My windows 7 Experience

If you were anything like me then the change from XP to Vista was not a pleasant one. I went from a 5 year old $300 Walmart Compaq desktop with 2ghz AMD single core and a gig of RAM running XP very well to a brand new Dell laptop with a 2.16ghz dual core Intel Core 2 Duo and 3 gigs of RAM running Vista Home Basic. The Dell on paper in twice the computer as the Compaq, but I sure didn't notice twice the performance. In short Vista out of the box in a dog. A great example is all the background services it runs that are totally useless to me, and I would wager most other people to. Add to that the privilege issues and utterly self defeating UAC(Chicken Little) notifications and you get a big fat F in my book. So I spent many sleepless nights searching the web for ways to squeeze every last bit of speed out of Vista, and learning a lot about computers along the way. I guess I should thank Windows for putting out such a crappy OS it taught me a lot that has thus far transfered over to to dealing with 7.

So when the windows 7 Beta came up for download I thought what the heck it can't get any worse than Vista right? And to my surprise I really like 7, aside from a slightly glichy UI(it is a beta after all) and a couple minor issues(which I'll detail below) it runs great. For a beta it feels surprisingly complete. My only real complaint is the taskbar. I like the new look, but what I don't like is that by default if you pin shorts of your various music, picture and what not folders to taskbar they get ganged into a jump list. If I wanted to have to go through a list to get to my folders from the taskbar I would just use the start menu. To enable direct folder links in the taskbar you have to enable the hidden quick launch toolbar. Which once you figure out how to do that isn't a big deal really but there should an option to direct link folders or gang them in a jumplist in my opinion.

Issues.
Here is my current setup.

Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop.
2.16ghz dual core Intel Core 2 Duo
3 Gig of RAM
Blu-Ray(read only)/CD/DVD burner drive
320 GB 5,400 RPM hard drive
1440x900 res screen

Prehensiles

22 inch LG LCD monitor
Logitech QuickCam Communicate MP Plus Webcam
Seagate 160 GB Free Agent Go external USB hard drive
Labtec wireless keyboard and mouse
Lexmark X4650 wireless printer/scanner
Klispch Pro Media 2.1 speakers

When I installed 7 it automatically installed the beta drivers for all of my integrated hardware, which was nice, I anticipated having to search the web for them. The only issue I had with that was the audio drivers. They seemed to work I guess, the computer made noise and played audio, but there was no setup interface for adjusting things like speaker configs or mic inputs and such. So I went to the dell site and downloaded the latest Vista drivers and they work just fine, problem solved.

As far as the prehersials that required drivers like my webcam, external HD and printer none of the drivers that came in the box worked. In all cases I had to download the latest drivers from the manufactures site, which is generally a good idea anyway beta or not so that wasn't a big deal. I did have slight problem with the webcam software hanging up but Windows fixed the issue on there end with in hours after I sent the error report via a windows update. It works fine now. The biggest problem I have had so far is with my Lexmark wireless printer. From what I understand by searching the web is that Lexmark had crappy drivers in the first place and half the time they still don't work on Vista, so I don't think it's a 7 issue as much as it is a Lexmark thing. The first time I installed the drivers it gave me a warning saying that my computer didn't meet the minimum system requirements which is common I've seen that many times from software because it doesn't recognize the OS. It has never been a problem in the past. The setup wizard did it's thing, and it said that it was installed but when I tested it out no go. So I uninstalled it and reinstalled in compatibility mode Vista still no go. The third time I installed it in compatability mode XP sp 2 and aside from a few bloatware options grayed out it went off with out a hitch.