Windows 7

[BrianG]

To be clear, I can for sure "deal" with the changes; it's just that this OS (or should I say POS?) seemed to be designed for the typical computer ignoramus ("press any key to continue; where is the 'any key'?"). Everyone seems to be accepting of the changes, even though they aren't necessarily "better". Just spoon fed crap from M$.

I just wish M$ would stop making face-lifts to the GUI and make changes that really matter; like run faster. And for those who say this OS does run faster: Imagine how much faster it would really be if those performance changes were made without the extra crap.

If this was my home PC, I would definitely shut more things off, but there is a limit to what I can do on this one since it is a work PC. One resource hog I'd LOVE to get rid of is Norton. What a hunk of bloatware. Aside from that, I don't have anything running that is not needed, such as all those apps represented by the irritating icons in the sys tray.

I too have used all sorts of Windows OS's: Win3.1, Win98 (and SE), Win2k, WinXP, and a little bit of Vista. I had no problem going from 98 to XP because the improvements in the UI were improvements, and not simply changes to justify customers spending more cash on something that is not needed.

I will obviously be forced to deal with this because it is what it is. But I don't have to like it.

And yes, I do know what Mac is like; my fiancee has one and I'm forever griping about that too. Biggest gripe: Why does clicking the application's "X" button not close the app? It just goes into the tray thingie but is still "running". Isn't that the same as minimizing?

On a postive note, I was able to install SQL 2000 (needed because some servers NEED to run this for now) development tools (Enterprise Mgr and Query Analyzer) on 64-bit Win7 system, despite everything I read saying it couldn't be done. Yup, this is me thumbing my nose at M$...

[zeropointbug]

Brian, YES! the first thing you want to get id of is NORTON or ANY other virus program you have to pay for, they are crap, if it slows down your PC to the point that you think you have a virus, then what is the point? you know?

Get AVG or something similar to it, they are free, and low resource hungry, plus you can adjust the amount of priority it takes too, further reducing resources.

Why don't you reinstall Windows 7? Really, brand name PC's always come with a bunch of crap on them, fresh bare bones installs always run 10 times better than a 'customized' brand name Windows install.

I have my pet peeves with Vista/W7, but I thought it was time that I upgraded (?) to the latest OS. Overall, it really is better than XP.

[thzero]

Ugh, SQL Server 2000! I'm so glad not to ever have to work with that beast again. 2005/2008 streamlined so many things that its just a bear to go backwards.

Well as I mentioned, part of the 'face lifts' to the GUI were:
a) New driver model that supported the removal of UI rendering from kernel. This is great because it means if the UI crashed, it doesn't blue screen (thats not to say 7 won't BSOD... I've done it. )
b) Aero offloads the processing of the win32 graphics API calls (GDI/GDI+) basically to the graphics card. This is great because it allows the graphics card to do what its does and relives the CPU to do other things. This was an area with one of the big issues in Vista.
c) DirectX 10 (which does more than just 3D!). To some degree these changes had to do with the new driver model too which is one of the reasons it is not being backported to XP.

In all my time, I really haven't felt the Win7 (or even Vista) was really designed for the typical computer ignoramous (can't be said of the upcoming Windows Mobile or at least whats been bandied about in the tech web-rag world). Once I got accustomed to it, I really don't have many complaints.

And yeah, Nortin is a POS for sure. So is McAfee.

Remember people didn't really dig XP all that much to start with. My money is on that within 2 years people will have forgotten about XP and Win7 will definetly be the new standard. Of course there will be people who will disagree just as I'm sure you can find a few still running Win9X or heck even Win2000!