W7 on my Phenom works wonderfully well, and fast, even with all the eye-candy turned on! It is stable and appears to have fixed almost all the problems Vista had. However, I have some software from ten years ago that I still use and would like to continue to use because this software is small and fast and it does everything I want. Some of that old software will not work on W7 because the gods at Microsoft said no. In XP, I can choose the classic menu option, so that the menu works like Windows 98. The classic menu option was even available in Vista, but not W7: I would like the gods at Microsoft to cut out the nonsense and fix W7 so that it can look and feel like XP or even Windows 98 if the customer wants it that way.

My Phenom is great for experiments and pushing the limits. However, for everyday use, I use an older computer, which does everything I want and is more than fast enough. My main computer will continue to use XP. Since my last comment, I have downloaded and installed Service Pack 3 and Internet Explorer 8, which have resulted in a considerable improvement in performance. These upgrades should be installed as soon as Windows has been installed and before other software is installed, for best results.

In summary, if you own one computer, I recommend XP SP3. If you have more than one computer and have a 64 bit computer, the new Windows 7 with 64 bit is very good.

Why I Still Like XP

Windows XP is still my first choice. I am still using the copy of XP Home Edition that I bought in 2002. All I need to do is install SP3 and IE8, (see links below). After spending all day installing XP and all my other software, the space occupied on my hard drive is still less than 4 Gig. I can then create an image of my hard drive on a DVD, once I have made my computer exactly the way I want it, using Norton Ghost from Norton System Works Pro 2003. NSW Pro 2003 is the one you want because NSW Pro 2004 does not have Ghost. Get it on shamazon or fleabay. Ghost is the only software on the disk that I use. When I experience problems with my computer, I can install the image from the DVD in about twenty minutes and my computer is perfect again, with all my software, saving me hours of time and work. I cannot do this with Vista nor W7, which means I must spend hours installing every piece of software every time I install those operating systems. What a joke. This is important because Windows seems to deteriorate over time, so that my computer gradually becomes slower, with the result that I install Windows about every six months. Norton Ghost makes it easy. (By the way, you need a floppy drive for Norton Ghost. When using Ghost, I get the best results when I use a SATA DVD burner and and IDE hard drive.)

When you buy a computer with Windows, you should buy Windows XP separately so that you can have the Windows disk and can install Windows on your next computer in the future without having to pay for Windows again and again. If you must buy a computer with Windows already installed, make sure you get the Windows disk and license that you have paid for: no disk should mean no sale. Laptop computers have become very popular, but I recommend desktop computers because a replacement screen for a laptop costs as much as a new laptop in many cases, forcing you to buy a new computer and a new copy of Windows. If your job or your school does not require a laptop as essential, a desktop computer will be less costly in the longer run.

10 January 2010 Update: After three months, the performance of Windows 7 began to deteriorate gradually. No matter which browser I used, my browser would freeze for five to ten seconds almost every time that I tried to navigate to another page. This happened with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey, and Safari, suggesting that it was a Windows issue rather than a browser issue. When I finally became fed up with the nonsense, I used Norton Ghost to install Windows XP today.

Windows 8

2 March 2012 update: the Windows 8 Consumer Review has become available for download. The version I downloaded expires in January, 2013, a surprisingly long evaluation period. As others have noted, W8 is not a major improvement for people with desktop computers that do not have touch screen technology. W8 is basically W7 with more bells and whistles, including various changes in appearance and layout.

Installation was straightforward though quite slow. Starting up the computer, the aforementioned Asus M3A with the AMD Phenom 9600 Quad-Core processor, took seventy-five seconds, the slowest ever. XP takes about thirty-five seconds. You cannot upgrade from 32-bit XP to 64-bit W8, only 32-bit W8. You must do a clean installation without upgrade. I therefore chose to do an upgrade to 32-bit W8, but found that none of the programs, previously loaded into XP, were loaded into W8. Connecting to the internet was surprisingly straightforward. I did not have to install any drivers, so Microsoft has obviously done a lot of work in solving the issues with drivers. However, I could not get any sound, even though all the drivers were up to date and compatible, according to the well-hidden device manager. I tried uninstalling the sound drivers and installing the Realtek HD Sound drivers from my Asus M3A installation disk, but this failed. Windows 8 then seemed to have downloaded the correct drivers automatically from the internet, solving the problem, but I still had no sound from my speakers. I did have sound from the speakers with XP, before installing W8, by the way. Using an external USB sound card did not work either.

The next annoyance was not being able to download any software from the internet using the new Internet Explorer browser. After half an hour of trying to download something, I ended up downloading Seamonkey onto another computer with XP, saving it onto a flash drive, and installing Seamonkey onto W8. Using Seamonkey, I could then download anything I wanted from the internet.

Apart from the excellent handling of hardware drivers in W8, there is nothing else that I like better about W8 than W7. W8 is the slowest and most difficult version of Windows to use yet, in my opinion. Still unable to resolve the sound problem, I am back to using another computer with XP after only one day.

31 July 2012 update: I just got an email from the gods at Microsoft: "Buy a Windows 7 PC and get Windows 8 Pro for $14.99". Imagine that. If I bought a new computer with Windows 7, I would replace the operating system with XP. Windows 8 Pro is not worth $14.99 to me. XP is still the best. Having said that, the down side to XP now is that it works well with dual-core processors, but does not take full advantage of tri-core, quad-core, or hex-core technology.

Jovana Milutinovich has translated this page into Jugoslavian for her website. It is well worth a look.

5 September, 2014 update: for the sake of an experiment, I set up a computer with Vista, installing only browsers and Java and Flash software needed to surf the internet, plus software for a printer. It worked very well and I began to have doubts about how badly Vista should have been maligned years ago. Then I got an older Dell desktop computer with a Dell restoration disk of Windows 7 Professional. For some reason, the Dell installation worked more smoothly than any Windows installation I had ever tried, so I decided to use this computer for daily use on the internet and for email, while using another computer with XP and all my older software to build my website, edit photos and run my business. The Dell computer ran exceptionally well, as I said, but it began to slow down considerably after about three months, as I have experienced before with XP and especially Vista. Not wanting to give up, I made a change to the registry to see if the performance would improve. I got the following information for XP years ago and decided that I had nothing to lose by trying it on Windows 7. If you are having performance problems with your computer, you can try this at your own risk: it worked for me, but that does not mean it would work for you.

You can copy the following information and paste it into Notepad, saving the file as fastxp.reg, which is what I did. Then double-click on the file to merge the change into the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management] "ClearPageFileAtShutdown"="1"

The improvement in performance was very good on my Dell computer, so much so that I decided with information was worth sharing. The only downside is that my computer takes a lot longer to shut down now because it clears the page file before shutting down. If you do not like the result, you can change the "1" to a "0", save the file and then merge the change into the registry. I am keeping mine set to "1" on all my computers.

8 October, 2014 update: Windows 10 (Technical Preview) just came out for developers, and here are some first impressions, if not a review. The download was smooth, as was installation. The gods at Microsoft have been listening, finally. Windows 8 is difficult and cumbersome, which slows down productivity and is not good for business. Software is considerably easier to install in Windows 10 than in Windows 7 or Vista. I used Internet Explorer only to download Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. The internet experience with the latter browsers is excellent. Once everything is set up, using Windows 10 does offer a very good experience.

It seems that I cannot adjust or turn off Automatic Updates, suggesting that Microsoft wants to control what goes on my computer. If they wanted to, they could "update" my computer with software that would send them feedback with every word I type, every image I look at, or any video I may be watching, as I watch it. Perhaps some operating systems are more equal than others.

Now back to the subject of the gods listening to our prayers. Would it hurt so much to add a "Windows Classic" appearance option that would replicate the look and feel of XP, particularly the start menu? Complaining about the colors in the appearance of Windows 10 may seem trivial until you have to look at these colors every day for the foreseeable future. I would not mind if it could at least look like Windows 7. Furthermore, Windows 10 should be able to run all software, old and new, going all the way back to the days of Windows 95. Why not?

To upgrade or not? To paraphrase, if you like Windows 7 you can keep Windows 7. I do not see the need to upgrade to 10 at this point.

If you have Windows 8, you might "upgrade" to Windows 10, though I would prefer Windows 7. I used to have Windows ME and, believe me, I know how you feel.

It must be said that Microsoft has fixed many of the problems in previous versions of Windows, including XP, in developing the new Windows 10. Having said that, I have XP and would like to keep XP because I want to be able to keep and use all of my "obsolete" software. One day, the gods will hear my prayers and bring back support for XP on their website.

29 July, 2015 update: the new Windows 10 came out, and you can install it for free if you have Windows 7 or 8 for the next year, but then what will happen? Will your computer be disabled if you do not buy it? I had to try it on a nice quad-core desktop computer that I use for experiments. The installation was easy and almost completely automatic. I was impressed. However, then came the automatic download of additional "updates" (if this is new, then why do we already need updates?), making my machine very slow, so I left it alone for an hour and then restarted it. Then I tried to turn off windows updates and could not. In settings (start -> settings), however, I could turn off many of the apps that could provide feedback to Microsoft, or at least it looked as if the apps were turned off, as I am not sure about anything any more:

It is ironic that Windows 10 is promoted as the most secure operating system ever, with a myriad of features to prevent hackers and spyware from invading your computer, while the operating system itself collects as much information about you as it can, and sends it to headquarters, where it is sold to any corporation or agency willing to pay for it. If someone is making money on it, then this frankenware is not "free." I should add that Facebook, Twitter, and Google are similarly gathering vast amounts of information about the people visiting their websites, and selling this information for spectacular sums, which are reflected in the prices of their stocks.

I got the new Windows 10 Home x64 and it is significantly different from the Windows 10 (Technical Preview) for developers. I found the start menu to be confusing, until I was able to get it to look more like the "Windows Classic" setting in XP, which was time consuming. This setting is not available in later versions of Windows. Furthermore, I have not been able to install Microsoft Office because I cannot get Windows to recognize my DVD drive yet. I will have to buy a new DVD drive. Read Windows 10 Starts Charging For Missing Features, which may explain why my DVD drive does not work. Microsoft Office is already installed in Windows 10, but it is an outdated version from 2002. I cannot recommend Windows 10: if you have a computer with Windows 7 or 8, and your computer is working well, then keep it the way it is. Updates invite problems. If you do not have a touch-screen monitor and will not be using Windows Surface Hub or Hololens (smart glasses), then you do not need Windows 10. For my desktop computer with keyboard and mouse, there is no advantage to Windows 10 over Windows 7 that I can see, even though I was able to get Windows 10 to work very well after many hours of researching how to make adjustments to it. On the other hand, if you are buying a new computer, wait until they have Windows 10 already installed. Avoid updates. Better still, buy a used Dell desktop computer with Windows 7 Professional and turn off windows updates before you connect to the internet.

If you insist on having Windows 10, you should install it as a clean installation, not as an upgrade. Assuming you have Windows 10 on your computer and you want to disable software updates, you could do the following (at your own risk).

How to turn off Windows updates in Windows 10: Right-click on Start -> run -> msconfig -> services -> uncheck Windows updates (near the bottom of the list) -> apply -> OK -> restart. You can also find msconfig in the c:\windows\system32 folder using Windows Explorer.

27 August, 2015 update: My quad-core computer with Windows 10 is definitely slower than my old single-core Dell now, especially while surfing the internet. There is a website with a script to remove all Windows 10 telemetry updates. I tried it and tested my computer, and it worked seemingly perfectly, with a couple of caveats. I had to reinstall the Mozilla Firefox browser because it would not connect to the internet. With Cortana disabled, there is no search function to find files on hard drive: remove the spyware and the computer becomes not useful for someone who needs to be productive. I wanted to go back to Windows 7, but there is no option for that in the backup and restore menu. I will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7 on this computer. Computer repairmen are going to get a lot of business.

For those afraid of having obsolete software like XP, which is still my favorite, then Windows 7 is very good. I have Windows 7 Professional on a Dell computer and it is excellent. My productive computer for my business and for building my website still has Windows XP Home Edition SP3.

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