sprocket i/o

thomas stromberg on technology, nature, and motorcycles

sprocket i/o header image 2
← →

Farewell, Windows 7.

April 19th, 2009 · Comments

Unknown to many of my friends, I’ve been running Windows at home for the last month. It’s actually the first time in 7 years, since Windows 2000 was released. I enjoy operating-system diversity, and am always curious to see what the other guys are up to. Windows ME, XP and Vista did not impress me much, but I think Windows 7 is on the right track. I’m not sure that all Windows XP users will ever be convinced that there is something better enough out there, but I think most Vista users will jump ship as soon as they can to Windows 7. It’s really that much better than Vista, not to mention faster.

Things I liked about Windows 7 (build 7057):

  • A great selection of mature software. I really enjoyed being able to use  Google Chrome, Spore,  Adobe Lightroom, and Paint.NET, all without having to run early beta versions or hack anything.
  • MP3 and MP4 (AAC) files play out of the box
  • I like the new translucent task bar. It takes a lot of the best features from the Mac OS X dock and the classic Windows task bar.
  • Everything in control panel is very fast. If you load the Add/Remove software page up under Vista and Windows 7, you would be amazed by the difference.
  • Searching for files by name is nearly instantaneous, faster than Vista.
  • You can choose not to install Internet Explorer!
  • Snipping Tool is a great way to take screenshots.
  • Once Internet Explorer is uninstalled, it’s easy to feel relatively secure with the Internet again. Microsoft has done a lot to make Windows more secure over the years, and Windows 7 reflects this.

Things I liked not so much:

  • Like Vista, a  Windows 7 user still feels prompted to death. Most software installations have 4+ prompts. Are you sure you want to enable autocomplete?
  • In the installer, once you select a hard disk to install onto, you cannot go back to change your mind.
  • You can’t create a .bat file using Notepad without changing your Explorer preferences to show file extensions.
  • When you drag a Window toward the top of the screen, it wants to automatically maximize it for you.
  • Changing some file sharing options requires a logout. WTF?
  • I never got file sharing to work with another computer. I always gave me file permission errors trying to list the directory =(
  • Some applications have menus, some don’t. Windows Media Player in particularly confuses and annoys the hell out of me.
  • It can’t read photos from my Nikon D300 without installing software.
  • Doesn’t ship with a Flash plugin or Java support.
  • Still no clever way to insert accent characters without memorizing 3-digit codes. Mac OS figured this out decades ago.
  • No spell checking — in 2009? That’s just uncanny.
  • No way to run my favorite Mac OS X applications without a substantial amount of hacking
  • No built-in way tools to communicate with UNIX or Linux machines: no SSH or SFTP client.
  • Programs are now installed in two directories: C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files (x86) for 32-bit applications.
  • No equivalent to the iPhone App Store for finding, installing, and updating software. Apple doesn’t do this either yet, but UNIX distributions have done this for a long time. Why the hell not?

So why am I getting rid of it? Now that my 30 day trial is up, I don’t think it’s worth the $225 or so it would cost for me to buy it (assuming it is priced similarly to Windows Vista).  Overall, I had a great experience with it, and am ready to support my wife when she upgrades her Vista laptop. For me, I think it’s time to give Arch Linux a try. It costs nothing to do so.

Tags: other

Viewing 7 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    just 2 quick notes:
    http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/08/07/150257/Mi...
    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/02/16/2259257...

    I wonder what will be leopard like in this order
    • ^
    • v
    I still can't believe they didn't ship with SSH out of the box. Practically every other seriouse operating system does this, even the not so seriouse ones do. Why doesn't microsoft include an SSH server by default, or a decent client. I'd be happy if they just ported the BSD versions of these tools.

    Is this really just a unix user gripe? I can't imagine that Windows-culture admins relish having to install, sometimes quite old and buggy, third party support for this at every install.
    • ^
    • v
    One of the biggest gotchas with the WoW64 architectures on 64-bit windows servers involves applications requiring ODBC connections (unfortunately they are as prolific as ever). There are now two different versions of the ODBC client and determining which one to use can be a pain depending on the data source. To setup a DSN for 32-bit application you must use: /WINDIR/SysWOW64/odbcad32.exe. For 64-bit application you must use: /WINDIR/System32/odbcad32.exe.

    Now you've got me curious enough to run Windows 7 because I want to know if this 32-bit DSN support is carried over from the 64-bit servers and Vista.
    • ^
    • v
    Yeah, you've definitely been spoiled, my friend :-)

    >> You can’t create a .bat file using Notepad without changing your Explorer preferences to show file extensions.

    That's been the case since XP, and maybe 2000 as well... can't remember if I had to flip that switch after the last time I installed 2000.

    >> When you drag a Window toward the top of the screen, it wants to automatically maximize it for you.

    That may be useful for some but, yeah, it could get annoying after a while for someone who didn't want it. Did you find any sort of switches to control that feature?

    >> Some applications have menus, some don’t. Windows Media Player in particularly confuses and annoys the hell out of me.

    Some are just particularly hard to find, far from their normal space :-)

    As for that instant name-based file searching, someone wrote an app called Everything that'll do that with older versions of Windows, at least if you're using NTFS. It works very well, too. I guess Microsoft saw that and figured they would just put that into version 7 by default.
    • ^
    • v
    I'm going to pick at you a bit cause I think you're suffering from being spoiled =). Don't take it wrong, just trying to see where the bar is being set.

    >>I never got file sharing to work with another computer. I always gave me file permission errors trying to list the directory =(

    If you remember, when XP or 2000 came out (can't remember), they changed up the hashing and it required some screwball registry hacking to reduce the encryption level and working with the latest-greatest samba to work. If I remember right, the samba team fixed this later to not be a problem. Perhaps they're screwing with SMB again? Lame... MS -1 Kudos..

    >>It can’t read photos from my Nikon D300 without installing software.
    Are they RAW? Yaknow, even the newest OSX for PPC can't sync with my 6 year old Motorola phone either (although they support the version before it). I'm sure it's annoying but I'm curious why you'd expect this....

    >>No built-in way tools to communicate with UNIX or Linux machines: no SSH or SFTP client.
    As I have been told, Hyperterm was lost in Vista as well... MS -1 Kudos again!

    >>Doesn’t ship with a Flash plugin or Java support.
    Why ship with something that'll be an old version by the time it goes Gold? Maybe it's handy but isn't there already a problem with bloat in the OS?

    >>No spell checking — in 2009? That’s just uncanny.
    I couldn't agree with you more on this one. One of my favorite features on my Mac when I first got it. I was always misspelling their...Why O Why did they teach me that lame-o "I before E except after C" when I can't think offhand of a case where that's true...
    • ^
    • v
    Hey Mikey, Thanks for the tip! I had not seen the (x86) directory structure before, but I guess this is the first 64-bit version of Windows I have used. It does seem a bit less elegant having a 32-bit ghetto, rather than one directory. Most users (including myself) don't really care to know which applications are 32-bit. If I did, I would view info on the application.
    • ^
    • v
    The accent characters are specific to each keyboard layout. There is a US-English-International layout that turns ', :, ` keys into dead keys. Pressing :a gives you ä, 'e gives you é, doubling up on the dead key is like escaping, so :: gives you a :. Unfortunately, I haven't found a solution for Dvorak layout + accent dead keys, they only have US-International for QWERTY. No idea what support is like on other language layouts.

    The "(x86)" directory structure has been around as long as there's been 64-bit windows and SysWow6432, it's nothing new to Windows 7.
 

Trackbacks

(Trackback URL)

close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus