Windows 7 beta and I.

[Apex]

First and foremost, some of you already know that I am infact, a macfag. Just because I swear by macs, doesn't mean that I am not open to trying new things. (Or else I wouldn't have tried mac to begin with, duh.) Upon hearing of Windows 7 being released as a beta, it gained my interest almost immediately. "Why not?" I'd been dual booting XP and OSX on my Macbook up till this point, XP is great, but I like to try something new from time to time. So I took advantage of my laptops fantastic specs, my dorms retardedly fast internet and downloaded the install disc, and burnt it all within an hour. Partitioned away my nasty windows XP partition after getting a few files off it, and set the newly partition designated to Windows 7 to 55GB (The recommendations claimed 50 was needed in general.) ready to install.

The Installation process was much faster for Windows 7 than it was for Windows XP on THE SAME LAPTOP. Installed in about 10 minutes actually. After putting in all the required information and appropriate beta key, it started up.

*NOTE*: To gain all the features of the Macbook, you usually have to install the drives off the Leopard disc onto the windows part, however, I did not bring my Leopard disc back with me when I moved here, so I have to go scrounge the internet for some.

I was greeted with something that looked a lot like Vista, only a little more clean. Nothing besides the Trash and "send feedback" were on my desktop, which was refreshing, becasue I hate the bloatware that is usually crammed on Windows startup disks. (This is a beta from M$ though, I didn't expect them to be trying to sell anything to me like HP does.) The speed is magnificent on my laptop, and runs without any sort of lag on ANYTHING. Not sure if they cleaned up some of the gunk that caused Vista to slow down, or if it's just my laptop shinning true.

I am running the 64bit Beta of Windows 7.

The display looks good, I like the Aero theme, all the icons look great, and unlike when installing XP, I was given the choice of 1280x800 without the need of a driver. That being said, things do appear a tad-bit blurry, maybe fixing my drivers will help that a little though. Something I THOUGHT Vista had was a built in spell checker in the opperating system for every application, but to my dismay, not even Internet Explorer has one, meaning my grammar and spelling might be a tad bit off posting this. Also, the mouse is a little twitchy for my taste, but hey, drivers should be able to fix that.

I'm not going to give a rating or anything, but so far, it seems pretty well put together, and the things that are different are the things supposedly bitched about most by Vista users. I recommend this to anyone darring enough to try installing a new OS (I've seen those things get ugly.)  it's like Vista, only a little more clean. Step in the right direction so-far Windows, but if I notice any "Borrowed" concepts for OSX, I wont be very impressed.

I'll post more as I discover more.

[Drace]

I hate Vista and I'm not looking forward to anything beyond that. XP is the best they brought.

[Apex]

You never know till you try, which I am.

[fruckert]

Vista kinda grew on me
Although I'd rather take XP

[Archem]

I have a friend who continues to swear by Windows 2000. We don't see eye-to-eye.

As for the comment about "borrowed" concepts, how is using a good idea ever bad? and I wouldn't say that Macs haven't ever "borrowed" a few things. In fact, I wouldn't say that anything successful hasn't "borrowed". High horses are for giants. You are a damn triangle.

[fruckert]

"Borrowing" concepts is a compliment
Unless it's outright stealing
Like Microsoft Avatars

Those suck

[Apex]

I said borrow not to undermine things, if I wanted to be offensive and possessive I would have said stolen.

Really, the task bar is about the only key difference so far. As far as themes go, I'm not seeing any innate ability to change global appearance, as a matter of fact, it is EXACTLY like Vista as far as themes go. I was really hoping for something like UXtheme built in...

I chose the 64x version of the system due to my computer being able to handle it easily, but despite the requirements being higher for this system, there has been no show of slow down. Especially after installing the appropriate drivers. (Compliment of Apple.) It did however, install the drivers at a very slow rate, and questioned every individual driver I wanted to install with the usual Vista security bull-****. (I turned it off after I realized it was slowing things down, and got annoyed.) Boot up time is almost as fast as OSX, but the OSX has a lot larger of a partition, so that may factor into, and the only processes running on start up so far are the default ones and my Boot camp utility.

[fruckert]

There are other themes available
They're just, as far as I know, a pain in the *** to install

[Apex]

Google hasn't revealed any within the first couple of pages.

[fruckert]

Really?
This was on the first result

[Apex]

That's kind of odd, I could have sworn I WASN'T USING VISTA. Welcome to the thread.

Looks similar in appearance, but the layout and scheme is quite different.

[fruckert]

Oh
*faceslaps self*

Umm...
Oops

Now I feel like a noob again
Ah nostalgia

[Drace]

Apex, you sound like an asshole. Bad boy. BAD BOY! *smack*

Anyhoe, why I don't want anything beyond Vista is because Windows XP is good enough for me. It's clear, it's useful and it isn't made to look like people will go "oh whosss so pwetty, youse are, yourse are my pwecsiousss". I don't like how Vista works. Like with Windows Media Player, I'm still using an older version because it works better in my opinion.

Quality > Pwessiouss.

[Apex]

Don't get me wrong, I love XP, I installed it on here the night I get the laptop; however, I try to cover up the fact that I have the attention span of a toddler when it comes to computers. Besides, when I heard of Windows 7 it struck curiosity's violent sounding wind chimes, I had to see what was up. I guess I had to see if OSX was threatened in any way. You know my answer there. Also, I have Windows on here to run RPGmaker from time to time, that's about it. It's the only thing I can't run on OSX at this point.