Have you heard of them?

ppl who don't know heck about it stop writing articles about. Windows 7 is not even out yet oficialy still running better than winxpsp3 on the same machines. If your hw manufacturer doesn't provide you with updated drivers and you are not able to setup the box don't blame the os. I am running win7 on 6 machines and no prob. Also the setup time is ok. Os are not supose to be inteligent but you do so stop blaming around and learn to setup a box or tell me other better os you don't have to tuneup a little. The same s.it i saw when xp came out, why don't you use win98? Aaa, because it's obsolete... You should wait the os to be released oficialy and then ask a pro about his opinion about it. If you like writing funny stories you should become a comediant.

I have tried now 4 Operating Systems on my HP Mini 1000.

the only one that provides speed, looks and support is OS 10.5.5, which amazingly supports my hardware better than ubuntu remix, and destroys XP and windows 7 in terms of usability.

I thought my netbook was to slow for 7, but this is a little eye opening.

Really hard to finds non bias'ed people on the web, and honestly, i find more Bill gates zelots than i do apple.

while Equally retarded, the windows kids lie more.

/typed from his hackintosh
//sadly my netbook runs better than yours

Grow up kids, there's no point in debating on whether an OS is good or bad. You'll eventually have to leave out whatever OS you're currently in love with anyway. *sigh*

Oh yeah, get a life and get laid, kids. It's a lot more fun than debating over this sort of topic!

5 days Win7 on my notebook (Acer TravelMate 8200, burnt twice in the past 2 years because of overheating).

No crash.
Everything works.

Last reboot (because of installation of some patches) was 3 days ago. After then, only hibernate - wake up - hibernate - wake up (already 10 times). No problem found. XP was not as stable as this jewel.

Windows XP is getting old and Ubuntu is just CRAB.
Eventually we'll have to upgrade the system and swich to Windows 7, yes, it's slower than XP but it is not half as bad as Vista was.

If you ask me, the only New generation OS that doesn't get in my way is MAC OS X.

Sorry about that, it might hurt some feelings, but it's what I think.

This is so great, I haven't been in a real flamewar for decades, well, one decade -but most every day here at the shrine of the inq the curve is really brought out. I'm sure what oldtimer wrote was, a truth, it was also inflammatory. Yey. Loved the bit about solitaire. I'm not actually participating -I'm taking this one from the sideline.

You know what: I couldn't care less what my OS is. XP works, mostly -it still crashes and bsods now and then but I do run a *lot* of media creation software, not that I love my crashes but I'm sort of surprised it even works at all. What is really interesting is all these people standing up for their brand. I drive a Mitusubishi, it's a nice car, 20 years old -it has a sunroof. When someone tells me I need new caliptors for my breaks I don't tell them the breaks are just fine on that other Mitsu across the road because that wouldn't be relevant, instead I sigh, take it to the shop and have them do whatever it is they do. Here the analogy breaks down, I am not going to do my media work on an OS that has incorporated technology from my competitors that hurts my bottom line. Protected media path. What utter trite. Had it been a car I would've taken it to the shop and them remove it.

Can anyone please hack 7 and remove those bits, thank you in advance. I am not encouraging to piracy, I can buy a licence for 7 and then remove those nasty little bits -if at all possible.

My problem is Adobe. No Adobe on Linux and I'm sort of screwed there. Have no fear, I worked it out -once XP becomes just too old for the hardware I own I'm going to bite the bullet, install linux and figure out if they have software that can match adobes. I issue here forth a challenge. Give us plugin based media creation software on linux in less than five years. I'm willing to learn as long there is something worth learning, apart from that -neither Vista nor 7 has anything I want. Pre Vista they spoke of a new and exciting non-folder based file system. I want this. This would make me convert. To whomever gets there first. I bought a Vista laptop for my mother, it is glossy, she likes that, it is fast enough to run with a couple of windows open, namely internet explorer and solitaire -but frankly that would seem the limit of what I would do with it.

Bottom line: I'll be running xp till I can no longer get drivers for it. Why: A new OS needs to offer a tangible improvement. I've yet to learn that anything has been improved upon in vista and 7.

Keep me posted oldtimer.

I'm running something called windows XP (i think XP stands for experience, or something). It has some patches every now and then, but other than that, it pretty much works. Just played some games and stuff.

Just for giggles I took some of my older machines and compared the W7 RC1 with W2K and XP.

The machines were oldies like PIII 750 Sony Vaio Z505LSK and 2.4 and 3.02GHz P4 (478).

What I found was very interesting.
Using a fresh OS without anything installed will always produce pretty snappy performance.
Installing stuff always makes windows slow down.

Comparing times to load apps and other activities like searching for a specific file produced different results based on fresh install vs. not so fresh and between the os's itself.

So what I found was that on older hardware W7 is slower than W2K. It gets worse for all the OS's when stuff gets installed.

So I think a lot of you who are saying W7 is blazing fast most likely had a slowed down version of whatever you were running before and a fresh new OS install cleaned up things for you.

Of course to be fair I also installed Ubuntu 9.04 and it beat all the microsoft offerings.

I was surprised about W2K though, I would have expected XP was faster than it.

Considering I like to keep my working computers for as long as possible, it looks like my choice is going to be Ubuntu. Although I don't think it will work on my 486DX2 66MHz speed demon. :)

ok so i thorght id give my peneth so to speek ive been running win 7 beta and rc 1 on my pc dule booting with ubuntu 9.04 now im not a man fusses much about what os i use long as it dose what i need it to with the minum of greef id have to say Win 7 flys on all 3 of my pc,s every benchtest ive done inicates it to be 10 to 15% quicker than xp and a huge 35% quiker than vista if the beta is this quick i have to say i cant help but wonder what the fuinal relese will be Time will tell im shure

regards to all and thanks for reading this
Peter Dark

Well i've got a system very close in specification to yours, except its worse... amd 5000x2 and a nvidia 7950gx2 graphics card, oh and 2gb of ram. I don't have any slow downs in performance at all, and so far everything runs faster than in XP, n i do play games. The only thing that i can think of is that you've got old drivers, but then again even the first drivers that were pre installed, were quite quicky. N i'm a student, the only thing i can fault is that the HD is a tad active for a while after startup, but thats archiving, yet i still don't quite get why its so busy when i've not changed anything, but oh well.

LOL! Nice troll job :)

I don't feed or tease the sheeple who have their noses so far up Micorsoft's back end that their tongues are poking around the GUI.

I'm still using XP. Vista or W7 are made the way they are to use Shiny Things and every other method of coercion to get people to put up with DRM infestations, and generally letting MS decide what they can and cannot do with their computers.

Linux Mint 6 KDE is looking more fantastic *every day*, it runs my media PC. It does a wonderful job with only 1GB of ram and an old Sempron CPU. Its snappy, and fast and has eye candy that is head and shoulders above anything that MS can get to work on a Quad core ANYTHING with 8 times the ram.

Roughly 90% of regular users that I've worked with complain that they hate Vista. The ones that could got XP; the ones that couldn't don't get to be very productive.

MS uses 8~10 GB of DRM because they have THEIR nose so far up the RIAA's, and MPAA's gluttonous greedy backsides that they can taste what (or who) they had for lunch.

A huge majority of the people who commented have a totally different experience than Old Timer... the guy seriously needs to retire.

You would be hard-pressed to find someone as disillusioned about Microsoft as I am. I was one of their thralls for many years, making a great deal of money off their products, but have since moved on to a more practical and functional OS.

I am loathe to defend Microsoft for a variety of very good reasons, but in this case, I have to say something must have been very wrong with this writer's hardware or installation for things to have gone so poorly.

I recently installed the Windows 7 RC1 on an ASUS EeePC 1000HE netbook, and it runs like a champ. It was as easy to install as Linux, and everything worked when I was done without any goofing around whatsoever. I mean, it was a non-event. The next day when I booted the machine, I'd forgotten I'd installed 7, and was wondering why XP looked funny. That's how little impact the installation made on me.

Subsequent testing hasn't revealed any real deficiencies, although there isn't a lot of testing you can do. To say this is a bare-bones installation would be an understatement. To compare Windows 7 to Mint 7 would be like comparing "Fun With Dick and Jane" to "War and Peace".

But, I can't say anything bad about it, really. It works, for what it is, and seems to work well. If I were inclined to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars to get some applications installed so it would actually be a useful machine with nothing but Windows 7 for an OS, I might find some things to criticize. But, as the thing stands, I don't know how anyone could bash it.

I have read all comments posted and I'm sad to realize that no one has thanked the author for such a successful article! Yes, I am sure it was written with one purpose - to get a heartfull feedback from those who use win7, not the average one but from the bottom of your hearts, and look at the number of "angry" replies!. Don't you all see that every point in the article is a poorly placed lie? Well, I thank you man for such a clever "hook"-article I ever found online about win7 :)
My laptop: HP turionx2 64 bit 2.00 GHz 4GB RAM, RC1. Hundreds of programs that I have aqcuired since win2k work without a single glitch, just reinstall "using recomended settings" if anything goes wrong. Games: Bioshock, Crysis, Far Cry 2, Halo, Halo 2, CS Sourse build 34, Dungeon Siege, Gears of War 2, Mirrors Edge, Call of Duty all versions, Fallout 3, Turok 2, etc., all work at all for the first time without single crush on my poorly lappy.
All the crap about DRM, privacy and high pricing also should be left to your personal concerns, why? because we all live in our separate worlds of our own justices, so, if you don't think you steal from MS workers it's okey, but they do think that you do because they live their lives coding their products for SALE. And if you are smart enough to understand DRM, for instance, then you certainly got it under control, so please..

I am amazed at the quality of this article. It is utterly and profoundly, absolutely, certainly, unexhaustively, remarkably and importantly GARBAGE.

In fact monkeys at their current level of evolution would probably come up something better from their rear end - I beg your pardon, chimpanzees would.

If you are going to cry about a sad little game called solitaire, you either need to get more fresh air, or stop using that 1980s mainframe of yours.

I really wonder if you are FUDO in disguise or not, you have the exact makeup. Then again wouldn't be surprised if you were really a monkey with a pen at hand.

"Solitaire is unbearable. After forcing myself through six games, I dragged the Solitaire entry to the Recycle Bin. Yes, it is that bad"

Since you dont even know how to write a review, how can u review about a game? it's bad because it's too had for you to complete. First learn how to play Solitaire then write review about it

What a ridiculous article--running on antique AMD junk and then he whines IT's SLOW--LMAO--good lord the only thing I have that is even close to that slow is a netbook. If you get decent hardware Vista 64 isn't slow and Win7 is much less demanding than that. Get a real PC, on second thought you probably would have a heart attack as thing would happen to fast for you.

As a power windows user from way back and a mac user, I actually find Win7 to be the best windows yet. Maybe the author needs to look into a new computer. Preferably one with Intel parts.

@ Captain know-it-all (Hoak). You are my new hero...perhaps you could get hired on at the Inquirer as a columnist?

Everyone who is defending Microsoft's "free trial period" open distribution of this spyware trojan masquerading as an OS seems to be overlooking the fact that you can download and permanently operate dozens of free versions of Linux, which are not specifically designed to remove money from and remotely control the consumer and their equipment.

I think the technique Microsoft is using is also employed by drug pushers (also to their own benefit and at the expense of those using their products...this is your brain...this is your brain on MicroSOFT).

Big fan of The Inquirer but clearly this article is a load of crap. Anybody who has actually used the RC will tell you a completely different story including myself.

I just installed RC1 on my old socket A AMD 3200+ XP CPU machine. It has a very low end nVidia MX4000 video card and 2GB RAM.

Ultimate runs almost perfectly, and I hate to say it but it feels snappier than XP. The only problem I have is I can yet get the task scheduler to run. Other than that it does all the meager, low end things I want it to do and it does them quite well.

But as a retired curmudgeon ... no... curmudgeon now retire, I'll likely never switch for XP. There's just no reason to. But for me at least 7 looks and feels pretty polished.

The article is crap, the reviewer is clearly an idiot.

ive been using this without serious issue, it is significatly faster than Vista and id say just has fast as XP, it looks good, it runs good, finding stuff is a bit troublesum but once you LEARN where it is its a dream to play with.

please people, ignore him, i suspect as others do its Charlie, or some spawn of Charlie

Obviously more Inquirer BS to drum up page hits.

Solitare? WTF?

I usually refrain from name calling but click "advanced" during install, moron.

Easily the most USELESS article I have read here in years. Get it together or I won't be a reader anymore.

that always cause problems. If any company in the world is really bad at drivers and software design / it is Hauppage...

then your system might work fine...

Well I've been running Win7 RC1 for about 1 week now and this is what I've seen.

System: MSI GT735 Laptop (Score 4.9 in win performance)

Before I begin I will say that even with areo enabled that the system is snappy on fresh boot. I have done no tweaking or hacking of the OS to speed it up. The only thing I have done since I've had some slowdowns is to use the Classic interface.

During install for some odd reason having a blank HDD windows decided that it needed a 100MB partition for boot record and extended partition for the OS. Quick fix, boot using USB Ubuntu and partition the drive correctly.

During this 1 week of use I've had to reboot 3 times already and not because of updates but because of slowdowns. I generally put my laptop in suspend mode when I'm not using it. With Windows XP I could go for about 3 weeks to 2 months before needing to reboot. The symptoms is that since I'm a gamer and I am used to getting around 60FPS to 120FPS in games like counter-strike and left 4 dead I don't like the system giving me a slide show (15 to 25 fps). This was never a problem with XP except as I mentioned above after 3 weeks to 2 months I would notice these slowdowns. This means about every 2nd day i have to reboot to keep performance up.

The next thing I've noticed is that when coming out of suspend mode it every so often does not give me a screen. Closing the laptop lid and letting it go back into suspend then opening the lid again seems to bring the screen back. I never had this problem in the 8 months I've had this laptop using Windows XP.

I will give it some merit though the FPS in games is comparable to XP. In some cases slightly faster (5 to 10 FPS) and some cases slower (again 5 to 10 FPS). This is an improvement over Vista which I had better FPS running games under linux using wine then I did in Vista.

BTW I only use my windows install for games nothing else. When it comes to any real work I use linux since I can rely on it more then windows. There you have it a linux guy who is giving some merits to Windows 7. I still do believe that windows 7 should not be released this year as some people have suggested since I would like MS the richest software developer in the world to actually show they are bigger and better then everyone else. Windows 7 is just not that in my opinion but it is better then vista by a long shot.

I setup a test station here at work and it works great!!! I setup the imaging software that is about impossible to get working in Vista but works great in Win7 and the 64 bit version at that. It all worked great without the arcane tweaks or the animal sacrifices needed. I was half expecting the computer to just catch on fire or something but it all worked the first shot and it worked very well. Not only that but it was FAST. I have to say that so far I'm pleased with how it is working now. Course that means that MS has 5-6 months to break it all though.

The above article is pointless and carries no usefulness in judging Microsoft's progress.

Microsoft has for once been sharing with the world what is to be real iteration of its next operating system. So many drastic improvements have been made that even though the GUI may appear similar to Vista, Windows 7 has been built from the ground up. I can clearly notice this. The performance on my Lenovo R61 has been incredibly better over XP and Vista combined, what a surprise is that. I agree with Microsoft that they have listened to their customers for once and can forecast a successful launch when this O/S comes out. Some elements have been picked up from Linux and Mac OSX, but let me emphasize here that Microsoft has taken the extra mile has done quite a well done job.

Bias reviews like the one written by OldTimer are pure nonsense and does not share the real in-depth reasons that prospective customers are seeking for. Microosft IS NOT PAYING ME to write these positive comments. I for once can see the future of Microsoft as a hopeful one. PC's will continue to dominant computer sales and there is no need to say that Apple will take control one day.

Windows 7 worked out of the box for me. 98% of all my daily software worked along with drivers and overall performance. I am quite impressed along with memory management and CPU usage. WARNING: It will take a while to get use to the new features in this operating system but you will eventually get used to it after some time. Fair Rating: 3.5/5 (3.5 out of 5)

Security vulnerability is still a focus to be worked on along with graphics performance.

Microsoft has finally introduced quality build, RC Build 7100. Try it out today!

Microsoft has for once been sharing with the world what is to be real iteration of its next operating system. So many drastic improvements have been made that even though the GUI may appear similar to Vista, Windows 7 has been built from the ground up. I can clearly notice this. The performance on my Lenovo R61 has been incredibly better over XP and Vista combined, what a surprise is that. I agree with Microsoft that they have listened to their customers for once and can forecast a successful launch when this O/S comes out. Some elements have been picked up from Linux and Mac OSX, but let me emphasize here that Microsoft has taken the extra mile has done quite a well done job.

Bias reviews like the one written by OldTimer are pure nonsense and does not share the real in-depth reasons that prospective customers are seeking for. Microosft IS NOT PAYING ME to write these positive comments. I for once can see the future of Microsoft as a hopeful one. PC's will continue to dominant computer sales and there is no need to say that Apple will take control one day.

Windows 7 worked out of the box for me. 98% of all my daily software worked along with drivers and overall performance. I am quite impressed along with memory management and CPU usage. WARNING: It will take a while to get use to the new features in this operating system but you will eventually get used to it after some time. Fair Rating: 3.5/5 (3.5 out of 5)

Security vulnerability is still a focus to be worked on along with graphics performance.

Microsoft has finally introduced quality build, RC Build 7100. Try it out today!

You're so full of shit Old Timer. I have the same exact specs in my PC at work with Windows 7 RC1 and it is actually faster than when I had XP x64 installed on it.

You've obviously got something misconfigured hardware wised or PEBKAC.

Wow, Thanks Doc, You Where Right, Crap Had Piled UP Actually My BINWIN Fell out of USB Port. Paid $700 for them, NOT Free & it merely was time when started ?Reading theINQ. Not Started, As Charlie X, My Invisible Nieghbor Already Did, Into Dep Writins'3.i BM Thru Anos structure.
LOOK At TYPE Here. They Going To CirCus For SEVEN. Look at Older Stuff, Hobbling Out of Closet, ReNewed by Faith of 7. Needing New HOT Card to Jump Start Day With. 4770, although marble shooter game card. is near Trill FLOPS. So SuperComputer in ItSelf.(fireGL Mere 100 Mil FLOPS) its 40Nm, First for Daamit. 4890, for twice Cost IS GodLt, More Goldy Than 7? (~Bilyum, Hot & Saucie, Tranies) Perhaps NOT. Yet, thePROPHET of ULTEE, that Real Persons Behind Curtain. Its "ULTEE" Whom Spawned Such Commentos. HAHAHAHA. arrghhhh. 7 IS WINNER....Ultimate Hardare Created Ultimate Updates till ALL Worked & NOW, Game Card KICKER,before SSE5+ Kicks Soft thru hard into updates thru dunnington&Bulldozier to World With Two Suns, One False & One Renewing; Again. Tyhme, Kicks IN. N'JOY.

So, why is the word Firefox ad-linked to a download for IE8?

I think the author's name and the article contend fits nicely :D

have it for 6 days now on my laptop with core duo and x1600, 1GB ram .... LOVE IT, works flawlessly.... hell,two asus install disks and bunch of drivers were needed when i was installing my xp on the machine ... now it went with no effort at all, just had to find biscam camera and realtek hd audio drivers on the net (would you believe it the window's driver updater even found proper ati 8.12 drivers automatically even though the x1 series is not officially supported yet LOL)

well I think the system Requirements is a bit low for windows 7 but overall I found it if you system can run Vista then you are fine with Windows 7 :P...

I have tried it on a Xeon (single core) system and it was oky (could of been faster) BUT i think the slow performance has something to do with direct X 11 .... and the fun and lovely buggy drivers :P

well I think the system Requirements is a bit low for windows 7 but overall I found it if you system can run Vista then you are fine with Windows 7 :P...

I have tried it on a Xeon (single core) system and it was oky (could of been faster) BUT i think the slow performance has something to do with direct X 11 .... and the fun and lovely buggy drivers :P

...when Charlie has to start using a pseudonym in order to get people to even consider reading his "articles." What happened, man? Really, just tell us who stole your mojo (so we can go read his articles instead).

Your cpu is crap, and your graphics card is also crap.

Upgrade to a Core 2 Quad or a Core i7 (or even a Phenom Black) with some nice DDR3 and an HD4850 or better / GTX 260 or better.

The reason it's running slow is because your computer is worth like 200 bucks. Get a machine that isn't a POS, and the OS will run nice and snappy.

That the old timers brain and eyes are what are slow. Installed this OS to very antiquated hardware and had none his troubles. Oh yeah, I did find some unsupported hardware in my journeys, but did work around that. So if it is slow Old Timer it is not the OS this time.

what rubbish,

it easy to tell it where to install and to partition and format

and its pretty fast on my asus eee - so im sure it should fly on your hardware!

Just to re-iterate what a lot of commentors have said.

I upgraded (not clean installs here) from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 RC when it came out.

Performance is vastly superior to Vista. As I've never had XP on the same laptop I wouldn't want to offer a comparison between XP and 7, although 7 certainly feels as fast as XP used to.

My laptop is moderatley spec'ed:
Core2Duo T5500, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 8400M.

Perhaps you need to learn that testing a software product properly requires running it on more than one piece of hardware?

Or maybe you just need to learn how to install things.....

Old Timer, if you cant figure out this OS, and 99% of your readers can, than you need to read more, and write less. Dumb ass...

I have used Windows 7 since a beta was available. It is stable, works very well, it is fast, and reliable. No crashes whatsoever.

I have switched my production machine from Vista 64 to Windows 7 RC 64. Its interface is much friendlier and addictive.

I mainly do C# programming with VS 2008. Everything works just fin, and mostly faster than with Vista 64.

Every peripheral worked immediately after installation, including a video card with TV and radio reception, printers, scanners, Wi-Fi devices, Bluetooth devices, pen drives, motherboard devices, etc. No external drivers were required. Everyone came from W7 itself. Just a video driver was updated after RC installation, but without noticiable improvement.

My PC is very well equipped for sure (Intel Q9450, 8 GB RAM, 3 x 1 Tera Bytes HD in RAID 0, and NVidia GeForce 9600 GT video card), but it is the same I used with Vista 64.

Maybe, for a less equipped PC, W7 is a slow performer, but I do not see it.

I, for one, am very happy with it and cannot wait for the final release.

I can't understand how someone with such a poor system is in the IT business. That graphics card is dreadful and probably has trouble with windows 95.

I have installed Win 7 on 3 machines now and my experience is that it is faster than XP. I totally avouded Vista after trying it out (POS). I am definitely no microsoft fan.

My advice to Old Timer would be to spend £80 getting a graphics card that belongs in this century.

Perhaps TheInq could stump up the reasies for this as it is a hournalistic endeavour that may improve this article?

That's not really a review.

Think about it - the problems identified by the 'reviewer' above haven't been noted by other reviewers, so safe to say he's having problems with his computer.

Installed on my Laptop just fine, I got the option to pick a partition, and I find it runs slightly quicker that OS X Leopard on the same machine.

Hardware I'm using is an Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4GHz, 4GB DDR3 ram and an nVidia 9400M gfx chip. I got 4.7 on the performance score test.

VMWare Fusion was also able to boot the OS from within Leopard. In this mode, I don't get the translucent windows but the OS runs along quite nicely, snapping up 2GB of the laptops ram.

So far, so good :-)

An ATI 2400 is a POS graphics card and your CPU is crap as well.
Upgrade to a Core 2 Quad or a Core i7, and an HD4850 / GTX 260 or better and you'll see that Win7 runs zippy as hell.

You don't put a new OS on ancient hardware. Period.

I have used Windows 7 since a beta was available. It is stable, works very well, it is fast, and reliable. No crashes whatsoever.

I have switched my production machine from Vista 64 to Windows 7 RC 64. Its interface is much friendlier and addictive.

I mainly do C# programming with VS 2008. Everything works just fin, and mostly faster than with Vista 64.

Every peripheral worked immediately after installation, including a video card with TV and radio reception, printers, scanners, Wi-Fi devices, Bluetooth devices, pen drives, motherboard devices, etc. No external drivers were required. Everyone came from W7 itself. Just a video driver was updated after RC installation, but without noticiable improvement.

My PC is very well equipped for sure (Intel Q9450, 8 GB RAM, 3 x 1 Tera Bytes HD in RAID 0, and NVidia GeForce 9600 GT video card), but it is the same I used with Vista 64.

Maybe, for a less equipped PC, W7 is a slow performer, but I do not see it.

I, for one, am very happy with it and cannot wait for the final release.

I agree with you.

I tried RC1 x64 on my 'vintage' PC a few days ago. The performance score on the whole was higher for RC1 than it was for Vista.

Opteron180 and DDR500 ram got top marks. The lowest score was iirc 4.6 for my 7900GTX.

As for using it, it was as fast as Vista64. Perfectly usuable and sat at around 500MB ram useage.

When I read articles like this I cant help but think that some people know jack about how to build a decent PC.

Oh hi Microsoft lovers. MS really doesn't need your protection.

They'll screw you and everyone else dumb enough to loan their OS regardless of our whining.

My Original BENWIN Speakers Blew today. CameFREE! W/ theINQ in 2003. Lets Have Moment of Pause.

4770 could be FAr Superior w/ OpemGL 3 DDR5 & Shader 4. more than firegl mentioned, except 8750 is $87.50 BIN(Buyit Nom) Was 10 Trillion Dollar stationaryCard Before Depression.

I'd Like to SEE NVIDIA Supply $100 Card W/SM4,OGL3&700Mhz. ANY Suggestions? Buyee. SEZ $200 Per Experential pOint; ESt val.

WOW .. what a rubbish article!!

You're not called 'oldtimer' for nothing are you??

Well Mr. Timer I think you're review was a steaming pile of goat's shit. I can't honestly see how you can knock the performance of Windows 7 on a machine like yours. I mean come on, you had to "tweak some settings" and it was still slow, thats just bulshit. Maybe it's time for you to visit Europe, and join a clinic which will help you to kill yourself.

This negative article is extremely weak. Nice try apple pansy! solitare? for real? lol!

Is the way to go Old Timer. Thats where you belong. Leave the future to, umm, the future.

Look at the positive side. You have Lotus 123 and you can play Doom. Yay!

Damn!
Windows 7 won't run properly on my PIII 1Ghz system with 128MB RAM!

To hell with you Microsoft, who do I complain to!

Go back to bed Old Timer, and learn to write a real review when you know ho to actually work a modern OS.

RC works fine on my X4000 single core AMD, 2 gigs of PC3200 ram, 7900GS vid card.
Low score is 4.3 because of cpu, but it works fine.

I agree on Solitaire. I imported all the files from XP's version of Solitaire and it works well.
Can't figure out why they screwed up the game so much with glitz, but he's right, it's unreadable.

It would be ludicrous to expect any new OS to be as fast as the previous versions, otherwise there would be no reason to shell out on a load of new hardware. That’s just a fact of life.

But...

Microsoft should make the transition as smooth as possible in that the OS should still be reasonable fast and efficient (this wasn’t the case with Vista).

They got it right with XP and it didn’t take long before it became the OS of choice.

I fear W7 may try too hard to be something new and special with unnecessary features and gadgets and too much "eye candy" will inevitably slow down most systems.

Microsoft needs to be very careful with this release otherwise a lot of people will fall back to XP...

Totally dumb review Asshole !

Come on, it's still RC so don't pummel it into the ground just yet because you can't get drivers for some obscure TV card. I bet my bottom dollar you haven't got Linux drivers for that card and, considering you champion Linux so frequently (if you couldn't find drivers) I would find this pretty amusing.

But even more hilarious is that you feel obliged to complain about Solitaire, I mean if that's all you can really complain about then that's pretty sad. If we look past your journalistic drivel we can see you probably have actually a far worse system than you make out (bets on it being DDR1 memory and actually a really sh!tty old Athlon? and how on earth you can call the HD2400 a "middle class" GPU is totally beyond comprehension, it was designed as a budget chip on a b*llocks architecture) then it's completely unsurprising. Win7 RC runs fine on my eeeeeeeeeeee and Dell Studio 17. I'm not a MS championer but I think they've learnt a load from the Broken OS and have made many improvements. If Win7 actually turns out well (like XP), I want to see an apology (but of course, since your mental age is about 3 we're unlikely to see this, you'll just keep chucking those toys out of the pram).

Stick to nVidia reporting, bugger off from OS reporting. You suck at it.

There's too much proof that this idiot didn't even try out 7, and also hasn't tried Vista for that matter.

If you're going to knock something, at least get your shit straight.

Windows 7 won't run properly on my PIII 1Ghz system with 128MB RAM!
Well try putting something on it that will - like Xubuntu. You can use Open Office to write MS compatible documents - wont work with Win98 or ME tho....

And I think Old Timer will be dead by the time MS write a modern OS. They write great operating systems for people who dont want to use computers properly, but after 35 years watching them take the industry backwards I can say its been a pretty if unproductive journey,

Ok, I have one work for Old Timer

Drivers

Do you realy think there would be fully functional motherboard drivers that would allow Win 7 to function correctly?

Running it on my 3 and a half year old laptop it's incredible, certainly snappier than XP, and it's even running the aero interface...on a laptop that predates Vista

You're being very judgemental of an OS that is still in testing phases, and I can guarantee you that in 1 year you will be happily running Win 7 on your main computer (unless you're a pure Linux nut)

You are obviously a retard

@OP
Next, disable your brain and you'll be just fine.

Thank god for protected video path and protected audio path.
Without them I never would have realised what a dangerous criminal I am and how I was killing the music industry with my home taping.
Ubuntu FTW suckers. MythTV!! MYTHTVEEEEE!!!!
*author is then promptly beaten to death by MAFIAA enforcers*

J1M.

Ahahaha, owned again noobs.

This is obviously Charlie checking if all the Microfail b@tches are still loitering outside his office.

Very much like zombie movies with a trapped group of survivors.

"Windows 7 will be the next Windows XP".
posted by : OZE DAVE@T.T, 13 May 2009

Need I say more?

I use XP PRO & it's as solid & stable as a brick shithouse,which is more than I can say about some of these comments & I don't get these silly Explorer shutdown messages,but even if I did,it's the OS trying to save that contraption that sits at the interface,between the keyboard & chair from itself.

XP RULES,OK?

If W7 is as fast as the proverbials, off the end of a shovel,then I will grab it,but I am in no rush & I don't like M$ spyware on my PC.

Speed,security,stability & compatibility are the pre-requisites, the tinsel can go in the trash can.

...and I still like it. Been running it from day dot, and look forward to the final release of 7.
But thats the beauty of computers, we actually have choice in every aspect, even the OS. Don't like it, don't use it.
As far as I'm concerned, every new OS is a score for the PC world.
PEACE!

the prob obviously is between the keyboard and the chair...

author should try harder...

I use Windows and I am happy with it... Windows 2000, that is. I started using it after SP3 appeared and everything was stable. Sure, it doesn't support some software and some hardware but I don't need that stuff. I run OpenOffice and all the software development stuff I need plus all the great apps. like Firefox and Thunderbird. I bought my copy of Windows 2000 outright (rather than with a system) so I can re-install it when I buy a new PC and dispose of my old PC (with suitably formatted hard drive).

I've looked at XP, Vista and 7 and they are way too slow and clunky for me. I currently run a PC that is four years old and, with W2K, it is way faster than the latest computers than my customers use to run XP/Vista. It makes me smile when I see their XP boxes display things like 'Due to some error, Explorer must be shutdown'--what a joke: the core GUI has a problem...frequently :-))

I also have an up-to-date Mac and a Linux box which are great for various things.

An operating system is supposed to be stable.

Really?

I've just re-built an Athlon XP 2000+ with 640MB Ram for a local charity with NVidia MCP2 chipset using onboard video and it absolutely flies with Ubuntu. Did you try Ubuntu 9.04, it's much faster than the previous couple of versions.

I do agree the article was a bit biased though. I'd say I'm more of a self-confessed Linux fanboy and I try to avoid using Windows unless I have to but I did give Windows 7 Beta a try on my notebook (Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 4GB Ram) and found it to be reasonable. I'm now running Windows 7 RC in VirtualBox on Ubuntu and I've allocated the VM 2GB Ram and 12 Meg video memory. After installing the native VirtualBox Vista drivers I've found it actually runs really well. It's nice and snappy and runs well. I also actually did like Solitaire. I guess if anyone doesn't like it they could extract the version from XP and run that. Personally I'm not keen on the Solitaire game that comes with Gnome, I at least want some flashy effects when I complete a game rather than just a 'well done' message.

I didn't find any problems with the installer and creating a partition for Windows 7 alongside Ubuntu. With regards to minimal installation too, I haven't seen this option since about Windows 98 (ahh the days of custom installs). I don't recall Windows 2000, XP or Vista having a minimal install option.

Not that it will matter much to most people when it's released. If most users screw up their machines they'll just use the bloody annoying recovery partition (god I hate those things, whats wrong with giving us an install disc and some drivers FFS!)

Rob

After CareFul, Caged Laboratory Specimen research Testing on Similar puters, There Are Two Good hopes. X Post Factor HS #1, Here does Streaming 3.3 on Zzzz experience Scaler. Remember YOUR scire IS Lowest ONE score of ALL & Based on 7.9 Scale, now. I Bet Your 2400, an .99 CENT eBay item today is LOW Point. As You Seem To Have All 4 Gb Running as its in it. Another Cure is CHEAP V.3100, 5200 & 3700 Fire GL Cards For Guts ,especially on Sub Mongaloid System that HAS to Install Over xp.

TURNING OFF 7 IS -=NOT=- ANSWER. Chip in ForCouole of BIG Bills/Cards. Older stuff can run Clunkies lower or earlier step up from ddr to ddr3 W/ 'Ole Tymer needing ddr2 to ddr5 Route.

HAL Renamed ItSelf: As HAL -Dpsen't BM(its on my inner name plate,'d greenone). DAVE Did. Signed:HAL.

> Your tuner issues sound more like
> device vendor issues, not OS.

Now that is just hilarious. Funny how, when people give reasons why you should run Windows, number one always seems to be the huge amount of third-party hardware and software that is supposed to “just work” with it. But when any of that third-party stuff gives trouble, suddenly it’s “not the fault of the OS”.

Come on, Dimdows fanboys. If you’re going to trumpet the good parts of the third parties, then you’re going to have to accept the bad parts of them as well. You can’t pick and choose to have one without the other.

With roughly a 10Gb minimal install footprint; Windows 7 is composed of (roughly): 7Gb of DRM, 1Gb of committee designed UI fluff that adds no form to function, 1.5Gb of Microsoft proprietary shovel-ware (browser, crapplets, mono-ware), 500Mb OS.

The 'new technology features and benefits' are all Committee, Attorney, Marketing Weenie derivative fluff that have little or nothing in the way of real innovation -- everything to do with revenue generation and marketing copy -- and carry enormous heft and bloat as a consequence.

Some of the righteous all knowing FanBoys that have to 'chime in' with petty sarcasm and insults just don't get it -- the Operating System is not an end in itself it should be a transparent, robust, secure and reliable means to running applications; worse their obviously technically ignorant as they 'feel' the OS should carry a steep hardware requirement for the imagined 'benefits' they receive.

Everything Windows 7 does can be done better faster and on a smaller footprint, even all the things it does concatenated can. I used to be a Microsoft Fan, but now find it shocking and revolting that products like Windows 7 and all the anti-competitive chicanery is the best that a company with Microsoft's enormous resources can manage...

Windows 7 is no more a Operating System then your local television network; it's a tool to separate people from their money, privacy, and sense of 'ownership' of anything digital. Put enough lipstick on the pig, tell everyone it looks pretty enough time (The Emperors New Clothes) and the sheep *cough* people will line up to pay to kiss the pig...

Having been a sysadm for a while,
and along reading ur article, I
came to the realization:

U NEED DRIVERS!

Get them from amd.com......

CadilLAC

I hate Vista, but I like Windows 7.

I have installed Win7 on two machines: OLD Athlon XP 2500+ (yes! single core) with 2GB RAM + Radeon 9800 PRO (yes! AGP – WDDM 1.0) and it works. I'm not saying that it super fast, bat as long as you don’t install any Anti-Virus crap (like McAfee or Norton AV, Avast, AVG) it’s fine. I don’t play games so destop effects 3D also works, Office works fine, iTunes works fine. Win7 works better for me than Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE. I’m sorry Linux boys, but Win7 is faster. I must admit that I couldn’t work with Vista, no possible way, Everything took there minutes

Second machine is DELL laptop Latitude D820 with core duo (not core2, there is no x64, 2Ghz, 3GB RAM) with Intel GMA 945 – 3d is slow (and always will be), but I work on it every day and I’m as comfortable as I was with XP, or even more because of new Explorer.

Well, running the RC on an old socket 939 X2 4200 with 2GB of RAM and it's working great so far. Application responsiveness when using or even just opening them up is a massive improvement over Vista SP1.

Compatibility has been good, I don't play many games but the few that i do play work well.

Overall I like the look and feel, a few things will take a bit of getting used to but things change and I suspect for the better once I get used to it.

About an 8/10 for me so far.

Have installed it on a clean drive. Thus far:
The options for formatting and partitioning a heárddrive should be visible by default, you should not have to expand the view.
Explorer mostly works, but have had an explorer restart about every 10-20 minutes.
Sound: Can't use digital out (PCM signal) and headphones out at the same time
Graphics - 3d seems fast, though every game tried so far crashed after a while (drivers?) even 3d demos from NVidia.

Control panels - I miss the options I had in Win2k ever since - why still no advanced user view?

Start menu - why cant programs be displayed the old way? New way is no where near as comfortable

Hardware:
ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA (newest Via drivers)
2 Gig RAM DDR2-667 4-3-4-1T
NVidia 8800GTS 640MB (185 WHQL)
Auzentech Prelude (newest driver)
Raid Card (No Drive connected)
1394 Firewire Card

I have installed some 5 Win7 around (Beta, RC and other unofficial releases...) and I had NO problem to direct the installer to the disk I wanted. There are 5 SATA and 2 PATA HDDs in my machine, but somehow I had no problem in telling 7 where the heck it should install. Guess you glasses, old timer, for you clearly missed the ADVANCED button, which gives you every chance to mess with your disk (delete partition, add partition, format...). The only thing that's blatantly missing is the options to resize a partition, which obviously sucks. Don't understand your downloading problems either... I've tried ANY single a/v that was available for testing with 7 (which means I had to download nearly 1 Gb of stuff) and had absolutely no trouble. Or rather... I had one, but that was because the nice a/v maker wanted me to PAY for a beta..... totally nuts! So you either need a better internet provider or.... well, you might need someone to remind you that you have to pay bills, once in a while.....

And, before you suggest it, BY NO MEANS I'm on m$ payroll: I'm still WAY too pissed about the kidney I had to sell to upgrade from W2K to XP (which was MORE than people spent for the 95/98 upgrade to XP home.... DAMN!)

I've installed and run Windows 7 on both my Athlon 64 x2 5000 and Athlon XP 2400+ both with only 2GB and 1GB respectively and both runs like a charm. A lot faster than Vista, so it's hard to believe that your 4GB pc is having trouble with it. Might be someting wrong with your HDD or HDD controller.

I have to say this is one of the most stupid articles I have read in a while, (Fatso Vs Nvidia).

I have been trialing this software on Decomissioned machines Dell Box's (Pentium 4 2.8GHZ/3.0GHZ) with a gig of ram and they seem responsive and usable and to me that seems like a huge improvement considering these machines are about to get thrown away, also attempting to use vista on these machines is almost a Drag....

I think Microsoft have made some important progress and changes to the way they interpret what the people want in an opperating system, this time they have cut all the bloat/Pig/Crap and worked on stability.

So far, on 8 machines that I have been trialing the software on (Various configurations) for a feisability report on wether our university will actualy consider using windows 7, and from what I have experianced so far, if this is an indication on what the final product will be like then I am more than certin that we will be skipping the rollout of vista and go straight to Windows 7.

but it is early days yet....

So far we have about 15% of our workstations using vista, and we have a policy that is "You can upgrade to vista if you want" most people say a big "NO".....

However, I use vista myself, and it is sluggish but very pretty, and using windows 7 is an easy transition.

I expect people will be a little hesitant to begin with, but i anticipate that if all goes well,

Windows 7 will be the next Windows XP.

thats just utter cock......installed here and arsed about with to no end with installs / uninstalls and its as fast as a hare on smack.

Andy

You clearly seem to have a deep hate for Microsoft and it seems like you have not even used the OS from your clearly biased review and to be fair I have only read crap like this on INQ, if it's so bad where are the others bashing it?

Having problems downloading files from the internet is probably down to your internet connection. I have no problems downloading large files over 2GB in size with RC or the beta for that matter.

No I do not work for Microsoft and bashed them silly for the joke of an OS Vista which seemed like an early alpha.

So far I have reported one bug with the beta which has been fixed in RC and all is running well.

The article writer needs to put his computer back in its box and send it back as he is too stupid to use one....

I have never heard so much crap and lies in my entire life.

People like this shouldn't be even writing these type of articles as noobs will read them and think the OS is shite, when in actual fact its the writer that is shite.

Just goes to show theinq will let anyone write for them, the editor should be sacked for letting that article to be posted

I for one enjoy the glitzy whiz bang animations of windows 7. the graphics remind me of ponies dancing on puffy clouds. it's the perfect complement to my Barbie dream mansion, which lives next to my PC.

thats so Windows 95. I mean that was the time when i had to decide between 16bit at 800x600 or 32bit at 640x480. And now we're back at 16bit to make the newest Windows perform 'acceptable'?.

Way to go Microsoft!

Anti-MS groups will always criticize Windows, Pro-MS groups will always praise it.

Anti-OSS groups will always criticize Linux, Pro-OSS groups will always praise it.

Anti-Apple groups will always criticize OS/X, Pro-Apple groups will always praise it.

All you can do is try each for yourself, and make your own decisions.

Wondered who would be using a system with Radeon HD2400 rather than say GF8400 ;)

It seems from the article tat the author wanted WIN7 RC to fail. I am running it on my system without any problems. The article sounds way tooo biased. Managing power settings should not be too complicated for a person who's supposed to be writing a review on an OS.

Well like someone commented above. I installed it on my Aspire One and can only say "wow" it works and with Aero. Faster then then XP Home that was installed when I bought it. Programs are fast and responsive. And on my PC (Q6600/4gig ram/raid0 HDDs/4870) it screams... Truly believe its the best thing they have ever released.

Starting to think the guys at the The Inquirer are not overly proficient at using MS products and blame MS for their lack of know how.

don't hurt yourself old timer… leave all that new HW/UI/OS stuff in the capable hands of those who can handle learning something new every once and a while.
Change is inevitable and ultimately necessary…for the living

Runs FASTER than XP on a Pentium 4, 3 GHz (533), 2GB RAM and 8600GT.

Read this:
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=11&id=2801&pg=2

I am waiting for the punchline. This article was a joke. Even if you hate MS this is over the top. If the author is trying to bash MS this article is a very poor platfrom from which to do so.

I'm no Microsoft supporter (I'd switch completely Linux if not for games and some incompatible software needs), but this opinion "article" is a bit off the mark.

I've been running W7Beta full time for some time now, and I'll son move to W7RC. Some of my thoughts on your gripes.

On this Athlon X2 5600/2GB RAM system, W7Beta at 1920x1200 and high "prettiness" is snappy and quick, at least as quick as XP, and much quicker on boot.

Your tuner issues sound more like device vendor issues, not OS.

Your computer shut down into Sleep and you had difficulties finding the settings? In Control Panel? In Power Options? In "Change Plan Settings"? How difficult is this? How old are you?

You can't find downloads easily? In Computer, and clicking on "Downloads"? Was that hard?

Firefox 3.0.10 works great for me. Isn't 3.1 still Beta? And I haven't had a single issue using Thunderbird 2.0.0.21.

On installation I can choose the drive I want to install to. I don't have to accept the default. How is this any different to any other OS? Have you ever installed an OS before?

Solitaire? C'mon! You are reaching for a whinge now!

Has the RC really changed so much from the Beta I'm using? Does the "Oldtimer" label indicate you've used computers for quite some time, or just that you're old? Judging from this, I'd say the latter. Or is this just a knee-jerk reaction that you didn't even engage your brain to write?

To be ballenced, some things I hate about W7Beta: no up tree button on file system dialogs, built-in file burning software is craptacular, I don't particularly like the way the open programs/folders/files is treated in taskbar but I'll get used to it, and of course the Microsoft patented "pointless moving around/renaming of things for no purpose" feature.

...not on the Microsoft payroll?

It's odd that you've got all those problems on your PC which is much better equipped than the Atom netbook I have it on. Everything is running dandy so far, even aero surprinsingly.

Then again, I don't have much installed yet since I'm using 7 as a secondary OS to XP.

First negative comment I read about Windows 7 in weeks/months.

Try using up-to-date hardware and not blaming the lack of good drivers (for RC OS) for OS functionality.

Nice review Old Timer. I was also not impressed with the win 7 x64 RC. With anti-consumer "features" like protected video path and protected audio path, I am off the Microsoft treadmill, and have no plan to get back on.

Linux Mint 6 with compiz is much better looking and faster on the same hardware. At least it was in my comparison.

So tell the Evil Flying Monkeys from Redmond to piss off, and start learning linux today!