[Mika]

Got a new computer at work yesterday, and my first taste of new Microsoft operating system since XP and harnessing the processing power of an octacore.

The following expresses my feelings quite accurately: 

 

 





Despite the improvements in the OS itself, it is all lost with the new GUI. I can't find the simplest thing in the mess. Luckily, some people have provided the Classic Shell, and potentially prevented me from rolling it back to Windows XP 32bit (thank god for user support, I don't need to do that myself!) and losing almost half of the installed RAM. Luckily, there doesn't seem to be major differences with multiprocessor support so the only advantage of 7 is more RAM, which I can grudgingly forego.

For those interested, the Classic menu can be found at: http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

I wish they had provided the menu also in 95/98 style, I find it cleanest with minimum amount of clutter. Oh well, I can use the XP Classic, but find the extra colors distracting.
Curiously, I never heard in any reviews that the old start menu has been radically overhauled.

At one point I couldn't even find a program that I minimized. Thought never occured I should look at the bottom right corner to find that ~ 16x16 pixel image of the program. And the task bar, oh the task bar. It just HAD to be changed yes no? And I don't understand why. New one doesn't offer any benefits for me, the first things I did in XP was removing any and all quick launch icons to start with and use larger desktop icons instead.

Some old engineering wisdom:
- When something isn't broken, don't try to fix it. I never had any problems with start menu to begin with.
- Keep It Simple, Stupid. This principle should apparently be emphasized more in computer sciences.

I'll be posting more impressions as I go. Be advised that this may end in sorrow and re-installing the XP nevertheless (and thus my sorrow is transferred to user support, rightfully there where it belongs).

[The E]

Actually the new Taskbar is much, much simpler than the XP one 

[Ghostavo]

I actually found the new interface to be more intuitive.

Curiously, I never heard in any reviews that the old start menu has been radically overhauled.

Not to sound aggressive or anything, but have actually read any reviews? The new taskbar is probably the most talked about thing in Windows 7.

[IceFire]

Not to disapparage you Mika but I find the new Windows 7 taskbar to be infinitely more usable and I am becoming more and more frustrated with the Vista and XP machines at work.  I MUCH prefer the Windows 7 interface and it took all of 10 minutes to completely master.  The jump lists, simplified start menu, integrated search, and taskbar changes are superior from many usability and UI design standpoints (in my opinion anyways) as well.

I can sense your frustration but I wonder if you just wanted exactly the same thing as before or were willing to try something new.  I do a lot of user training and I find many people to be closed off to a new way of doing something purely because it isn't exactly like it was before.  Like the innumerable secretaries that prefer old office over Office 2007 only because it doesn't look identical to what they have used for years and not if one is more efficient.  Just because something always was one way doesn't mean it is a good idea to continue doing exactly the same thing

I'm not trying to egg you on... I'm quite legitimately interested in what the actual problems were for you. You started... but I had trouble following.

[Thaeris]

So it still eats up about half you RAM then, eh? I was hoping 7 would have stepped away from the ludicrous overly-system intensive crap and left your machine with most of its processing power at-the-ready. Proof that my sig is not inaccurate...

[ssmit132]

I think what Mika meant was that he would have lost half of his RAM if he had gone back to XP, not that 7 used up half of his RAM.

[Bob-san]

So it still eats up about half you RAM then, eh? I was hoping 7 would have stepped away from the ludicrous overly-system intensive crap and left your machine with most of its processing power at-the-ready. Proof that my sig is not inaccurate...

No it hasn't and the last benchmarks I saw placed it  behind Windows Vista and Windows XP in most categories (though it did occasionally win a speed war). If youre running 64-bit (the only version anyone should run of NT6) you should be fine. I'm actually running Win 7 Pro 64 on my desktop, with a 4GHz Wolfdale and 6GB DDR2 800.

[CP5670]

From what I've read about the new taskbar, I will probably revert it to the old style. I like some things such as the ability to rearrange the items in it, but I believe it lumps programs under one button, which means it would take two clicks (or a click and a mouseover) to switch between programs instead of just one.

I wish they had provided the menu also in 95/98 style, I find it cleanest with minimum amount of clutter.

You can apparently do this with some tweaking. I rarely use the start menu anyway (or the desktop for that matter), so I might not bother.

I do a lot of user training and I find many people to be closed off to a new way of doing something purely because it isn't exactly like it was before.  Like the innumerable secretaries that prefer old office over Office 2007 only because it doesn't look identical to what they have used for years and not if one is more efficient.  Just because something always was one way doesn't mean it is a good idea to continue doing exactly the same thing

I can see where they are coming from. Why spend time learning a new UI when the existing one works fine and you're used to it? You could spend that time actually doing something fun or productive.

[Bob-san]

Jump into it. I found NT6's GUI a lot better than XP's. By leagues, in fact. If you can't find something, start typing and you'll likely find it. Control panel's basically useless now, though.

[Bobboau]

From what I've read about the new taskbar, I will probably revert it to the old style. I like some things such as the ability to rearrange the items in it, but I believe it lumps programs under one button, which means it would take two clicks (or a click and a mouseover) to switch between programs instead of just one.

that's the default but you can change it.

[pecenipicek]

From what I've read about the new taskbar, I will probably revert it to the old style. I like some things such as the ability to rearrange the items in it, but I believe it lumps programs under one button, which means it would take two clicks (or a click and a mouseover) to switch between programs instead of just one.

that's the default but you can change it.

do explain, please?


i used 7 x64 for about a month or so, and the taskbar was really going on my nerves.

also, driver problems, to boot, my machine needed on average at least two reboots until it booted into something useable, and random lockups during working with it (might be related to a creative labs audigy2 soundcard which was crap by any measure, the card got punted out, but that didnt stop 7 from crashing constantly.)


i also have a big beef with the control panel. mostly due to the way the icons are listed, if it wasnt green text, i find it'd be much more useable to me.

[Grizzly]

Seek and thou shall find. I didn't need to install Classic Gui to get most of the Classic Gui... You can switch on in Windows itself.

Oh, and the 'new' start menu? It has been there since XP... You just can't revert to the old one anymore, but I like the new one better anyway.

I like the fact that I don't need to worry about my video drivers anymore, and I like some of the features that apperently where in Vista (Readyboost, wallpaper rotation)... In other words, I like the new OS. 

also, driver problems, to boot, my machine needed on average at least two reboots until it booted into something useable, and random lockups during working with it (might be related to a creative labs audigy2 soundcard which was crap by any measure, the card got punted out, but that didnt stop 7 from crashing constantly.)

You sure it's related to drivers? Windows 7 had all those public and free Beta, RC, and RTM releases up front to make sure that all the drivers worked in the first place.

[Bob-san]

i used 7 x64 for about a month or so, and the taskbar was really going on my nerves.

The only part of the taskbar that gets on my nerves is how you right-click and get a (relatively) long transition and a window with a useless frame! Other than that I mostly like the new dock and taskbar.

[pecenipicek]

Seek and thou shall find. I didn't need to install Classic Gui to get most of the Classic Gui... You can switch on in Windows itself.

Oh, and the 'new' start menu? It has been there since XP... You just can't revert to the old one anymore, but I like the new one better anyway.

I like the fact that I don't need to worry about my video drivers anymore, and I like some of the features that apperently where in Vista (Readyboost, wallpaper rotation)... In other words, I like the new OS. 

also, driver problems, to boot, my machine needed on average at least two reboots until it booted into something useable, and random lockups during working with it (might be related to a creative labs audigy2 soundcard which was crap by any measure, the card got punted out, but that didnt stop 7 from crashing constantly.)

You sure it's related to drivers? Windows 7 had all those public and free Beta, RC, and RTM releases up front to make sure that all the drivers worked in the first place.

yes, creatives x64 drivers sucked donkey balls. i'll wait for the sp1 to stabilise a bit and then switch to 7

[Kosh]

Windows 7 is still a system hog and is loaded with DRM. I'll pass.

[Herra Tohtori]

The non-classic start menu is inferior to the classic one simply because you can't do this with it (or at least I haven't found a way to do it yet):



The main disadvantage in the new start menu is that it hides all programs into a scrollable list instead of expanding the size of that list to fit the amoung of programs installed. Me no likey. I prefer seeing the whole list at once. A definite bonus, though, is the ability to just type program name and it'll either run it or at least find it for you, but on the other hand I have it done on XP via PATH environmental variable, which means I can basically start my most common programs via either the Run dialogue or command line if I so desire.

[Kosh]

The main disadvantage in the new start menu is that it hides all programs into a scrollable list instead of expanding the size of that list to fit the amoung of programs installed. Me no likey. I prefer seeing the whole list at once.

This kind of feature really annoys me because it really is treating the user like a complete idiot. If I felt I have too many programs in my start menu, the simple solution is a special manuever I call "right click, delete" to get rid of the ones I don't want. 


EDIT: It's also times like this that makes me yearn for the days when your start interface was just a black screen with white text that read "c:\>" with a blinking cursor next to it, back then people had to actually "learn".

[Mika]

Yes, I meant that XP is limited to 3 Gb, while Windows 7 can go beyond.

I did read that the taskbar was overhauled. I never read that the classic start bar would have been completely annihilated. I expected it to be down there somewhere, as a selectable option. I really don't get what was the problem with the taskbar and why it was overhauled, I never had more than 5 open applications and it was easy to navigate with it already. At home or work. Now I need to decipher to which program the icon belongs; how does that really make things easier?

What it comes to start menu, I find it almost unusable. Since the advent of GUIs I haven't needed to "search" for anything. I know already where it is. So the additional search function actually makes things worse for me. The bad thing for me at the new start menu is the damn scroll bar and that it doesn't show the whole program listing at the time. And that stuff keeps repositioning itself, while the old one was static, i.e. I knew where to find something unless I did something. The Windows 7 Start Menu Classic theme is not at all the same as the good old 95/98 start menu.

Also, if you try the scroll bar and miniature program listing with a computer intended for CAD/Optics applications and you'll find that you most likely need a magnification glass to see the program names! If I use a design program for several weeks (night and day, night times automatized), I'm pretty sure I can bare the extra second GUI needs to open the extra folder view, if it takes at all. After all, I only need to keep it in alphabetical order to quickly find the uncommon program I need. Common programs and documents that I frequently need have already been quicklinked on the desktop.

Regarding the decision of taking Windows 7, I only needed it to see the extra RAM I got, and the new security architecture to keep the computer safe and user support happy. The bottom line is, I didn't need anything else than XP 64bit, but with support and security available to keep that new hardware working. I didn't get what I wanted.

My colleague has been using Office 2007 for a year now. He can't still do the simplest thing with it and now I'm supposed to learn it. Fat chance, here comes Office 2003 (or Open Office) and Microsoft progress be damned. Don't get me started with "you don't accept the change". I absolutely don't want it to change. I already can use the XP UI quickly enough. And since I work in the research world, I need to learn new things constantly and continuously, related to Physics, Optics, Electronics and Mechanics. Operating systems, however, is not one of them and I really shouldn't be bothered with them. Operating system is supposed to make my work easier, and it got already pretty easy. So don't mess with my daily work by changing the GUI.

I'm on the same lines with Herra and Kosh with the typing the program name on the GUI and let computer search for it. I, for starters, have never needed this utility after I got a computer with a graphical user interface. To back Herra, I used the same trick in DOS times, setting a path variable to include the commonly used program directories. Or more recently putting some macros behind the right click, one of the most frequent being BMP to PNG conversion. It is quite nice to do it with a mouse click, rather than writing stuff to console.

Install several programs whose name starts with, for example, such uncommon combination of letters as "WIN" and see how easy it is to select the right one. Remember, it was supposed to do stuff quicker and easier right? Also, anyone wanna bet that command line switches are going to be used a lot more often visibly now that command line is supported in GUI? That would mean saying hello to typos and lacking documentation, I also sincerely people would be interested in hexadesimals. On the other hand, it could feel retro, like going back to home as in good old C:\> times.

I think if I'm gonna have to do some relearning, might as well then learn completely new computer architecture. The next computer at home is going to be a Mac. Most of the scientific figures seem to use it already, and maybe there is some wisdom behind it. I don't intend to learn operating systems at work (this costs several hundreds of euros per working DAY), I reserve that stuff for home, if I do it at all. Microsoft seems to have yet again ignored the people who do scientific or engineering work with their newest operating system.

I probably should tone down the harshest criticism, but cannot be bothered at this time of day. I need to catch a flight anyways in about six hours and need to sleep. If somebody got offended, I didn't mean that. I'm simply annoyed to the extreme by this new operating system.

[IceFire]

Oh I hope nobody was offended by comments about an OS Mika

I did study GUI design in a course and so I REALLY like to talk about it. Often harder to do it in words than to sit next to someone and show it off or do a presentation.  I often find it frustrating to see really nice changes to a GUI and see it rejected out of hand (in my opinion)... I think that MS has finally hired some folks who do professional GUI work and that the payoffs are a much better system than before. The old system is entrenched but the old system also frustrated the hell out of me so many times...

One thing I think most people can agree with on is that if it isn't a big deal to provide a "classic" mode then why not keep it in there.  XP had Win 98 classic start menu and so maybe 7 could have an XP classic start menu but I know I'd never use it.  Instead of using the All Programs menu for accessing applications I pin them to my taskbar.  It does take a workflow change but instead of click, click, scan for item and click.... I have one click.

I am pretty surprised that a co-worker of yours can't handle the switch to Office 2007.  It did take me a week... maybe that would be a week in lost productivity to some but the time I've saved in the intervening time and the reduced frustration of looking through countless layers (sometimes) of drop down menus is huge.  I've been using that system since I was 5 years old so it's not like I'm not new to it... but the grouping of like related items into tabs and then making those materials available from there with a single click is more efficient.  In the next office I hope they integrate search for tools there... so if you can't find print you type it in and all printing functions become part of a search tab. That'd be great too.

I get wanting to stick with the classic way of doing things but I honestly think that a little workflow change and a bit of time spent means a much more efficient virtual workspace.  I for one do not want to go backwards to Office 2003 or Windows XP... I really don't.

EDIT: One final thing about Office 2007... there is a addon from either MS or someone else that adds a tab along the top that has all of the tools grouped in drop down menus like the old office.  So you can make use of the newer technologies and increased limits of 2007 without using the UI... if that helps...

[CP5670]

I'm not that reliant on the Windows interface in the first place, so I don't expect to change any habits when moving to Windows 7 (which I only want for the 64-bit support). I have used third party programs in place of many parts of the OS interface since the Windows 95 days. The one exception to that is the taskbar, apart from standard menus, buttons, etc. within programs.

The only part of the taskbar that gets on my nerves is how you right-click and get a (relatively) long transition and a window with a useless frame! Other than that I mostly like the new dock and taskbar.

Any kinds of transitions, fades and other interface animations are the first things I would disable. They make computers feel incredibly slow and unresponsive.

What it comes to start menu, I find it almost unusable. Since the advent of GUIs I haven't needed to "search" for anything. I know already where it is. So the additional search function actually makes things worse for me.

I have also wondered why people make a big deal of the various search features of Vista and 7. Do people really search that often? I do it maybe once a year.