Adding to my overall positive impression of Win7 on the one machine I usually use it on is this lil additional data point: Lovely Daughter’s new lil HP Netbook with Win7 Starter Edition. While lacking some of the “gee whiz!” graphics doohickies, the OS performs very snappily on a lappy that’s under-powered compared to my Wonder Woman’s Toshiba Satellite that’s still running XP.
And this: getting her lil netbook onto our wireless network was even easier than getting Son&Heir’s Vista computer on it. Seriously. Once the lil thing was fully awake, it
1. noted the presence of the network
2. asked if I wanted to log on
3. asked for the password/wireless key
That was it. Period. EOS. Stick a fork in it. Took much longer to writing this short lil note.
Now, all I need to do to let her have access to some of my peripherals (when I’m booted into Win7) is to send her the Home Group password. Setting her up to use SAMBA-shared resources when this compy is running Ubuntu will be slightly more interesting, though not by much.
Every exposure to the new offering from M$ that I’ve had keeps telling me it’s more than just “good enough”. Next lil project? Installing it on my Wonder Woman’s lil lappy.
Yes! finally…i think it will be amazing!
Well, Tonia, I was never very impressed with XP or Vista, either one. I never had issues with Win2K. I switched from Win2K to Ubuntu for my main machine only when I got a new box that the 64-bit Ubuntu could handle better. (I ran XP and Win2K and Win98 and a couple other OSes in VMs in the Ubuntu install for quite a while, though.) Still, running that same machine in a dual boot config with Win7 and comparing features, usability and stability between Ubuntu and Win7, Win7 has compared favorably with Ubuntu, even “winning” in some areas of use.
I think it will do well, even in today’s slower market conditions. My Lovely Daughter’s new netbook demonstrates some of the reasons why. 🙂 Next up, I may just purchase a “family pack” of upgrades, or even a M$ Technet subscription (for multi-downloads of non-time-limited, full version M$ softwares, including WIn7 Pro and Ultimate, Server 2008, and more. Could be my “best buy”).
I think it all really needs to be put into perspective. Win7 is pretty damned nice (for Windows). It seems to be really usable (for Windows). It also sems to be rather stable (for Windows).
AG: Exactly! It’s a good fit for my Wonder Woman and many of the folks I consult for, but it’s not quite good enough for everything I want (save for HTPC, where it is just good enough, where even Linux MCE isn’t and previous versions of WMC certainly weren’t).
Over the next few months, granted I have the time from other interests, I think I’d like to build an HTPC for our entertainment center (although first I have to do some “furniture hacks” to the existing EC furniture for my Wonder Woman so that a new larger LCD will fit the space–and for that I also need to get some tools back from a house I’ve been “spare-timing” for Lovely Daughter and her beau). Son&Heir asked me again the other day if I’d gotten A Round Toit on my long-shelved plan to convert an old XBox into a media director and I had to confess I’d just found the power chord… *sigh* (I made the necessary simple hardware hacks to a controller cable to install the exploits for a softmod, and I’ve even got the softmod loaded onto a XBox memory module, but… here I am with some time and nodding off after only 2 beers. *heh*)
Still, even though I’ve enjoyed the Ubuntu 9.10 betas and plan on a fresh install of the 9.10 code when the gold code is released in a couple of days, I will probably shell out for a M$ Technet subscription, since I’ve had cause to consult w/several small businesses recently where a server setup would help ’em a lot, and I’m still getting some resistance from these businesses to Linux anything. That pretty well means I’d need to improve my knowledge of and exposure to MS Server 2008, anyway. Hmmm, may have to put off the HTPC a bit while I build a Win Server 2008 box to play with for a while. *sigh* Oh! I could do both!
But all that has to wait on other projects–some worth $$ and some notsomuch. Oh. Well.
Really appreciate the “(for Windows)” remark. I need to use that more often. *heh*