Windows 7: Yay or Nay?

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A lot of people have been asking me about Windows 7 lately. Is it better than Vista? Is it worth upgrading? Will it make me want to punch my computer in the motherboard?

As of now, I’ve installed W7 on 2 desktops and 3 laptops, all of which were previously running Windows Vista. The verdict? So far, so good. The only machine that is having noticeable hiccups is my wife’s 1.5-year-old Toshiba Satellite, and that can almost certainly be attributed to sub-par graphics drivers. (We’re trying out different drivers to see if they can sidestep the problem; I’ll update you guys later when there’s more to report on the matter.) The desktops and the other laptops, however, are doing better than they were running Vista. They boot faster, programs load quicker, and they seem to be generally more stable than they were prior to loading W7.

What about other programs, like Office? Or Adobe? Or Symantec? How do they run on 7, John?

I’m glad you asked! Each of those aforementioned machines has been loaded up with MS Office 2007 and Adobe Creative Suites 3 or 4. (Oh, and I installed Unreal Tournament 3 on the wife’s desktop, too, which runs on Unreal Engine 3. Hefty stuff.) All of those programs are running in top form on the new OS (that means “operating system,”), so you’re covered there.

As mentioned in a previous post, I tend to lean toward the freebie antivirus programs, and that has not changed. While I cannot tell you how Norton runs on Microsoft’s new OS, I can attest to the performance of one of the free programs. AVG’s free antivirus program was the only one with a Windows 7 version available for download at the time of this writing, and it’s defending my PCs like a champ. Plus, it’s free, and if you’re going to drop money on Windows 7, you’ll need to make up the cost somewhere.

John, what about networking? If this new OS doesn’t network well, I can’t switch over.

Some of you may remember that Vista just did not play well with XP when it first came out, and it made life at the office (and at home) miserable. Small office networking, surprisingly, has yet to be an issue with the new software. Just this past weekend, I set up a Windows 7 laptop as a print server and the XP and Vista machines had no problems connecting to the network. +1 to Microsoft.

If you have to purchase it, Windows 7 is totally worth the money. If you can get it free through your employer, even better. The only advice I can offer, here, is DO. NOT. UPGRADE.

You’re probably confused by that last statement. Let me explain.

When folks ask me if it’s worth it to upgrade their system, they really don’t know what they are asking. Is it worth it to change over to the newer program? Definitely. Is it worth it to upgrade? Absolutely NOT. To upgrade to a new system, in IT speak, means to install the new software on top of the old software. This is where Windows 7 has problems. Remember I said my wife’s Toshiba notebook was having issues after installing W7? Some of that can be blamed on the drivers, but more of it is due to my performing an *upgrade* rather than a *clean install.*

To perform a clean install, you have to first back up all your data to an external drive (you HAVE been backing up your files regularly, right?), then wipe the hard drive and install the new operating system from scratch. If you upgrade instead, you’ll lose a lot of performance enhancements you’ve implemented and any existing problems you have on your machine will carry over to W7. I found all this out the hard way while fighting with that damned Toshiba. This is not to say that the upgrade was unsuccessful; it was still way faster than Vista. It just wasn’t as fast as it should have been. Once I figured all that out, wiped the hard drive and reinstalled everything? It is MUCH faster than it ever was before, and my (wonderful) other half is no longer threatening to knee me in the. . .motherboard for ruining her machine before a major project was due.

Bottom line? Go ahead and get Windows 7. Don’t wait for Service Pack 1. Just get rid of Vista (if you can), and don’t look back.

**As an aside, I also installed it on 5-year-old ThinkPad T-42, and, much to my surprise, it worked! Rather well, too. Who would have thunk it. . .I’m happy with a Microsoft product straight out of the box. ;)

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