Right, before you jump on the "search bar" bandwagon, don't. I know that a few months ago there was an influx of these types of threads, and I don't care. This is specificially aimed at those who have been using windows 7 for a while now.
[small]Think of it as a mini reveiw/cry for help from those who may know as well as general interest of who's sticking with it[/small]
My experiences so far have been overall negative, I am probably going back to vista soon (I'll explain why shortly).
I decided to install it a few months ago, on impulse as my brother had a copy. I'd previously been running windows vista and had taken the time to spend 15 minutes (well, maybe it was a few hours, I like teaking with things so it didn't phase me) setting everything up, that is to say I was very happy with its performance/interface and had no real reason to upgrade. Of course, this was around the time that all the vista haters were claiming that it was "so much better" so I thought, "fuck it, it can't have gone backwards". I was somewhat right. I'm one of those few people who liked the vista interface, I dunno why, maybe chalk it up to my undying hatred of XP (I'll save that rant for another time). Windows 7 seemed to build on that. I like the layout of the desktop more, as well as the ease of setting things (though the new start bar took a little bit of getting used to, I'm used of it now though). It just works for me. [small]*edit* google doesn't seem to know anything about this problem, so I'd assume it's a fairly rare one[/small]
Unfortunately, this is about where the good news ends. I haven't noticed any significant performance improvements for basic applications, though that is probably more to do with my current computer having too much power to be slowed down by basic tasks. So, as a gamer, I was keen to test out how games play. Unfortunately a combination of ATI and windows 7 decided I shouldn't (I should probably point out that I have two of the 1gb ATI 2900XTs in my rig, not strictly the easiest cards to work with and I have to accept a reasonable amount of bugs/glitches/crashes because of this, though I got next to none in vista, less than my old nvidia 7600GS did in xp in fact). Basicially, the gist of the crash is that a few minutes after loading the game (anywhere between 3 and 10 minutes) the display drivers stop responding, and then reset (I'm sure many of you have seen the error, both nvidia and ati cards get them from time to time in vista and I imagine it's not otherwise unheard of in 7), this crashes every game I've tried. It also sometimes happens if I'm watching films in windows media player, though I think that may be a seperate glitch as I've changed some things and it's happening far less now (I've had two updates since I started using the OS and no fix so I'm losing hope, I've tried all the obvious turn crossfirex on/off, reset to standard clocks, moniter tempuratures etc). Pretty heavy bummer (this would be the part where if anyone has any similar experiences, especially in the way of knowledge of how to fix it, I'd very much appreciate you sharing).
I still have an old copy of XP as an alternate boot however, so this isn't the end of the world (though it is annoying having to reboot into another OS if I want to game). The real kick in the shins, the major fuck up that I didn't expect was a windows update bricking the system. I have since heard that there was a legitimate problem (with a security update, I didn't hear from a reliable source so there's every chance it was just my computer being temperamental). Bascially windows failed to load, and I couldn't repair it with the boot disk. Eventually I worked out that rolling back the updates in safe mode would fix it (so it wasn't a particularly difficult fix, but it still pissed me off).
So, basicially, in the two odd months I've been using windows 7 I've had more issues than I had for 2 odd years running vista, so obviously I wouldn't see it as an improvement on vista. I'd be surprised if many other people are finding it as problematic as I am, but have you noticed any general problems? Do the majority of people still maintain it's the best microsoft system available (as many seemed to think earlier)? And, most importantly, can somebody please snap their fingers and make my graphics drivers work?
[small]Think of it as a mini reveiw/cry for help from those who may know as well as general interest of who's sticking with it[/small]
My experiences so far have been overall negative, I am probably going back to vista soon (I'll explain why shortly).
I decided to install it a few months ago, on impulse as my brother had a copy. I'd previously been running windows vista and had taken the time to spend 15 minutes (well, maybe it was a few hours, I like teaking with things so it didn't phase me) setting everything up, that is to say I was very happy with its performance/interface and had no real reason to upgrade. Of course, this was around the time that all the vista haters were claiming that it was "so much better" so I thought, "fuck it, it can't have gone backwards". I was somewhat right. I'm one of those few people who liked the vista interface, I dunno why, maybe chalk it up to my undying hatred of XP (I'll save that rant for another time). Windows 7 seemed to build on that. I like the layout of the desktop more, as well as the ease of setting things (though the new start bar took a little bit of getting used to, I'm used of it now though). It just works for me. [small]*edit* google doesn't seem to know anything about this problem, so I'd assume it's a fairly rare one[/small]
Unfortunately, this is about where the good news ends. I haven't noticed any significant performance improvements for basic applications, though that is probably more to do with my current computer having too much power to be slowed down by basic tasks. So, as a gamer, I was keen to test out how games play. Unfortunately a combination of ATI and windows 7 decided I shouldn't (I should probably point out that I have two of the 1gb ATI 2900XTs in my rig, not strictly the easiest cards to work with and I have to accept a reasonable amount of bugs/glitches/crashes because of this, though I got next to none in vista, less than my old nvidia 7600GS did in xp in fact). Basicially, the gist of the crash is that a few minutes after loading the game (anywhere between 3 and 10 minutes) the display drivers stop responding, and then reset (I'm sure many of you have seen the error, both nvidia and ati cards get them from time to time in vista and I imagine it's not otherwise unheard of in 7), this crashes every game I've tried. It also sometimes happens if I'm watching films in windows media player, though I think that may be a seperate glitch as I've changed some things and it's happening far less now (I've had two updates since I started using the OS and no fix so I'm losing hope, I've tried all the obvious turn crossfirex on/off, reset to standard clocks, moniter tempuratures etc). Pretty heavy bummer (this would be the part where if anyone has any similar experiences, especially in the way of knowledge of how to fix it, I'd very much appreciate you sharing).
I still have an old copy of XP as an alternate boot however, so this isn't the end of the world (though it is annoying having to reboot into another OS if I want to game). The real kick in the shins, the major fuck up that I didn't expect was a windows update bricking the system. I have since heard that there was a legitimate problem (with a security update, I didn't hear from a reliable source so there's every chance it was just my computer being temperamental). Bascially windows failed to load, and I couldn't repair it with the boot disk. Eventually I worked out that rolling back the updates in safe mode would fix it (so it wasn't a particularly difficult fix, but it still pissed me off).
So, basicially, in the two odd months I've been using windows 7 I've had more issues than I had for 2 odd years running vista, so obviously I wouldn't see it as an improvement on vista. I'd be surprised if many other people are finding it as problematic as I am, but have you noticed any general problems? Do the majority of people still maintain it's the best microsoft system available (as many seemed to think earlier)? And, most importantly, can somebody please snap their fingers and make my graphics drivers work?
