More on my Win7 experience

After 8-9 months’ daily use of Ubuntu 8.X as my main OS and a few weeks using Win7 beta as an alternate OS, I find some things about Windows 7 to be better than I expected from my exposure to both Vista and XP, Microsoft’s two most recent desktop OSes prior to the Win7 beta (that I’m using about 50% of the time now)… and some areas where Ubuntu still waxes ’em all. No perfect OS. *sigh*

UAC: not really that much more intrusive than Ubuntu’s method of insuring the user really does want to make system changes or install apps. A tad, but not by much.

Drivers: the only real failures of the Win7 beta to load appropriate drivers have been loading a WinXP driver for a printer so WinXp users on the network can print to the printer connected to this machine and an inadequate driver for the Hauppauge TV card–oh, a driver loaded, but it didn’t enable all the card’s features. The first problem was easily solved by installing the printer driver on any XP machine that needed access and the second by installing the Hauppauge Vista driver from the card’s maker. No biggies at all, at all.

I do NOT like Win7’s media center software, but acceptable substitutes (Hauppauge’s own media software or GBPVR) are perfectly fine by me. They Just Work, without being irritating. Mostly, it’s M$’s insistence that I’m a crook (all the DRM crap) that’s irritating, and I’m not in a mood to be forgiving about that. Won’t be, either. I really, really do NOT miss all the DRM crap when I’m running Ubuntu…

I’ve gotten used to the toolbar straightjacket. Don’t like it much, but I can use the limited, clunky M$ toolbar. Takes more clicks than being able to easily set up multiple independent toolbars, but I can work with the parent/child toolbars. (Win98, 2K, XP, and Ubuntu etc., all have the advantage here, IMO)

Getting rid of the default “category” display in Control Panel really helps. As good as earlier Windows Control Panels–better in some ways–and better than Ubuntu management GUIs.

Network management sucks dead bunnies through a straw, but I can (temporarily) work with Win7’s inability to play well with other OSes on the network. At least, now that I have printer sharing working (though not properly, still working) I can live with it for now. I don’t like the difficulties sharing files with computers using other OSes. Perhaps M$ will work through those issues between now and the RC.

I’ve had some issues attempting to remove external drives from a Win7 session. That bothers me, since I oftentimes need to switch between different external hard drives (six USB ports are just not enough for all the USB peripherals, so I guess the “solution” is just to add more ports, eh? *sigh*).

I’ve only had one experience with OS instability using this beta, and it was my fault. Really. I tried doing something I knew probably wouldn’t work, even though Win7 warned me not to, and the OS blew up, failed, fried, died, *kablooie!* (“Where was the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!” Oh, there it was… ) Had to reinstall. My fault and I knew it. IOW, this OS is pretty fault-tolerant. *heh*

Push-Shove: between Ubuntu and Win7 beta, it’s about a dead heat on installing and using VMWare Server and different VMs. Some things easier in one or the other OS, some things harder or more complicated. Maybe Ubuntu by a frog’s hair… but maybe not. Just… different. For example, VMWare Tools are a hair easier to set up when in a client OS hosted on a Win7 box, but on Ubuntu, if a client makes setting up VMWare Tools messy, Open-VMtools is an easily-installed option. Different strokes.

Changing desktop backgrounds is needlessly complicated in Win7 as opposed to Ubuntu or even XP for that matter, but working around the limitations of the interface is a trivial and only slightly irksome exercise.

One weird thing: sometimes my wireless mouse/keyboard combo start acting hinky in Win7–keyboard drops letters I have too typed *heh* and mouse begins skipping, acting as though I either have or have not CLICKed a button I have not or have CLICKed, etc. Reboot in Ubuntu: no problems. Reboot into Win7: problems return until I re-register the wireless devices with the transceiver. Weird, and it has to be a Win7 issue, since the session in between two misbehaving Win7 sessions is a native Ubuntu session where the devices do NOT misbehave. Irritating, but takes less than 10 seconds to correct–for a couple of days–each time it happens. Maybe Logitech has a solution.

Still, this is a usable OS. “Better than Vista” isn’t necessarily damning with faint praise. 🙂

All-in-all,