So I finally installed Windows 7 to my Toshiba Satellite Laptop recently, and for the most part I’m happy with it. I should mention that I used Windows Vista prior to this upgrade, and prior to that I’ve had Windows XP, 2000, NT, 98, 95, etc… I have had some minor experiences with the Macintosh in the ’90s, but for the most part I’ve been a Windows guy. With that said, I have to say that Windows 7 is definitely a bit different than it’s predecessors. There are some actual noticeable changes that made me take notice. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything completely revolutionary here, but it’s a little more than just an upgrade from Vista or XP. At least it’s definitely acting “faster” than Vista was, as it simply doesn’t take it’s time “thinking” as much as that OS. I’m not going to go into a lot of details about everything different about 7, but I will cover more of what mattered in how I use my PC.
Now while installing Windows 7 only took one hour on my computer, I did still need to spend the time re-installing all my programs again, and re-customizing the setups to my liking. Thankfully I did not find any software that wasn’t compatible with this new OS, which is something I had some problems with on Vista (although the control setup for my laptop’s touch pad somehow disappeared). I also like how they give you a “windows-old” directory, that saved up all my Vista stuff, which means I did not have to back up anything that I wanted to save, because the Win7 installation does that for me. After you pick and choose what you want to actually keep from Windows-Old, then you can delete all that Vista stuff. Nice.
Visually Windows 7 is nice to look at overall, with the icons and menus being functional as it needs to be. I’ve even bothered with some desktop gadgets this time (weather, traffic, etc), increased the transparencies of my windows, and I’m actually taking advantage of my wallpaper changing on it’s own (I actually like the many default wallpapers this OS comes with). Admittedly all that are really cosmetic, because in reality my windows use pretty much consists of the quick launch, the task bar, minimal notification icons on my startup tray, stickies, firefox web browser, notepad, and windows explorer.
So what change did Windows 7 really offer me? First off, the new task bar. This is definitely different and similar to what you see on an Apple OS. I did put the quick launch back on the task bar, but I’m not going to be using it as much as I used to, because now you can “pin” a favorite program on the task bar. No more needing to go to the Start Menu or the quick launch to turn on a commonly used program, as it’s just an icon click away on the task bar. From there the next change is how your many windows are going to be navigated with on the task bar. For example, instead of seeing say… five different icons on the task bar representing five different word document windows, it now only takes up one. When highlighting that one word document icon on the task bar, a smaller window will show up displaying all five of those open docs for you to choose which one you want to focus on. It’s a neat idea that’s intended to stop cluttering the task bar with a bunch of open windows, but at the same time it IS an extra step to open a particular window this time around. I do like this idea though, so I’m not complaining too much.
Another few tricks that I like is how you can automatically dock two windows side by side if you need to, which is something that I used to manually do often. The Windows Key is finally something I can see myself using, as it’s short cuts are going to be useful this time around. Switching between the desktop and the open windows is also conveniently easy to do now too, and I’m finding myself switching back and forth a lot more than I ever used to. These essentially means that Windows 7 is made to be as user friendly as possible, and I can see it actually succeeding this time compared to Vista which had a higher learning curve for some strange reason.
So Windows 7? Yeah, not bad at all.
