Windows 7 - Part 3 - A Return to Apple

Posted on 2009/11/24 09:57:54 (November 2009).

So it's a month since I installed Windows 7 on a home-built PC. How have things shaped up?

Let's make a confession straight away - I didn't sell-off my Apple gear after all. I thought it might be a necessity as I'm not the richest of people. However I dawdled. Partly "just in case" and partly because I would require the "right price"!!

There's no doubt in my mind that Windows 7 is a great leap forward. It's everything Vista should have been. It has surprised me that the richest software company in the world made so many basic mistakes with Vista. In my view XP had become a very good platform for both business and pleasure use. But there was no getting away from the fact that it was getting old, despite the service packs.

Windows 7 had a few surprises. I had heard all the hoo-haa about Internet Explorer so was a bit surprised to find that Windows Mail had been dropped. (I was one of the few who hadn't tried a beta). No email client? Well actually you can download the Windows Live Mail software from MS and it includes off-line/POP email along with support for web-based services. It comes as a package with a blog-writing app and an on-line photo organizer. All are good but if I'm honest I just plain didn't like Windows Live Mail. Thunderbird became my client of choice!

Speed and stability are fine. Just what was needed after the previous version. True, some applications still needed "Run As Administrator" through the properties pane or right-click, but generally everything ran pretty smoothly.

I noticed that sometimes my LinkSys WiFi card would go to sleep when I suspended the PC and not wake up again. A restart was needed. This is clearly a driver issue and as the card is a couple of years old now and superseded I doubt Cisco will release any specific "7" drivers (the Vista one was just a rewrapped XP driver).

Hard-disk thrashing was thankfully down to a minimum and somehow re-thought. Vista would thrash away for hours, it seemed to me. "7" is a lot more sensible. My WD Caviar HD running very quietly and quickly.

For graphics I use an ATI 4670 card with 1GB RAM. This handles everything with the Aero interface turned-on and though it didn't give a particularly high Windows 7 performance score, never causes any glitches at all. I let Windows install it's own drivers instead of installing Catalyst myself. Perfect.

The CPU never gets hot. It's only a Intel dual-core 2.8mhz with automatic speed-stepping. During normal web-browsing and office use, temperatures hovered around the 25 degrees-C mark. The Gigabyte monitoring software allows full speed control and overclocking but I have never felt the need. It shows a graphics chip temperature of 34 degrees-C.

Windows software is, well, Windows software. All the old favourites work well-enough. I only found one application that would not run properly in "7" and to be honest, I don't think I'd tried to run it under Vista.

So, was I happy? Well, yes, actually. I was. Windows 7 is a fine update to the Windows marque. It really is a crisp, clean and useful system, The inclusion of some absolutely stunning desktop themes (and I mean superb) and one specifically UK-centric - I went for Stonehenge - makes using the system a pleasure...

Would I refuse to go back to Apple OS X?

No.

In fact I will probably Switch back to Apple pretty much straight away. The Apple applications I have are much better than any equivalent on Windows. My only regret is that my favourite Windows app - OneNote - isn't yet available, and doesn't have a good and equal alternative on the Mac. Rumours abound that this might change though and I look forward to developments.

All in all I feel that personally I'm an Apple Mac person now, having years experience of both systems. Windows 7 doesn't deserve many of the criticisms aimed at it beyond a general "way of working" one. True, that goes system-deep, but it's very high quality software and worth the upgrade.

Watch out OS X I'm on my way back!! :-)

Hey, Nigel. What's your new emali address. Apparently it changed.

Posted by Sheri at 2009/12/07 11:26:15.

Hi Sheri!

Yes, I've had problems with that account. It was still "live" until this weekend but for some reason I have been unable to access it. I have now deleted it, as of Monday.

I'll email you with new details etc! :-)

Posted by Nigel at 2009/12/09 20:29:34.

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