Windows 7 "desktop"
WOW. Ive recently been trying out Windows 7 on a few computers. A virtual machine on my MacBook, and 1.6 P4 that had horrible graphics (800×600) and finally a laptop that I have managed to unearth. This baby is a Presario 2500 Series, with a 2.4GHz P4 and 768MB of RAM. It only has a 14.1″ screen at 1024×768, and what once was a decent JBL sound system.
7 Installed smoothly- too smoothly for a typical Microsoft product, which leads me to believe that it was stolen from aliens.
Connecting to my wireless network was simpler than vista. Simpler than XP even. So smooth to perform the connection, and the menus are not convoluted. When you click the wireless icon in the task bar, a 100% opaque menu pops up, protruding from the task bar, with all the listed networks. Simply highlight one and click connect. That is it. Shocking, I know. Once Google Chrome was installed, web browsing is very smooth as well.
However this was after all of the driver issues. Once the common “driver woes” were surpassed, everything went smoothly, but prior to that, it was hell. I had to boot into a Windows XP install just so I could download the driver for my N wireless card. Once that was done, I rebooted into 7 and installed, then tried every driver available for sound, Ethernet, integrated G WiFi, graphics ETC until i finally had a semi-working combination. By semi-working, I mean that the sound stutters, but is recognized, the display shows at 1024×768, the N and G WiFi works, the Ethernet works, the scroller on the mouse works, the floppy drive works, and power management works (but it is not a very good manager). I have yet to test the sound input and the USB ports.
The only device that goes unrecognized is the modem, which I would actually use at our summer home where broadband is not available.
However, I assume that I have spoken too soon, because I also have left untested the parallel and VGA ports, not to mention the IEEE1394 “FireWire (TM)” .
The sound issue sucks a very lot, but the aesthetics make up for it. When I first tested it on my MacBook, my testing was inconclusive and biased because 1) I was using a Mac and 2) It was in a virtual machine and 3) there was no internet connection.
In the next few days/weeks/months/when i’m sugar high enough to, I will try to use 7 for all the things that I use my MacBook for. That means making the rounds on the blogs, writing on my own blog, and enduring the horribly tactile keyboard that gives my hands cramps.
windows will never be too good to be true…. wen obviously macs are better?